Bloomberg Business published an article this morning about the legal battle that is playing out over the Playboy.London domain name. In a single panel UDRP decision rendered in January, a WIPO panelist ruled that the Playboy.London domain name be transferred to Playboy Enterprises International. The owner of the domain name is fighting to keep it.
According to the Bloomberg Business article, the owner of Playboy.London has filed a lawsuit in order to retain the domain name. From the article:
A UDRP has been filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization for the descriptive geographic NorthernIreland.com domain name. According to the WIPO website, the UDRP Complainant is Invest Northern Ireland / Northern Ireland Tourist Board. It appears that this organization uses the longer DiscoverNorthernIreland.com domain name for its website, which probably explains why it wants NorthernIreland.com.
If you visit the NorthernIreland.com domain name, you can see that it is owned by Mike Mann’s company, and it is listed for sale on DomainMarket.com for $600,000. It appears that this domain name has been owned by Mann-affiliated companies for many years.
There have been quite a few
I would imagine that just about every domain name owner has received an email that purports to be a domain registrar. Typically, these phishing emails request that the recipient click a link within the email and then provide private account information, which would give the sender access to the domain owner’s registrar account. Some of these emails look pretty close to actual registrar emails, and they can be confusing.
I’ve shared some probably examples of phishing emails I received or were submitted to me. For instance, here is an example of a likely GoDaddy phishing email and here is an example of a likely Register.com phishing email. I also discussed why domain registrar phishing emails are bad for everyone who buys and sells domain names. Put simply, domain phishing is harmful to the business of domain investing.
The question I have today is who is
When I am at a domain conference, I don’t generally attend the panels or keynote speeches. I go to conferences like TRAFFIC and Namescon to reconnect with friends and colleagues, meet with industry companies, and make new contacts. I very rarely attend the panels. There is one panel I would attend though: a Q/A with UDRP panelists.
A UDRP is a risk for any domain owner. Regardless of how defensible a domain name is (check out the Photo.com UDRP for an example), there aren’t really any domain names that are immune to a UDRP filing. I think a UDRP on a descriptive domain name should be a “no brainer,” but there are quite a few examples of a UDRP being ruled in favor of a complainant, despite the domain name’s descriptive nature. Even when the correct decision is made, I think there are many UDRP decisions that are inconsistent. I suppose it is the nature of the system.
That being said, I would find it
According to the World Intellectual Property (WIPO) website, a UDRP was recently filed on the Tasers.com domain name. The UDRP is listed in the database as WIPO Case D2014-1492. It appears that the domain name is registered to a domain investor, and the UDRP was filed by TASER International, Inc.
The Tasers.com domain name was acquired for quite a bit of money, and it looks like it may have been sold publicly a couple of times. Three years ago, Michael Berkens reported “the domain name Tasers.com sold on NameJet.com for $12,900.” In the same commented, Mike opined, “Its a interesting domain as Taser is trademarked many times over including by the manufacturer of the device.” According to NameBio, the Tasers.com domain name had previously been sold on
I was looking through the recent UDRP filings at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) when I came across a filing for the Squirrels.com domain name. The complainant in this case is appears to be a company called Squirrels LLC, and it is identified as WIPO Case D2014-1434.
When I visit the Squirrels.com domain name, I am redirected to another website, and it appears to be a forward based on my location. The current Whois information shows a
