Tag Archives: legal

Mon 29th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
eBay.com Is Allowing & Profiting From The Sale Of Trademark Infringing Domains - eBay.com has been active in defending its trademark filing and winning at least 3 UDRP in just the past year including on the domains: ebaycatwalk.com; ebayip.com and ebayofip.com; watch-ebay.com; While spending fees and costs to go after trademark infringing domains, its allowing domains that infringe on its own trademark to be sold on its own site. eBay.Hu.com is proudly  listed for sale right on ebay.com for the bargain “buy it now” price of $628,000. (.hu is the ccTLD for Hungary) Also for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
IRT: Classic Case Study of How Not to Sell a Plan - The ICANN IRT needs a lesson in getting buy-in. Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) was set up by trademark interests to come up with a way to protect trademark owners during the launch of new top level domain names. The process by which it was set up and operated could be a case study in how not to get buy-in for a new idea. I’ve worked with a lot of teams over the past dozen years and have had to sell ideas many times. I’ve managed groups of union workers, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
An Open Letter to Rod Beckstrom - An open letter to the new CEO of ICANN. Congratulations, Rod. You’ll be the new CEO of ICANN. You have your work cut out for you. Rightly or wrongly, ICANN is a punching bag for many grievances. As Michael Palage pointed out at the last ICANN meeting, ICANN will likely be subject to many lawsuits over the next couple years. Here are a few suggestions as you prepare to take over the reins. 1. Remember that domain owners ultimately fund your organization. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sandra Bullock Fights for Her Domain Name - Actress files claim with National Arbitration Forum to get SandraBullock.com. My neighbor* Sandra Bullock has filed for arbitration to get the domain name SandraBullock.com. The case commenced last Friday and should be decided in the next month or two. The domain name is owned by a company called Alberta Hot Rods. The domain’s nameservers point to SmartName, but the domain name doesn’t resolve so it was likely deactivated by the service. A March 2007 site ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Companies File Trademarks for New Top Level Domain Names - Filings unlikely to give a leg up in application process. Companies are filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for service marks related to new TLDs. For example, Top Level Domain Holdings, Ltd (AIM: TLDH) has filed trademarks for .movie, .kids, .books, .buy, .baby, .poker, .golf, and .casino. (Top Level Domain Holdings is an investor in new TLD consulting firm Mind + Machines and dotNYC, LLC.) Other examples include .eco, a trademark filed ... read more ...
Fri 26th June 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon.com Officially Dumps North Carolina Affiliates - Company cancels affiliate accounts due to sales tax law. Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) has officially dumped its North Caroline affiliates (aka “Associates”), as it threatened to do a couple weeks ago. North Carolina’s legislature has created a lose-lose-lose situation by preparing to pass a law requiring online companies to collect sales tax if they have affiliate marketers in the state. Since major ecommerce companies such as Amazon will drop affiliates in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Insurance Company Loses Generic Domain Name Land Grab - Combined Insurance Group Ltd loses two domain name arbitration cases. Combined Insurance Group Ltd has lost two domain name battles for seemingly generic domains, CheapAutoInsurance.com and CheapAutosInsurance.com. The company claims trademark rights to “Cheap Auto Insurance”, even though many of these trademarks and their dates of use are questionable based on evidence brought forth by the respondents. The insurance company owns the domain name Cheap-Auto-Insurance.com. ... read more ...
Thu 25th June 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Martha Stewart Chokes on EverydayFood.com - Media company loses attempt to get domain names through arbitration. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has lost a domain name dispute over the names EverydayFood.com and Everyday-Food.com. The company operates a magazine and TV show called “Everyday Food”. Martha Stewart Living didn’t just lose, it choked. A three person arbitration panel found that the company didn’t prove any of the three elements required to win at arbitration. The company claimed that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tiger Woods Can’t Sink Putt for Child’s Domain Name - Woods loses domain name arbitration case. Golfer Tiger Woods has lost an arbitration case to get the domain name that matches one of his kids’ names. The case involved Woods’ second son, Charlie Axel Woods, and the domain name CharlieAxelWoods.com. To make his case, Tiger Woods claimed the domain name was confusingly similar to his trademark for “Tiger Woods”. But the arbitrator declined to find similarity, and rightfully so. Although it’s clear that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Potential ICANN CEO Uses Bogus Whois Information - Man slated for CEO position at ICANN uses fake information for his web site’s whois record. Rumor has it Rod Beckstrom, former cybersecurity director for the US Department of Homeland Security, will be the next ICANN CEO. Before he takes over the reigns, he really needs to clean up the whois information — especially since ICANN is working to clean up whois inaccuracies. As pointed out by a commentor at TheDomains, Beckstrom’s personal web site, Beckstrom.com, ... read more ...
Tue 23rd June 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
National Arbitration Forum FAIL - Double jeopardy comes to UDRP. Last week I wrote about a WIPO domain arbitration case in which a complainant refiled a case after losing the first time. The arbitrator ruled that the complainant didn’t include any information in its refiled case that it couldn’t have discovered and filed in its original case. So he dismissed the case. But over at National Arbitration Forum double jeopardy is alive and well. On April 6, an arbitrator ruled that Traditional ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Facebook Usernames Set Dangerous Precedent - An entire industry was created out of what many claimed was a near criminal act of extortion, calling it cybersquatting, a term even Network Solutions referred to concerning individuals and companies that register domain names on speculation that someone who wasn’t savvy enough to register the character string when it was available would be interested in buying it later. Once Congress got ahold of the issue and legislated what the term means, the meaning changed. Now it’s called ... read more ...
