I haven’t heard the name Backslap Domains in a while.
Greek Island Labs, a company that sells cosmetic products, has sued NamingRights.com and Backslap Domains for cybersquatting* over the domain name Adonia.com (pdf).
Greek Island Labs sells products under the Adonia name, and says it has done so since 2008.
Adonia is the name of an ancient festival, so on the face of it the domain is generic. Of course, that hasn’t stopped companies from filing cybersquatting lawsuits before.
But what caught my eye in this case is NamingRights.com and Backslap domains. I haven’t heard the name Backslap in a while, as this is/was Sahar Sarid’s domain registrar. I have actually never heard of NamingRights.com, despite it being on the web since at least 2010.
Much of the inventory on NamingRights.com appears to be connected to Sarid, as many of the domains at one point had a whois record that showed one of his companies.
The inventory on NamingRights.com is phenomenal.
None of this bodes well for Greek Island Labs. Not only may it be going up against someone who can put up a good defense, but it’s possible the domain has had the same owner since before 2008 despite multiple whois changes.
* The suit claims “This lawsuit involves violations of the Lanham Act and the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, but none of the claims are for cybersquatting.
Acro says
The terms Olympic, Olympics, Olympian, Olympia etc. are also ancient Greek and hardly ‘generic’. Many services and products use terms derived from Greek words, ancient or modern, or fully Greek. In other words, the decision cannot be based on the loose definition of “generic”. One interesting part, however, is that the ancient Greek rituals (“mysteries”) were spelled Adoneia, the “ei” being a diphthong that sounds, but it’s not written, like “i”.
Konstantinos Zournas says
Adonia may be a greek festival but it mainly is a common first female name.
It has 2 spellings: Adonia and Antonia.
Notice that Antonia.net is owned by an Antonia living in Australia.
Adonia or Antonia is the female version of the male Adonis or Antonis.
The inventory on NamingRights.com is not quite what you see on the website. Most of the listed domains are not owned by NamingRights.com and are not available.
Also adonia.com seems to belong to Ashantiplc Ltd. Not sure what is going on here.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Konstantino – Ashantiplc = Sahar. Many of the domains were at one time owned by Ashantiplc.
Andrew Allemann says
…The whois for Adonia.com was namingrights.com until the lawsuit was filed.
John Berryhill says
Beware of Greeks bearing etymologies.
Acro says
John is right, even the word “etyology” is Greek.
Frantisek Mrazek says
I like doing it greek
reallifedrama says
Ashantiplc has the domain since at least 2006, that’s two years prior to plaintiff’s use of the word.