Yahoo picks up .tel domain name.
An arbitrator with National Arbitration Forum has awarded Yahoo! the Yahoo.tel domain name. Yahoo was the first major tech company to file arbitration for a .tel domain when it filed its case back in August.
The respondent in the case did not file an official response. Instead, he challenged the authority of UDRP proceedings in Spain.
Through correspondence dated September 23, 2009, the Attorney of Respondent submitted a written communication to the National Arbitration Forum, by means of which said party emphatically insisted that this Panel lacks of competence to rule the present case, pursuant to internal provisions of the procedural Law of the Kingdom of Spain.
Regardless of the foregoing assertion, Respondent is hereby reminded that it expressly consented to be bound to the jurisdiction of the UDRP when it executed the Registration Agreement with the Registrar implying this that Respondent is legally linked by the ARSYS INTERNET SL d/b/a NICLINE.COM registration agreement. Thus, Respondent is compelled to revise it and be properly informed of its content and implications, before making pointless contentions.
There was another procedural issue in the case: the registrar agreement was in Spanish, so technically the case filings needed to be in Spanish. However, the domain owner’s registrar delayed its response to the UDRP, resulting in the case commencing before the panel knew that the case should be in Spanish:
Upon notification of the dispute, the Registrar refused to verify the Respondent’s identity. Upon subsequent request, the Registry did verify Respondent’s identity, and the National Arbitration Forum commenced the case. Then, after the commencement of the case by the National Arbitration Forum, correspondence was received from the Registrar that stated that the language of the Registration Agreement was in Spanish.
In view of this fact, because the pertaining information was received from the Registrar only after the case was commenced, the Panel decides to continue the case with the English-language submission of the Complaint, pursuant to Rule 11 of the Policy.
Of course, Yahoo could have claimed the Yahoo.tel domain name during the .tel sunrise period for about $300, much less than the cost of arbitration. Will we see a lot of this scenario — company doesn’t get domain during sunrise but gets it through arbitration — when new top level domains roll out?
George Kirikos says
Defensive registrations are akin to a protection racket. Companies have the option of paying the high sunrise registration fees, or pay more later for arbitration, UDRP, court costs, etc. The registry operators win, ICANN wins (more fees from domains being registered), UDRP providers win, registrars win, TM lawyers win, but consumers and businesses ultimately lose, another “tax” upon all of them.
ICANN could easily waive or lower fees for domain names that do not resolve (i.e. have no nameservers), and registry operators could lower their fees for those non-resolving names too, bought for defensive purposes. That would be a sign that they don’t want to profit from defensive registrations, or at least have reduced profits on those names. They’ve known this for 10+ years, but of course have chosen not to do this simple thing.
Andrew Allemann says
George, you can rest assured that new TLD business plans account for a lot of defensive registrations.
Robbie says
you would think that Yahoo would buy this in sunrise, Whats a couple of hundred dollars to a company this big?
instead they waste a couple thousand to get it a few month later.
Really the question is, Why do the registrars let people register this name in the first place?
Andrew Allemann says
Let’s face it. Yahoo doesn’t want yahoo.tel. They just don’t want anyone else using it.
John McCormac says
Defensive registrations seem to be the only part of new TLD business plans that are in anyway reliable. I would agree with George about defensive registrations being a racket. It can be hard to tell which new TLD will be successful and which will be a fizzle. The .tel TLD is a curious one in that it is still growing but growing slowly. In some respects it is a web directory on steroids. By comparison, .asia sTLD is finding the post landrush environment very difficult. Unless the new TLDs have a killer unique selling point they are going to find it very difficult to gain market share.
lake district says
yeah, they had to go and get it . although they won’t use it. no one is using .tel
gbotas says
A lawsuit has been settled at the Court in Spanish regarding the lack of competence.
No agreement has been signed to the NAF, but for the Arbitration in Spain, that in anycase is illegal accordin the Spanis and the UE regulation (Regl. 44/2001) on Judicial Competence. And art 54.2 of the Spanish Procedure Law (LEC).
So Yahoo will have to wait a long period for that resolution to be effective