Salesforce.com awarded hyphenated version of popular AppExchange.com web site.
A service that helps app creators submit their wares to the Windows Phone marketplace must give its domain name to Salesforce.com, an arbitration panel has ruled.
Singapore based App Port LLP hosts its web site at App-Exchange.com. The problem? Salesforce.com owns the popular AppExchange.com and has international trademarks for the term “AppExchange”, including in Singapore.
While App Port argued that its services were distinguishable from what Salesforce offers on AppExchange, the panel was unpersuaded.
App Port certainly made a poor naming decision here.
That said, I disagree with one of Salesforce.com’s allegations and the panelist’s concurrence:
Finally, Complainant accuses Respondent of engaging in typosquatting when it registered the app-exchange.com domain name. Complainant argues that the only difference between Complainant’s mark and the disputed domain name is the hyphen and the gTLD. Therefore, Complainant alleges that Respondent attempted to take advantage of a common error that Internet users may make when attempting to find Complainant online.
The Panel agrees.
Adding a hyphen to a domain is a typo? I disagree. How often do people accidentally hit the hyphen key when typing a domain name? Yes, the hyphen is next to “p”, but this is still far-fetched.
Now, I believe that some people looking for AppExchange.com insert a hyphen, but not as a typo. It’s because they think that’s the actual site’s domain name.
John says
Why people waste their time with hyphenated names is beyond me. Especially, doing after the non-hyphenated (normal ones) are taken.
They should have never been allowed to be created as domain name options.
In this case, was the hyphenated taken after the regular version?
Good piece.
Ryan says
So what happens when the slew of new tld extenstions are created, lawyers going to clean up…
Luke D says
A typo is not just a slip of the fingers but also a misspelling of the name, so it’s a reasonable argument, if not literal, that some may believe the domain is in fact spelled with a hyphen.
Personally when I register names, I get both because the hyphenated version looks better in print and the non-hyphenated (nonhyphenated?) is easier to say out loud.
DotCom says
I like how, “App Exchange” put together can be trademarked.
That is great, and apps being “exchanged” could not possibly be a generic thing to occur when one thinks about software applications in an open marketplace.
Another day, another bullshit domain decision.
Louise says
@ John, Consider that Shower-Curtains.com is page 1 of Google for search of “shower curtains,” and that it does good business with its page 1 listing. That is why people register hyphen domains.
That said, Google said it would be delisting hyphen domains with more than one hyphen that are junky sites.
John says
I’ve actually lost sales to hyphenated domains for the mentality of Google thinks the hyphen is a space as well as having another company grab the hyphen on one of my previous start ups from years ago. I just think that they should have never been invented and allowed unless a term actually has a hyphen.
Personally, I think they are garbage from a branding or conversational (go to my site abcxyz.com vs a-b-c-x-y-z.com) similar to all these garbage extensions being pushed out into the marketplace. End users & general public don’t like them and they cause confusion.
Adam says
Stupid decision since they weren’t trading on the brand/trademark. Andrew I think you should start putting the panelists names in your articles.
Dave Zan says
From the decision:
Dave Zan says
Ooops, didn’t mean to quote from “Maybe they didn’t…” part.
Anthony says
To put simply, the Singapore company should have researched the name they were intending to use before registering it. If it is important enough, you’d do some diligence before going ahead with the domain reg. This doesn’t mean I agree with the decision completely though. I still think a lot of big companies are trying to strong-arm individual domain name investors. Most won’t have the resources to fight the big boys.