Archive for the ‘Cybersquatting’ Category
Lawsuit goes after typosquatters who redirect to survey offers.
As reported on Elliot’s Blog today, Facebook has filed a lawsuit against dozens of people for allegedly typosquatting on its domain names.
One of the interesting aspects of this case is what the defendants are allegedly doing with the domain names. Instead of parking them with traditional pay-per-click providers, they are forwarding them to survey sites that mimic Facebook in some way.
This type of typo monetization is becoming more popular as the opportunity to monetize some typos is limited on traditional parking platforms. In fact, there’s an entire parking company based around these CPA survey offers that started business just a couple months ago.
If seeing a parked page with pay-per-click links bothers trademark holders, they’ll be even more upset about seeing their would-be visitors tricked into supplying their email address to an affiliate site.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Related posts:
- Facebook Files Trademark Lawsuit Against FriendFinder
- Microsoft Files Cybersquatting Lawsuit Over Bing Domain Names
- Verizon Files Another Cybersquatting Lawsuit
Real estate firm sues owner of .co.
The owner of a .com domain name has filed a lawsuit (pdf) to get the .co version of their domain name. This is the first such .co federal anticybersquatting lawsuit I’m aware of (although there have been plenty of UDRPs and I don’t think a complainant has lost yet).
Real estate company Sibcy Cline filed the in rem lawsuit against SibcyCline.co.
The firm registered both SibcyCline.com and Sibcy.com way back in 1995. But someone else registered the .co domain name in July last year.
Sibcy Cline sent a couple cease and desist letters to the registrant, who finally responded by saying he’d sell the domain name for $1,500. Sibcy Cline rejected the offer, only to find that the domain name was transferred to another registrant shortly thereafter.
The lawsuit seeks transfer of the domain name.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Related posts:
- Pac12.com Owner Sues Pac-10 Conference Over Domain Name
- Paris Sues Paris.org Owner in French Court
- Austin Man Sues Entrepreneur Media, Claims Reverse Domain Hijacking
Company files federal court case over BMWrewards.com
BMW has filed a lawsuit against Illinois company Prime Market Targeting, Inc. and Scott Duff for trademark infringement, false designation of origin, cybersquatting, and unfair competition over the domain name BMWREwards.com.
The automaker is asking for the domain name, attorneys fees, $100,000 per anti-cybersquatting rules, and for the defendants to refrain from infringing on the company’s mark in the future.
This is a change of course for BMW, which usually turns to the Uniform Domain-name dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) for domain names. The company has filed 8 UDRP cases already this year for domain names ranging from BMWauctions.com to bmwxdrive.com.
The company says the defendant refused to transfer the domain name after it sent a cease and desist letter.
Prime Market Targeting has owned the domain name since 2007.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Related posts:
- Cybersquatting Cases Fall in 2009
- Is Cybersquatting Up or Just Enforcement of Cybersquatting?
- Rate of Domain Cybersquatting Hits All Time Low
Company wants to trade up to better domain name through lawsuit.
Leisure Hotel Corporation has filed a lawsuit against the owner of Leisure.com claiming trademark infringement, counterfeiting, false designations of origin, and cybersquatting (pdf).
Let me ask you a simple question: If you were the person who plunked down $150,000 to buy Leisure.com a couple years ago, what would you plan to do with it? The most obvious thing would be a site about travel. It’s a great use of a good generic domain name.
Generic.
But not according to Leisure Hotel Corporation, which bills itself as providing “a wide array of services in the hospitality, restaurant, and resort businesses”.
The company claims that Leisure.com’s use as a travel booking comparison engine infringes its marks:
The Website prominently uses LEISURE nominative phrases, including without limitation, LEISURE, LEISURE.COM, LEISURE SEARCH, and LEISURE TRAVEL (collectively the “Infringing Marks”), in its domain name and throughout the content of the webpages accessible at the Website.
Well, duh. It’s a web site about leisure.
Among Leisure Hotel Corporation’s demands is a lot of money and to get its hands on the domain name.
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Judge calls for an end to lengthy domain name battle.
United States District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema has said enough is enough in a domain name lawsuit filed by John Zuccarini.
Zuccarini filed the lawsuit after a court appointed receiver failed to renew domain names of his that were seized to settle a cybersquatting judgment. The domain names were at Network Solutions and subsequently auctioned off on NameJet when they expired. One of the domain names was bid up over $50,000, although I don’t know that the winning bidder ever paid.
Defendants NameJet, Network Solutions, and VeriSign each filed motions to dismiss that the judge granted on January 14. Zuccarini then filed an appeal on this ruling that the judge denied because he said the appeal introduced completely new arguments. Brinkema had harsh words for Zuccarini in declining his appeal.
“Zuccarini has already wasted quite enough of the parties’ and this Court’s time and resources in responding to his frivolous claims,” Brikema wrote.
Although Zuccarini can file another appeal, the judge reminded him that he “is again placed on notice that filing a frivolous appeal, or further frivolous motions on this Court, could result in the imposition of sanctions…”
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
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Related posts:
- Zuccarini Case Against NameJet, NetSol, et al Moved to Virginia
- Zuccarini Sues NameJet, eNom, VeriSign, and Network Solutions
- Court Denies Emergency Injunction for Zuccarini Domains Sold at NameJet
NYC socialite struggles to control domain names.
