Use of Privacy Services By PPC Advertisers Supports Finding of Bad Faith Cybersquatting

UDRP Decision Discusses Privacy Services and Bad Faith « The Legal Satyricon

The majority of the Panel also finds that the use of a privacy shield in this case further supports its finding of bad faith registration. Although privacy shields might be legitimate in some cases – such as protecting the identity of a critic against reprisal – it is difficult to see why a PPC advertiser needs to protect its identity except to frustrate the purposes of the Policy or make it difficult for a brand owner to protect its trademarks against infringement, dilution and cybersquatting. In circumstances like this, the privacy shield may also allow registrants to transfer domain name registrations amongst themselves without any public record that there has been a transfer, thus allowing them to evade enforcement of legitimate third-party rights or to obstruct proceedings commenced under the Policy...

The Associate Editor at PC Magazine Believes All Domainers Are Cybersquatters.

This piece recently aired at MSNBC, which included quotes from Kyle Monson from PC Magazine.

Web domain taken? Sowhatsleft.com?

Domains Are Stolen Each and Every Day: What Would Happen to your Company if You Lost Control Of Your Domain Name Tomorrow?

Interview With trendicator: YXL.COM Stolen and Recovered | Domain Magnate

- What is your advice to other domainers to prevent having they names stolen

   1. update your whois info if you don’t want to lose your domains…
   2. Keep your computer secure…if something looks wrong with your computer, it probably is; so reinstall your computer, believe you me, it’s worth it. that’s the only way that you can be sure that you’ve rid of the viruses.
   3. keep your email accounts secure; my emails were compromised, and i subsequently lost my domains; i’m just glad that i got my email accounts back in the end….if you use gmail.com, read this: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=gmail&answer=45938
   4. set up different accounts at godaddy…using different passwords…so even if one of your accounts is compromised, you wouldn’t lose them all
   5. keep a log of your domains just in case…godaddy wouldn’t give me a list of my lost domains for security reasons…so even though i know the number of domains i lost, i don’t know exactly what they are….even if you’ve got receipts of them, it takes a long time to compile the list (if you’ve got many domains, that is)

Domain name theft is a common occurrence. Yet, most people take their domain name for granted, even when they are generating substantial revenue through their web site.  Don't wait until a domain thief steals your domain name.  Protect yourself from becoming the victim of a stolen domain name.  Contact a domain name dispute attorney for more information.

Technorati Tags: stolen domain name, domain theft

Internet Hackers Gain Access to Comcast's Domain Name Management Console

Last week, computer hackers gained access and control of Comcast’s domain management system hosted by Network Solutions.  The hackers took control over Comcast’s homepage and webmail for nearly five hours before they could regain control.

Article by Kevin Poulsen, Wired.com:

Comcast Hijackers Say They Warned the Company First

"…The hackers say the attack began Tuesday, when the pair used a combination of social engineering and a technical hack to get into Comcast's domain management console at Network Solutions. They declined to detail their technique, but said it relied on a flaw at the Virginia-based domain registrar.

Network Solutions spokeswoman Susan Wade disputes the hackers' account. "We now know that it was nothing on our end," she says. "There was no breach in our system or social engineering situation on our end."

However they got in, the intrusion gave the pair control of over 200 domain names owned by Comcast. They  changed the contact information for one of them, Comcast.net, to Defiant's e-mail address; for the street address, they used the "Dildo Room" at "69 Dick Tard Lane."

Avoiding Adverse UDRP Decisions: A NAF Transfer Order of The Million Dollar Domain LH.com Does Not Bode Well For Domainers

On April 17, 2008 a NAF Arbitration Panel (David Sorkin Dissenting) ordered the transfer of lh.com from Future Media Architects, Inc. to Deutsche Lufthansa AG. Read the cybersquatting and transfer decision here. The most interesting part of the decision was the Panel's conclusion that buying and holding domain names was not a legitimate use. The Panel stated:

"Respondent’s business model involves the indiscriminate acquisition and use of as many such domain names as possible. The traditional analyses of the rights to or legitimate interests element should not apply in gross when a registrant is not seeking to use any particular domain name to conduct business, is not otherwise known by that name, and has no interest in the nature of the transferor’s rights there from."

Parking Pages Can Create Risk Of A Finding Of Bad Faith Under the UDRP

Auto-generated websites equal bad faith under the UDRP « The Legal Satyricon

This lack of direct control is often a central theme in a cybersquatter’s response to a UDRP complaint. At least one UDRP panel bought this argument. See Admiral Insurance Services v. Dicker, WIPO Case No. D2005-0241 (“the Panel accepts that the terms under which Google makes its Adsense advertisements available do not permit the Respondent to control them . . .”). However, that panel included David Sorkin, which makes its findings suspect. (He rules for complainants less than 1/3 of the time, and has earned more than $100,000 in UDRP panelist fees. Do the math).

