During the last couple of years, domain name seizures have become a hot topic. Hundreds of domain names have been seized by the US Department of Justice and  US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. You can probably picture the graphic that is displayed on seized domain names.

Whether the domain name was used for copyright infringement or not, I am not in favor of a system that allows a  government  to seize domain names without any opportunity for the owner to defend his or her domain name. A Congresswoman from California turned to Reddit users to crowd source legislation that she hopes will provide due process for domain owners prior to a governmental seizure.

According to a press release from  Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California’s 16th District, the Reddit community’s strong SOPA support led her to this unconventional means of crowdsourcing  legislation. Here’s what Representative Logren envisions for this:

“The goal is to develop targeted legislation that requires the government to provide notice and an opportunity for website operators to defend themselves prior to seizing or redirecting their domain names. The focus would be on government domain name seizures based on accusations that a website facilitates copyright infringement and not, for example, accusations of obscenity or libel. Feedback and input should also take into account any legitimate concerns that notice or delay might reasonably lead to destruction of evidence, threats to the physical safety of an individual, or other unintended negative consequences.“

Andrew Alleman wrote about the U.S. Federal District Court decision that awarded a domain owner $126,830 in damages, attorney’s fees, and costs in response to a case of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH), and I believe this decision is a big deal for domain investors.

In 2009, the city of Paris, France filed a UDRP for the domain name Parvi.org, and the sole panelist ruled in favor of the city, meaning the domain name was ordered to be transferred to the city. The domain owner responded by filing a lawsuit against the city of Paris, France in the state of Texas (the jurisdiction of the domain registrar). The city of Paris did not respond, and the Texas court issued a default judgment in favor of the domain owner, awarding him over $125,000.

The above synopsis is the shorter version of the story, and I recommend reading the fuller version on the JD Supra legal website. The article was written by  Travis Crabtree, who worked on the case with noted domain attorneys  John Berryhill  and  Paul Keating.

Even though this was a default judgment, I think it’s an important decision domain investors should know about.

There is little recourse at the  arbitration  level when a domain name is subject to a Reverse Domain Name Hijacking UDRP. There really is no penalty (financial or other) when a RDNH finding is made against a complainant. However, there is now case law on the books awarding over $100,000 to a domain owner after a court’s finding of RDHN.

Yes, the legal expense may be considerable if the domain owner chooses litigation, but this could be a  deterrent  to a company filing a questionable UDRP if they know you might hire an attorney to seek damages.

It seems that companies have been tossing the dice with UDRP filings, betting that their $1,500 filing + attorney fees would net them a high value domain name. If the company knows they could be on the hook for RDNH damages of over $100k, they might think twice about following through with a proceeding. Even if the domain owner doesn’t win, the complainant’s legal fees would skyrocket. Their $5-8k UDRP filing could turn into a $50,000+ defense.

Perhaps an attorney would take the RDNH case on contingency and be paid only if victorious, knowing that they could win a $100k+ reward. I am not an attorney, so I don’t know if this is something that could or would be done in this type of situation.

It’s good to know that  domain owners may now have recourse should a UDRP be filed on a descriptive domain names.

There are many companies that actively protect their trademarks when it comes to domain names. Some utilize the UDRP process and others use the legal system to take control of their domain names. They don’t want other companies to make money off of their brands and trademarks, and they don’t want to consumers to be tricked into buying products that aren’t licensed.

One company that doesn’t appear to aggressively defend its marks when it comes to domain names is Sub Zero. Upon looking for a licensed / certified Sub Zero repair company in Google, I see many companies with Sub Zero in their domain names. Some use the Sub Zero domain names as websites and others seem to use them as simple SEO friendly landing pages.

Having the brand in a domain name makes it seem that they are licensed by the company, when they might not actually be licensed. There appears to be a significant amount of private companies operating on domain names that have the SZ brand, and it is not clear whether they have approval to do so, although some might say that not going after these users is sort of a tacit approval.

According to UDRPSearch.com, Sub-Zero, Inc. filed one UDRP for esubzero.com, and the company was victorious. There may be other filings, but I could not find another UDRP filed by the company. There may also be litigation related to domain names, but I did not find anything.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to pay a technician to come out and perform repairs on my refrigerator when they may not be licensed to do those repairs, and possibly worse, may not use company made parts. When you spend hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars on repairs, you want to be sure that you are getting parts and services that are approved by the company.

As a consumer, it’s annoying to see people use brands in domain names when they probably shouldn’t.

Vanity.com sues in Arizona court to overturn#UDRP ruling lz.com/b #ICANN Had sued in California lz.com/c

— George Kirikos (@GeorgeKirikos) July 4, 2012

Via his Twitter feed this morning, George Kirikos has reported that Vanity.com Incorporated has filed a lawsuit against Vanity Shop of Grand Forks, Inc. The lawsuit is reportedly in response to the UDRP decision that awarded the Vanity.com domain name to Vanity Shop.

According to Justia, the lawsuit was filed in District Court in the state of Arizona. As a result of this lawsuit filing, the ordered transfer of the Vanity.com domain name will likely be halted pending the outcome of litigation.

Mike Berkens covered this story last month on his blog and it garnered some interesting discussion.

Yesterday, FoxNews reported that QuinStreet has agreed to hand over GIBill.com and its website to the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Twenty US states were involved in the settlement, and QuinStreet would also have to pay $2.5 million to those states as part of the settlement.  QuinStreet is a publicly traded company on NASDAQ, trading under they symbol  QNST.

According to the FoxNews article, the settlement is related to this:

“The states alleged that QuinStreet violated consumer protection laws while operating websites that generate leads primarily for the for-profit education industry. The states said that several of the company’s sites, including GIBill.com, deceptively gave the appearance that the sites were operated, owned or endorsed by the U.S. government or military.

QuinStreet will relinquish ownership and control of GIBill.com to the veterans affairs department that will use the domain to promote the program and its available benefits.“

The Wall Street Journal also reported on this settlement, and the article noted that “QuinStreet says it doesn’t consider the website misleading, but reached the agreement to provide greater clarity.”

QuinStreet is a  publicly traded marketing and media company that operates websites on descriptive domain names in a number of verticals. You may recall that QuinStreet paid a reported $35.6 million for Insurance.com and a reported $16 million for Insure.com. The company also acquired CarInsurance.com, Internet.com, and several other websites for significant sums of money.

A couple of weeks ago, Washington Nationals rookie outfielder Bryce Harper was being interviewed by reporters in Toronto, and one of the local reporters asked him about drinking since he’s underaged in the US but can legal drink in Canada. As you can see in the video above, Harper answered, “that’s a clown question, bro,”

An Internet meme was born. People posted other humorous videos with famous questions and Harper’s response. Even Nevada Senator Harry Reid got in on the act, jokingly answering “that’s a clown question, bro” to a reporter’s question.

As you’d probably suspect, shortly after Harper’s reply made the news, people began registering matching domain names. ThatsAClownQuestionBro.com, .net, .org, .info, and .us were all registered by what appears to be different people hours after the press conference went viral.

Perhaps there will be a legal battle for these domain names (well, if anything, the .com) because it’s been reported that Harper filed for a trademark for the term, and Under Armour plans to sell shirts with the saying emblazoned on them.

I don’t know if it’s worth spending time and money to try and wrest the domain name(s) from the registrants, but Harper and his legal team seem intent on protecting the ballplayer’s phrase. It will be interesting to follow.

Do you think someone should have the rights to a domain name for a matching phrase they coined and are trademarking?