New York real estate developer and socialite Janna Bullock has filed another cybersquatting lawsuit to recover domain names she says are similar to her name. Bullock filed the case against BullockJanna.com and Bullock-Janna.com in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia. Her official web site is JannaBullock.com.
According to the complaint (pdf), Bullock brought a similar action against several domain names in May. The court granted summary judgment and ordered the domains transferred to Bullock. The two domain names at issue in the new complaint were registered shortly after the court ordered the previous domains transferred. Which means this could be a long game of whack-a-mole for Bullock, and she might consider going on the offensive to register similar domain names.
Bullock is a rags-to-riches story, moving from nanny to real estate mogul. But earlier this year the socialist became ensnared in a Russian scandal.
The sites appear to target the scandal, linking to the latest updates and news. The suit alleges that the domains currently at issue are made to look like Bullock’s official web site. Both sites are down at the time of writing, but a cache is available.
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A domain name is a terrible thing to waist.
Cathie Jung, who is in the Guinness Book of World Records as having “The Smallest Waist on a Living Person” at 15 inches, has won rights to the domain name CathieJung.com.
Jung filed an Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act en rem (meaning it was against the domain name and not the registrant) case back in December 2009. Jung claimed that the domain name was registered by a corset designer. Indeed, it appears the site was used to send traffic to the registrant’s membership-based corset site.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court Eastern District of Virginia because .com registry VeriSign is located there. The judge handed down a default judgment this month that ordered the domain name to be handed back to Jung.
Jung was represented by Stephen Sturgeon.
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
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Related posts:
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Despite .co’s best efforts, cybersquatters pile on.
Washington Business Journal published a story today about companies that didn’t register their .co domain name equivalent, and how cybersquatters snapped up a lot of these domain names.
The story is somewhat amusing:
Local businesses beaten to the punch by online speculators include sports teams, media companies and even tech-savvy federal contractors.
“They didn’t do their homework,” said William Schippert, a Michigan accountant who snatched up washingtonnationals.co and domain names for several other baseball and football teams “for potential e-commerce purposes.” He’s now auctioning them on GoDaddy.com.
Actually, it’s Schippert that didn’t do his homework. He’s cybersquatting, and these teams can get their domain names back in a number of ways. Especially now that he’s on the record saying why he registered the domain names.
Whenever a new TLD is launched, or a ccTLD is relaunched, you see a lot of small time cybersquatters jump in. The same thing happened with .me. I think it’s mostly an education thing; people recall back in the 90s when some people made money selling trademark domains back to their owners, and these people think this is an opportunity to relive that. But the world has changed since then.
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Company granted patent for typosquatting and cybersquatting tools.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today granted Microsoft U.S. patent number 7,756,987 (pdf) for “Cybersquatter Patrol”. The patent is for a system of generating lists of typo and cybersquatted domains and peeling back the onion to determine their ownership and revenue source. It also refers to methods to block these cybersquatted domain names.
An exemplary method includes providing a typographically erroneous domain name, tracing the domain name where tracing includes entering the domain name as part of a URL and recording one or more subsequent URLs, identifying a domain parking service for the domain name based at least in part on information in one of the recorded URLs, determining client identification information in at least one of the recorded URLs where the client identification information identifies a customer of the domain parking service and blocking one or more domain names based at least in part on the client identification information. Other exemplary technologies are also disclosed.
Microsoft has done significant research on typosquatting and cybersquatting, and has a tool called Strider Typo-Patrol. Using browser plug-ins, typosquatted and cybersquatted domain names can be blocked from resolving on a user’s computer (or at least from showing ads). Given that Microsoft owns the most-used browser, it will be interesting to see if the company implements this technology on a larger scale. In its patent, Microsoft acknowledges that blocking all internet ads is problematic (a nod to legitimate advertising and parking), which is distinctly different from some services such as DNS Advantage.
It seems that some of the technologies in this patent could cause problems for CitizenHawk if enforced.
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Related posts:
- Analyzing the Microsoft cybersquatter lawsuits
- Microsoft releases tool to squash typosquatters
- Yahoo Gets Patent for Behavioral Ad Targeting
A possible new entrant into the trademarked domain recovery industry.
NameDepot.com, Inc. has filed a trademark application for “RealRegistrant”, with services described as:
Application service provider, namely service, software, database, web interface, and technical support for users to obtain information about the owner or registrant of a domain name when the WHOIS information is obscured by a domain name WHOIS Privacy or Proxy service; domain name information and research databases via the Internet for consultation, legal counseling, trademark and domain screening and clearance, competitive and legal research and watch purposes; application service provider, namely providing software as a service which facilitates users to obtain information about the owner or registrant of a domain name when the WHOIS information is obscured by a domain name WHOIS Privacy or Proxy service and in protecting their brands, domains and trademarks
In other words, the company will help people figure out who is behind a proxy domain name. This can be done by filing complaints with the proxy or privacy service.
The NameDepot.com web site says it’s coming soon but doesn’t have any more information, other than a link to TMSecure.com. The page title for TMSecure.com is “Detect and Recover Trademark-Infringing Domain Names”. NameDepot.com was purchased from BuyDomains last year, and TMSecure.com was registered in December 2009.
I contacted the registrant of NameDepot.com via phone today and he wasn’t willing to share any information at this time. However, it looks like another competitor in the trademark domain tracking and recovery field.
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Related posts:
- Providing Whois Privacy Isn’t Free
- 15%-25% of Domain Names are Registered with Masked Whois
- Domain Name Whois Privacy Has Its Limits
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