The prevailing trend is that the “willful blindness” argument is not valid, as illustrated in the recent decision: State of Florida, Florida Department of Management Services v. Bent Pettersen, WIPO Case No. D2008-0039 ... In coming to this conclusion, the Panels referred to another recent case, Villeroy & Boch AG v. Mario Pingerna, WIPO Case No. D2007-1912.

Technorati Tags: domaining, cybersquatting, bad faith

Win or Lose: The UDRP Is Not Your Only Option When It Comes to Domain Names

While the UDRP is an efficient and relatively cost-effective mechanism by which a trademark owner can acquire a domain from a cybersquatter, it is not the only option.  This is especially true since the proofs needed to win a UDRP are not the same as those required to win an ACPA federal lawsuit, although similar.  If your UDRP Complaint requesting that the domain name be transferred is denied, you can still pursue an ACPA lawsuit for cybersquatting, as long as you do so within the applicable statute of limitations.   

Should you be on the receiving end of a UDRP Complaint and lose, you have rights that may be worth pursuing.  However, you do need to know that if you lose, you must file a lawsuit in a court of law to stay, or prevent, the domain name from being transferred to the Complainant that prevailed under the UDRP.

The UDRP is a form of adjudication, but as the below excerpt from a known case makes clear, it is no court of law. 

UDRP: Lack of Use of a Domain is NOT Always a Defense

The mere holding of an infringing domain name without active use can constitute use in bad faith under the UDRP.  Despite this, all too often trademark owners watch as domains are registered that incorporate their trademark.  Unfortunately for the trademark owner, they think costly litigation under the ACPA is the only means of redress for what appears to be clear cybersquatting.  While the UDRP is cost effective and efficient, there is a general understanding (or more appropriately misunderstanding) that there must be a use of the domain name in order to file a UDRP complaint and win the UDRP.  In fact, the rules for the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, states that the domain name must have been registered in bad faith and used in bad faith to satisfy the policy.  Registration in bad faith was, and continues to be perceived by some, as not enough.  That said, recent panels have held that a Respondent’s failure to make an active use of the web site, such as merely parking the web site with a web hosting company, is enough to satisfy bad faith registration and use under policy paragraph 4(a)(3).

Enom Stealing Domain Names from Registrants?

The YourReview.us Blog is reporting that Enom unilaterally, without notice or legal justification transferred registration of its customers’ domains to its own control. Apparently, Enom runs a script on its database of registrants looking for anyone who has registered any variation of the letters "enom." Keep in mind that that script could turn up literally thousands of domain names which are perfectly legitimate and have nothing to do with any trademark rights Enom may have.

Now here is where the story gets troubling. For your average domain registrant, the primary way to protect your trademark rights is through the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy; i.e. bringing a cybersquatting action to either WIPO or NAF. All other domain owners would have to establish all of the elements of cybersquatting in order to establish their trademark rights and force a domain transfer.

Enom apparently has taken the position that it is exempt from the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. Apparently, Enom believes it is legally justified in unilaterally and without notice taking domain names in which it has not established any trademark rights. This kind of unilateral and unchecked power over property belonging to others is astounding. Here is how the yourreview.us has described the situation.

"Apparently, every domain name containing the characters "enom" is being claimed by the mega registrar. No company can claim exclusive rights to a person's name or a word in general use. But, Enom is trying.

By not including a space before and after the characters "e-n-o-m," they hit words, and word combinations that were not infringing on their copyright and service mark. It seems that this is a case of automatic self-destruction complements of an incompetent legal staff.

We now know that potentially tens of thousands of innocent customers who registered domain names with Enom are now having their names unilaterally acquired by Enom without notice of any type, without anything in writing, without adequate explanation.

All customers got was a threatening email from Enom, stating that they had "infringed" upon Enom copyrights and that they would shut down their accounts (and their businesses) if customers "infringed" again.

According to their own user agreements, neither they (Enom), nor other parties have rights to transfer the ownership of a domain name owned by one of their customers. Apparently, the new rules allow registrars to take this action without review.

In a conversation with Enom's reseller manager (Joann), she stated that "90% of these are returned to the original customer..." but she had no idea why their acquisitions were so inaccurate."

The recent Registerfly debacle is yet another example that further oversight and regulation of domain registrars is critical if our domain registration system is to survive. Perhaps not surprisingly, Enom was one of Registerfly’s back-end service providers. Registerfly apparently was a reseller of Enom.

If you have been a victim of Enom’s blatant domain name grab, please let us know by sending us an email.