Sprite.me and Firefox.me go back to their rightful owners.

When .me launched to the general public last year, it was clear that a lot of people hadn’t heard of cybersquatting. Domain names like Porsche.me, Toyota.me, and Firefox.me were snapped up (and not my their familiar namesakes). Many of these domains were picked up at auction for a substantial amount of money.

Why did .me attract so many deep pocketed cybersquatters? I can only surmise that .me attracted a lot of people that didn’t know much about domain investing. They viewed .me as another internet goldrush, and thought the quickest way to riches was buying trademark domain names.

The owner of both Porsche.me and Toyota.me learned a lesson when he lost the domain name Porsche.me at arbitration in November. Could Toyota.me, and the $90,000 he spent on it, be next?

Brand holders continue to file UDRP complaints for popular trademarks in the .me country code. Mozilla won a case for Firefox.me and Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) picked up Sprite.me. The registrant of both of these domain names was an outfit called Metro Media in Beverly Hills. When Mozilla Foundation contacted Metro Media about Firefox.me, Metro Media responded with an asking price of $10,000. As soon as Mozilla filed a UDRP with World Intellectual Property Association, Metro Media offered to transfer the domain at no cost. It also offered to transfer Sprite.me at no cost. That Metro Media tried to squeeze the non-profit Mozilla Foundation for $10,000 suggests that it was unfamiliar with cybersquatting laws and UDRP.

There are a few other .me domain names currently at arbitration, including Overstock.me. Guess who owns this domain? Yep, Metro Media.

But other registrants have also lost .me domain names, including danone.me, exxonmobil.me, and creditmutuel.me.

To be sure, not all arbitration cases are legitimate. Just see Ping.me.

The one big winner is the .me registry and its partners, such as GoDaddy. They get to keep the auction riches even when the domain is later lost at arbitration.

Man who shelled out big bucks in .me auction kicking himself now.

Pity poor Georg Kohler of Brazil.

In August I wrote about how he snapped up car company names in the .me launch auctions. He even paid $90,025 for Toyota.me. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the memo from ten years ago about the dangers of owning trademarked domain names.

In a recent World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) decision, he lost Porsche.me to the car company. Could his $90,000 investment in Toyota.me be too far behind?

On both Porsche.me and Toyota.me, Kohler has landing pages that say the domain will be used for cars but in a non-commercial manner:

Welcome to our future non comercial [sic] Porsche Fan Club Site…Disclaimer: www.porsche.me is not owned by, sponsored by, authorized by, sanctioned by Porsche AG

The panel must not have bought it, or decided it didn’t care that it was non-commercial. Unfortunately WIPO hasn’t posted the decision online yet so we can’t read its rational. [update: the decision is now posted. The panel found that a) the fact that the domain is just the trademark – not trademarkfans.me or something like that – creates instant confusion and b) he offered to sell the domain to Porsche upon receiving a cease and desist letter.]

Kohler isn’t the only one to lose his .me domain names.

ExxonMobil recently picked up ExxonMobil.me from a Tampa, Florida man. Confederation Nationale du Credit Mutuel picked up CreditMutuel.me. It won’t be long before other trademarks get picked up in arbitration.