A UDRP was filed at the National Arbitration Forum against the valuable 3 letter VMI.com domain name. This is case #1790831, and the commencement date is June 15, 2018.

VMI.com does not resolve to an active website for me. When I visited, I saw a default registrar landing page that says, "This domain is parked free of charge with NameSilo.com." There is no advertising on the landing page. The domain name is registered to an entity in Denmark (disclosure: I have done business with the registrant).

Based on the Whois history tool at DomainTools, it looks like the domain name was acquired earlier this year. I searched my email history to see if I could see it mentioned by any brokers, and I see that Sedo had it listed for sale this past February without a price. NameBio does not have a sales history for the domain name, so it was likely a private sale. As a LLL.com domain name, VMI.com holds substantial value.

Because the NAF does not report the name of the complainant until a decision is rendered, (more…) → Read More

Sometimes when I see a UDRP filing, my first thought is that the domain name seems very generic. This is what I thought when I saw the GlobalVision.com UDRP filing at the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), and it looks like the panelist agreed. This is case # FA1804001783819.

From the opening discussion about the domain name and its history provided by the respondent (domain registrant), it seemed pretty inevitable that the owner would retain the domain name. Here's what the registrant said:

"Complainant’s GLOBAL VISION is made up of common, generic terms and Complainant may not maintain an exclusive monopoly on such terms.

Respondent has rights and legitimate interests in the domain name dating back to February 22, 1995, when Respondent registered the domain name. The domain name is used by an existing, active company."

It looks like the United States Postal Service (USPS) is on a UDRP filing spree. A search of pending UDRP filings at the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) shows 11 UDRP filings that have been made recently. These 11 UDRPs include nearly 40 domain names. Some of the domain names involved in the USPS UDRP filings include:

• uspsx.com


• usps.sale


• uspsglobal.com


• uspstrackingservice.com


• usps-nlu.com


• usps.info


• usps.site

GDPR went into effect last week. Even though GDPR is a European Union data protection and privacy regulation that does not cover Americans or other people who are not EU citizens, some domain registrars totally eliminated public Whois lookup information to ensure they do not violate GDPR regulations and potentially expose themselves to serious penalties.

I have found that some domain name registrars have not eliminated public Whois lookups and Whois information, and I want to share what I found with you. This is certainly not an exhaustive list of registrars, and as far as I can tell, Whois information is only publicly available for registrants who do not have a European presence. I used a combination of registrar Whois searches, ICANN whois searches, and DomainTools Whois searches to see which registrars are blocking information and which are still showing information.

I invite you to share the name of registrars that are not using something like "Data Protected" for Whois lookups as you find them.

Registrars still showing → Read More