Legal Practice Tips: How to Sell your Domain Name and Web Content

Many business people would be surprised to learn that there is something akin to a ‘securities” aftermarket for domain names.  Investment groups are formed to pool money in order to buy a portfolio of domain names.  Third parties are buying domain names with web content and income links.  The geo domain market is teaching domainers and other market niches how development can generate additional ad revenue fees as a result of increased traffic.  The domainers are starting to tacitly understand that higher quality content results in higher quality clicks from the advertiser’s point of view. 

Click Fraud and Domainers: Legitimacy of Parked Pages Under Attack Again

Dancho Danchev's Blog - Mind Streams of Information Security Knowledge: Click Fraud, Botnets and Parked Domains - All Inclusive

Click Forensics's recent Q2 2008 report indicates that botnets were responsible for over 25% of all click fraud activity they were monitoring during Q2. Not surprising, given that botnets have long been observed to commit blick fraud, using a common traffic exchange scheme. What's new is the use and abuse of parked domains :

"Despite indication that some of the clicks from parked domains were invalid, Google failed to disclose to the plaintiff specific domain names in which these ads were clicked on, making detection of invalid clicks difficult and even worse concealing any evidence of invalid clicks," the lawsuit alleges.Click Forensics's recent Q2 2008 report indicates that botnets were responsible for over 25% of all click fraud activity they were monitoring during Q2. Not surprising, given that botnets have long been observed to commit blick fraud, using a common traffic exchange scheme. What's new is the use and abuse of parked domains :

"Despite indication that some of the clicks from parked domains were invalid, Google failed to disclose to the plaintiff specific domain names in which these ads were clicked on, making detection of invalid clicks difficult and even worse concealing any evidence of invalid clicks," the lawsuit alleges. RK West eventually went through its server logs and discovered the source of the clicks, said Alfredo Torrijos, one of the company's attorneys."

Google and advertisers continue to focus attention on click fraud. As long as black hat cybersquatters continue to use parked pages and botnets to generate click fraud, legitimate domainers who used parked pages with advertising links on otherwise legitimate generic or descriptive domain names will suffer. Domainers have as much interest in removing black hats from teh space as anyone. In fact, their business model depends on it.
Technorati Tags: google, domain names, cybersquatting, click fraud, botnet

auDRP - Dispute Resolution Policies for the .au domain extenstion

auDA > auDRP > auDRP Providers

auDA does not handle auDRP complaints.

Complaints under the policy may be submitted to any auDA approved dispute resolution service provider (listed below in alphabetical order).

Complaints are determined by a panel (single- or three-member) appointed by the Provider from its listed panelists. Each Provider follows the auDRP Rules, as well as its own supplemental rules.

auDRP Providers

• LEADR - Association of Dispute Resolvers
• The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators - Australian Branch (CIArb)
• The Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators Australia (IAMA)
• World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)

auDRP Panelists

Independent arbitrators who hear auDRP complaints are known as "panelists".

Each auDRP Provider is wholly responsible for the appointment of its listed panelists. Individuals who wish to become panelists should contact a Provider. It is possible to be a panelist for more than one Provider.

Technorati Tags: .au extension, australian domain dispute

LinkedIn's New Purchase of .au ccTLD Shows Increase In Australian TLD Popularity

Builder.au reports that LinkedIn, the social networking site for professionals, has joined an increasing number of companies that have sought to register their trademarks on the Australian (.au) ccTLD.  Several months ago LinkedIn contacted Australian marketing firm Clear Blue Day, the previous registrant of linkedin.com.au, and requested that Clear turn over the domain name.  Instead, Clear negotiated a deal whereby they received an advertising campaign on LinkedIn’s website in exchange for the domain name.

Domain Name Return On Investment: Your Time Is Worth Something Too

Our friend Sahar Sarid over at Conceptualist.com has a great post about valuing a domain name.  Sahar points out that the sale price of a domain name should not only reflect the value of the domain, but also the costs associated with obtaining the domain, the risk involved, and the time that you have expended, including lost opportunities.

Hobbits v. Hobbitts: Generic Mark Argument Won't Prevent Panel From Seeing Pay Per Click Parking as Bad Faith

Seemingly generic domain names can often turn into a trademark nightmare when used in combination with pay per click parking pages.  A recent proceeding in front of the World Intellectual Property Organization demonstrates that a registrant’s inability to control these pay per click parking ads can result in the loss of a domain name.  It is important to realize that these parking pages can be used against you as evidence of your bad faith intent to profit from the trademark of another.

The Three Views of Trademark Cybersquatting

We all know the formal definition of cybersquatting under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).  But in the blogosphere, people use the word cybersquatting to mean a variety of different things.  The good news for both, trademark holders and domainers, is that both the courts under the ACPA and Arbitration Panels at WIPO and NAF under the UDRP continue to become more consistent in their definition and application of cybersquatting principles in their decisions.  As an attorney, consistency is the one element which allows us to advise our clients and allows clients to make informed business decisions based on a risk/reward analysis.

One of the challenges for internet attorneys working on cybersquatting issues is the relative inconsistency and how the word “cybersquatting” is used in on-line discussions on the internet.  The same is true for related terms such as “reverse domain hijacking”, a concept wherein a trademark holder attempts to use the UDRP or ACPA to essentially steal a domain away from a legitimate domain registrant who did not register the disputed domain in bad faith, or is using an otherwise trademarked protected domain in a non-infringing way.