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NTI.com domain name saved in UDRP

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Company tried to upgrade from .dk to .com.

Domain name attorney John Berryhill has successfully defended domain investor Sahar Sarid’s domain name NTI.com in a UDRP.

The complaint was brought by NTI Cad Center A/S, which uses the Danish country code domain name NTI.dk.

A three-member Czech Arbitration Court panel found that the complainant’s NTI did not have substantial notoriety and that there are lots of companies that use the initials NTI. It also noted there was no evidence that Sarid’s company (Ashanti) had the complainant in mind when it registered the domain name.

Ashanti asked for a finding of reverse domain name hijacking, but the panel said it saw no evidence of harassment or an attempt to mislead the panel.

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Make sure your contact info is updated when you sell a domain

by — Policy & Law 6 Comments

If you don’t, you could be on the receiving end of a UDRP.

Mike Mann just lost a UDRP. That’s what the record will show, anyway.

But he actually sold the domain in the UDRP, WashingtonJournal.com, for $75,000 earlier this year. The new owner didn’t update the Whois record. C-SPAN filed a complaint against the domain name. The new owner told the National Arbitration Forum that he was the correct owner of the domain, but the Forum decision also lists Mann.

The decision states that “when using GoDaddy’s account change process (discussed above), Mann could have chosen to have his contact information changed during the transfer to Rivero”.

I’m not sure if the panel came up with this on its own, but it doesn’t apply to this particular case. Mann transferred the domain from Enom to GoDaddy as part of the apparent sale. Only internal transfers at GoDaddy include this option.

Also, it appears the buyer added GoDaddy’s Whois proxy service after buying the domain, so Mann probably didn’t know the information wasn’t updated.

But the panel’s mention of GoDaddy’s transfer option is also a good reminder. If you have a domain at GoDaddy and sell it, be sure to check the box that says you want the Whois record to be updated to reflect the new owner.

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Lack of disclosure leads to Reverse Domain Name Hijacking finding

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Mexican resort operator failed to disclose business relationship with domain owner.

Trouble in Paradise.

The operators of two Mexican resorts–Golden Parnassus Paradise of the Gods and Great Parnassus Paradise of the Gods–have been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH) in a recent cybersquatting complaint.

The resorts filed UDRPs against the domains GoldenParnassusCancun.com and GreatParnassusCancun.com. The domains are owned by a company in Florida that wholesales vacation packages to travel agencies.

The UDRP filings missed several critical details and failed to disclose a 10+ year relationship between the complainants and the domain owner. It turns out that the Florida company has a long-running business deal to wholesale vacation packages to the resorts. It has even received the resort owner’s approval for changes to websites on the domains at issue.

Although the domain owner didn’t ask for a finding of RDNH, the panel considered it anyway and determined that the filing was made in bad faith:

After reviewing all the evidence, the Panel has come to the conclusion that the Complainant has failed to disclose a number of material facts, including the existence of the long standing business relationship between the parties and the specific facts recited in this decision at paragraph 6.B, which were critical to the Panel’s finding that Respondent holds legitimate rights and interests in the disputed domain names, and which were obviously known to the Complainants before they began these proceedings. In these circumstances, the filing of the Complaint represents an abuse of process which the Panel finds entirely unacceptable. Accordingly, the Panel finds that the Complainants have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking.

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Foster agency files UDRP against domain “held for ransom”

by — Expired Domains 8 Comments

Agency decided to file cybersquatting complaint rather than pay £9,000.

Earlier this month I wrote about a UK foster agency that forgot to renew its domain name and then complained that it was being “held for ransom” by someone who registered it upon expiration.

The person who bought LittleAcornsFostering.com allegedly asked the foster agency for £9,000 if it wanted to buy the domain from him.

That’s a pretty hefty price for this domain name, so the foster agency decided to take another approach that could result in the domain owner getting nothing. It filed a UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization.

Companies that have let domain names lapse have won UDRPs in the past, and I’d guess this case is in the foster agency’s hands to lose.

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Company files UDRP against a relative, but it’s RDNH

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

What’s Italian for domain hijacking?

Colussi S.p.A. of Milan, Italy has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH) over the domain name Colussi.com.

The domain name is owned by Andrea Colussi, a cousin of the current Chairman and a shareholder of Colussi S.p.A., and nephew of Angelo Colussi, the founder of Colussi S.p.A.

This was a dead-on-arrival case. How could you show that someone whose last name is Colussi doesn’t have a legitimate interest in the domain name Colussi.com?

The complaint suggests that Andrea Colussi should have transferred rights in the Colussi name along with a business sale that took place in 1999. The World Intellectual Property Organization panelist reviewed the documentation around that agreement but probably didn’t need to. It seems to be outside the scope of a UDRP.

The panelist listed five reasons for finding RDNH. The first one was reason enough:

…the Complainant was clearly aware of the Respondent’s identity and of his family name, Colussi, which is identical to the disputed domain name, and thus the Complainant had a clear knowledge of the Respondent’s rights and legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.

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