Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News & Website Stuff

Domain Name Industry News and Website Stuff

Featured Domains

Lawsuit filed to recover EQN.com domain name

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Domain was stolen in 2016, according to lawsuit.

A California company has filed a lawsuit (pdf) to recover the domain name EQN.com, which it says was stolen from its Enom account.

Blackshore Properties, Inc. of San Marino, California acquired EQN.com in a NameJet auction in 2011 for $4,950.

According to DomainTools historical Whois records, the domain name was transferred to a Chinese registrant at domain registrar 22.cn between May 5, 2016 and September 23, 2016. The lawsuit alleges that this transfer was theft.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia where .com registry Verisign is located. Assuming no one shows up to defend the in rem lawsuit, the just will likely enter an order of default judgment and order Verisign to transfer the domain name.

Share38
Tweet
Share
Email

XYZ asks court to make Verisign lawsuit documents public

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Company that runs .xyz domain wants to make documents from legal battle public.

XYZ wants to make documents from long battle with Verisign pubic.

XYZ.com, LLC, the company that operates the .xyz top level domain name, has asked a court (pdf) to let it make certain documents from a lawsuit with Verisign (NASDAQ:VRSN) public.

Verisign, the registry that operates the .com and .net top level domains, sued the .xyz operator in early 2015 alleging false advertising. Basically, Verisign said XYZ inflated its success and disparaged Verisign’s domains.

After extensive discovery, a judge tossed out Verisign’s suit on summary judgment. XYZ then asked the court to require Verisign to pay its $1.6 million legal bill, but that was put on hold as Verisign appealed the lower court’s ruling to an appeals court. Click here to continue reading…

Share467
Tweet
Share
Email

Weeds.com owner fights back, asks for damages for reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 9 Comments

Weeds.com owner asks court to penalize weed control company for reverse domain name hijacking.

Last year a regional weed control company in the United States called Weeds, Inc. filed a UDRP cybersquatting claim against Innovation HQ, Inc, the owner of Weeds.com.

Before the UDRP decision was published, Weeds, Inc. followed up by filing a federal lawsuit against Innovation HQ. Shortly thereafter, the World Intellectual Property Organization UDRP panel published its decision that Weeds, Inc. had engaged in reverse domain name hijacking by filing the UDRP.

It took a while for Weeds, Inc. to serve Innovation HQ, but now the case is moving forward. And as I predicted, this could end up being a costly case for the weed control company: Innovation HQ is fighting back.

Innovation HQ is asking the court (pdf) to grant damages for reverse domain name hijacking, plus other fees. It also alleges that Weeds, Inc. committed fraud on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to get its trademark and is asking the court to order the trademark to be canceled. All told, if the court agrees, Weeds, Inc. could be forced to pay over $100,000.

John Berryhill is representing Innovation HQ.

Share38
Tweet
Share
Email

Owner of CryptoSecurities.exchange goes after CryptoSecurities.com

by — Policy & Law 11 Comments

CryptoSecurities.com was registered in 2013 and the plaintiff’s business was just created this year.

A law firm that created a business on the domain name CryptoSecurities.exchange has filed a lawsuit (pdf) against the owner of the CryptoSecurities.com domain name.

In the suit, plaintiff Castro & Co claims to have “a federal trademark registration, no. 87756075, for the mark CRYPTOSECURITIES”. It also says “Plaintiff has engaged in extensive marketing activities in connection with its mark CRYPTOSECURITIES, and has expended significant resources to develop its goodwill in and consumer identification with the mark.”

There are a few things that might give you pause.

First, the “federal trademark registration” is an application and it was only filed on January 16, 2018. It was also filed on an intent-to-use basis.

It appears that the plaintiff has now started the business on Cryptosecurities.exchange, a domain name that was just registered on February 20 of this year.

Yet Cryptosecurities.com was registered way back in 2013. It’s been under the same Whois privacy service since at least 2014.

The cryptosecurities.exchange website even has a handy timeline explaining that the idea for the business was created on January 2, 2018:

“The Genesis of CSX. Dr. Castro texts Mo Iqbal at 11:41pm stating “You can basically create a stock exchange that’s blockchain-based.”

cryptosecurities.exchange

I’m intrigued how the plaintiffs are going to argue that the domain was registered in bad faith to target its trademark given that the domain was registered so many years before its business was created.

Share36
Tweet7
Share
Email

Another example of why your company must be the registrant of its domain names

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Airline alleges that former contractors are holding its domain names hostage.

Flair Airlines alleges that former contracts are holding its domain names hostage, forcing it to change its website address.

A small Canadian airline says that former contractors are holding its two main domain name hostage, causing the company to lose substantial sales. It’s yet another example of why a company must be the registered owner of its domain names rather than letting a third party be the registrant.

In a lawsuit (pdf) filed in Illinois yesterday, Flair Airlines Ltd claims that former customer service and website services contractors were supposed to register FlairAirlines.com and FlairAirlines.ca in the airline’s name.

When the relationship soured and was terminated, the airline found out that the domains were not in its control. The airline could not get control of the domains or make changes to them at GoDaddy because it wasn’t the official registrant.

In its suit, the airline says that it was forced to switch its domain name to FlairAir.ca. On the day of the switch the company’s sales went from $64k to $29k, it says. It had to spend money for Google Adwords to direct customers to the “correct” website.

Regardless of who is at fault for the termination of the business relationship, this is just another example of why a company must be the registrant of its domain names. It should also have the master registrar controls for the domain name.

Share453
Tweet20
Share
Email