Mon 22nd June 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MySpace Goes After Spanish Domain Name - Social networking site wants MySpace.es domain name. Social networking site MySpace has filed for arbitration to get the domain name MySpace.es. .Es is the country code domain name for Spain. The case appears to be the company’s first arbitration case of the year and was filed with World Intellectual Property Organization. This isn’t the first time MySpace has gone after a country code domain name. In a highly publicized case last year, MySpace won the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Three Letter Domain Thief Loses Another Domain Name - Site Service International loses case for AHI.com. A company going by the name “Site Service International” has lost a domain name arbitration case for AHI.com. But before you cry “reverse domain name hijacking”, there’s more to this case than meets the eye. According to the complainant AHI Invest GmbH of Vienna, Austria, the domain name was stolen from it. This isn’t the first time Site Service International has lost a case for a three letter domain ... read more ...
Fri 19th June 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz Win Domain Names - Celebrities win domain names through arbitration. As a follow up to Domain Name Wire’s earlier stories, both Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz have won their respective domain names through arbitration proceedings. Actor and comedian Jim Carrey filed his case in April with World Intellectual Property Organization to get the domain name JimCarrey.com. According to Compete.com, JimCarrey.com gets a few hundred unique visitors per month. Actress Cameron Diaz filed a case ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Hotel Research Company Wins STR.com Domain Name - Company wins three letter domain name through arbitration. Smith Travel Research, Inc, which provides hotel benchmarking services, has won the three letter domain name STR.com at arbitration. In the decision by a National Arbitration Forum panelist, the respondent was found to have registered the domain in bad faith and have no legitimate interests in the domain. The respondent used the domain name for a travel web site, earning referral fees for sending traffic ... read more ...
Thu 18th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Download “Free” Music? Guess Its Not Free If It Costs $80K Per Song - Outside the world of domains, but right up the alley of intellectual property, a federal court just  issued a judgment against a “free” music file sharer for $1.9 million dollars or $80,000 per song. Jammie Thomas-Rasset, was found guilty of willful copyright infringement today and was ordered to pay the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) $1.9 million dollars for illegally downloading “a representative sample of 24 songs”. “We appreciate the jury’s service and that they ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon Plans to Break Up with North Carolina Affiliates - Company sends warning to members of Associates program. One funny thing about politicians is how they make short-sighted maneuvers that end up costing their constituents in the long run. One example is requiring online merchants to collect sales tax for shipments to their state if the company has any affiliates in the state. The sad thing is that North Carolina, the latest state set to ponder such a law, can just look at other states to realize this is a mistake. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
No Double Jeopardy for Domain Name Case - Companies loses second attempt to acquire domain name GetMore.com through domain arbitration. I was wrong. In January of this year I wrote an article “Domain Arbitration Doesn’t ‘Get More’ Crazy Than This” about a UDRP case for the domain GetMore.com. The title of the article was wrong, because this case just became even more crazy. The complainant, which lost the case, refiled a case with World Intellectual Property Organization claiming that it has ... read more ...
Tue 16th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Microsoft Sues 3 For Click Fraud - According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft filed a lawsuit on Monday against three people they allege committed a form of “click fraud” by improperly manipulating Microsoft’s online advertising service for profit. Microsoft filed the suit in federal court in Seattle against Eric Lam, his mother Melanie Suen and his brother Gordon Lamand all of Vancouver and several corporations under their control. The suit seeks at least $750,000 in damages alleging that the three engaged in the  scheme ... read more ...
Mon 15th June 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICA to ICANN Ombudsman: “Tardy, Nonresponsive and Non-Persuasive” - ICANN Ombudsman responds to IRT complaint, but after IRT released final report ICANN Ombudsman Dr. Frank Fowlie responded to Internet Commerce Association’s complaints about Implementation Recommendation Team, a trademark-interests group that has proposed sweeping changes to domain disputes and allocation. Internet Commerce Association (ICA) calls the Ombudsman’s response “Tardy, Nonresponsive and Non-persuasive”. In a post on its web site, ICA counsel Phil ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Terminates Five Domain Name Registrars - Five registrars terminated for financial reasons. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has sent termination notices to five domain name registrars for failure to pay fees. Of the five to be de-accredited, only one has registered domains under management: Maxim Internet Inc. ICANN is seeking a registrar to take over about 5,000 domains registered at Maxim Internet. It warns that contact data for the registrants is in an inconsistent format. ICANN sent ... read more ...
Thu 11th June 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CrapShoot: Man Rolls Dice on Casinos.org - Man files UDRP for domain name Casinos.org. To be fair, it was early this morning that I first saw an arbitration filing for the domain name Casinos.org at WIPO. I rubbed my eyes. This must be a joke, right? Perhaps there was more to the story, I thought. I looked up the history of the domain, and it appears to be owned by the same person for a couple years. Something just didn’t seem right. I emailed the owner of the domain to ask him what was going on. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Minnesota Drops Challenge to Online Gambling Sites - State drops plans in face of industry lawsuit. Earlier this year Minnesota tried to force ISPs to block access to gambling web sites. The move came on the heels of a similar action from Kentucky’s governor, who tried to seize gambling domain names last year. Although the battle is still ongoing in Kentucky, Minnesota officials have thrown in the towel. A gambling industry association sued the state, saying its plan violated federal commerce and free speech. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wendy’s de Mexico: Burger Chain Wants Mexican Domain Name - Wendy’s restaurant chain files for arbitration for Wendys.com.mx domain name. Wendy’s International, Inc. (NYSE: WEN) has filed for arbitration to get the domain name Wendys.com.mx. The domain name currently resolves to a page with the message “Si le interesa comprar este dominio envie un correo a”, which translates to “If you are interested in purchasing this domain please send an email…” There are over 6,600 Wendy’s stores, many of them franchises, ... read more ...