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After losing UDRP, PureTalk sues to upgrade its domain name

by — Policy & Law 5 Comments

Company tries to get PureTalk(.)com through ACPA.

Logo for Pure Talk MVNO

Pure Talk lost a UDRP, so it filed a lawsuit to try to upgrade its domain from PureTalkUSA.com to PureTalk.com.

Pure Talk, a mobile virtual network operator, has filed a lawsuit (pdf) to try to obtain the domain name PureTalk(.)com. The company uses the domain name PureTalkUSA.com.

This is the company’s second attempt to get control of the domain without buying it. In June, the company filed a cybersquatting claim under UDRP. The panelist denied the claim because the domain was registered before Pure Talk had any trademark rights, so it couldn’t have been registered in bad faith.

Now, the company is trying its hand with an in rem lawsuit against the domain for violating the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). The lawsuit suggests that the domain was transferred to another owner after Pure Talk obtained trademark rights. That argument works in UDRP, but it can be harder under ACPA. I’m not sure why the company didn’t point out the potential ownership transfer in its UDRP.

Intriguingly, the company’s trademark for Pure Talk states a first use date of 2017. PureTalkUSA.com has been used for much longer, though.

The lawsuit also erroneously states that the registry for the domain is “VeriSign, Inc. d/b/a Public Interest Registry” and refers to Public Interest Registry as the registry a second time. Public Interest Registry is the registry for .org, not .com. Verisign is the .com registry.

But the in rem lawsuit strategy might just work. The domain owner needs to show up to defend the domain in court, or the judge might issue a default judgment.

Man drags Qatar Tourism Council to U.S. Court in domain dispute

by — Policy & Law 21 Comments

Qatar’s Tourism Council launched a fight over a domain name, and now it needs to defend itself in U.S. Court.

Picture of Doha, Qatar skyline

A man from Azerbaijan is suing the Qatar National Tourism Council—in Colorado.

Teymur Mehdiyev filed a lawsuit (pdf) in U.S. District Court, District of Colorado, after the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ordered that his domain VisitQatar.com be transferred to the tourism council.

The WIPO panel made this decision despite Mehdiyev having a registered trademark in the U.S. for “Visit Qatar”.

By filing the lawsuit, the domain name transfer will be stayed pending the outcome of the suit.

So why Colorado? When the tourism council filed the dispute, it agreed to submit to the jurisdiction where the domain name registrar is located. The domain name is registered with Name.com, a company in Denver.

Mehdiyev is asking the court to declare that his ownership of VisitQatar.com does not constitute cybersquatting. He’s also asking for a finding of reverse domain name hijacking, which comes with a penalty as high as $100,000.

Now, Qatar’s tourism council must defend itself in U.S. court or it might find itself on the wrong end of a judgment.

Facebook sues domain name registrar OnlineNic

by — Policy & Law 10 Comments

Social media company alleges that the registrar, or people using its Whois privacy service, is cybersquatting.

Image of Facebook with the words "Facebook Lawsuit" superimposed

Facebook has filed a lawsuit (pdf) against domain name registrar OnlineNic and its Whois privacy service, Domain ID Shield, along with John Doe defendants.

The social media giant alleges that the defendants are cybersquatting on Facebook’s brands, including with domain names used for nefarious purposes.

Some of the domains listed in the lawsuit are www-facebook-login(.)com, login-lnstargram(.)com and hackingfacebook(.)net.

It’s a common strategy for plaintiffs in cybersquatting disputes to name the registrar in a lawsuit to try to get them to uncover the identity of the registrant. In this case, it seems that Facebook is questioning if OnlineNic is one of the actual users of the domains.

The company says it attempted to get OnlineNic to reveal the identity of the domain owners but was unsuccessful.

Attorney David J. Steele is representing Facebook. Steele previously sued OnlineNic on behalf of Verizon and won a $33 million default judgment.

Microsoft and Yahoo have also filed trademark infringement lawsuits against OnlineNic.

Oops. If you don’t renew your domain name, this could happen

by — Policy & Law 6 Comments

A government watchdog let its domain name expire. Someone advocating for the other side registered it.

Screenshot of the website citizensforabetterkenner.com

The new message at citizensforabetterkenner.com is in stark contrast to the old one.

An advocacy group in the city of Kenner, Louisiana let its domain name expire. Now someone in opposition to the group is using the domain.

Citizens for a Better Kenner, Inc., is a non-profit watchdog of the local government. It registered the domain name CitizensforaBetterKenner.com in 2011 to promote its cause.

Then, apparently earlier this year, it let the domain name expire. Someone with a very different message registered the domain. The website now has the message:

Thank you to Mayor Zahn, the Kenner City Council, and Chief Glaser for doing an excellent job keeping our city moving in the right direction in 2019.

The overwhelming volume of Kenner residents appreciates what you do!

In a lawsuit (pdf) filed to try to recover the domain (as well as the matching .net and .org) and get damages, Citizens for a Better Kenner states that “The opinions and content as currently displayed on the website are in stark contrast to the actual opinions of the actual CFBK.”

The non-profit alleges that the new owner of the domain is cybersquatting and has “a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill created over eight (8) years by CFBK.”

The group might have trouble proving this. It does not appear that the current owner has a profit motive. It simply appears to be exercising its own free speech with the “opinions and content,” which may be a plausible defense in the case.

Granted, it may not be clear to people when they visit the website.

Lotto Sport Italia and lotto company file dueling motions for summary judgment

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Did a lotto company buy domains for its business or to cyber squat?

Picture of lottery balls in green, purple, blue and red

A battle over lotto-related domain names is about two-and-a-half years old, and it’s entering a critical period.

Lotto Sport Italia, the soccer apparel company, filed a cybersquatting dispute under UDRP against the domain names LottoStore.com and LottoWorks.com at the beginning of 2017.

The domain names were purchased by a Canadian man who runs a lotto (as in gambling) business. David Dent acquired lottostore.com in September 2016 for $4,820 and then purchased lottoworks.com in December 2016 for $6,500.

Lotto Sport won the UDRP. My take at the time was that this was an end user purchase of lotto-related domain names for a lotto business, but that Dent was not represented well in the UDRP response.

Dent sued to stop the transfer. Now, over two years later, both parties have filed motions for summary judgment in the case.

Will either party prevail in their motions? It’s difficult to say, but looking at this case from the outside, I belive my original supposition was correct: a lotto business bought domain names with the word lotto in them to operate its lotto business. It had no intention of infringing the rights of a soccer apparel company. It strains credulity to suggest otherwise.

We’ll see what the judge has to say.

The soccer company is represented by Marc Randazza. Its motion is here.

The lotto company is represented by John Berryhill and Jeffrey Johnson of Schmeiser, Olsen & Watts. Its motion is here.