Weather Shield Mfg., Inc., of Medford, Wisconsin filed a WIPO for the domain name Visions.com, owned by Lori Phan. In a decision reached on October 10, 2007, the single WIPO panelist found in favor of the Respondent, and the complaint was denied.

I believe the domain owner took a risk by not requesting a 3 member panel. Although she did a great job of presenting her case, it could have easily gone the other way based on some previous decisions. I think it is always best to ask (and pay) for a 3 member WIPO panel because it means the Complainant needs to convince 2 of 3 people that they are right. Having a single panelist is more risky, in my opinion, especially for a high value name like Visions.com.

If the domain name is worth much more than the cost of the 3 member WIPO panel, I would think it would be best to request it.

I spend a fair amount of time researching WIPO decisions, and I think anyone who is serious about this business should, too.    I’ve noticed that I hardly ever recognize any of the names or companies that are the Respondents in these decisions.    It’s probably a good thing, but there are an awful lot of people out there registering unquestionable trademarks, and I rarely recognize their names.    The only names I ever recognize are typically Respondents in cases where the Complainant shouldn’t have a chance in hell at winning (FCC.com for example).

I’m not claiming to know a large portion of domain owners in the world, but I know alot of the names of people via their posts in domain forums and Whois searches.    To me, it looks like there is a group of legitimate domain owners whose reputations are being sullied by less ethical domain owners.

I don’t know if anyone has made the same observation before, but this needs to be stopped.

One of the domain world’s most notorious criminals, John Zuccarini, was busted again for typosquatting.    Instead of forwarding traffic to porno like he did last time, Zuccarini was sending visitors to websites containing legitimate products.    Zuccarini’s typosquatting violated the law, and he was surprisingly caught again.    According to    MarkMonitor CMO, Frederick Felman, “He must not be a very smart criminal.”    An expert from the article:

A so-called typosquatter who served pornographic advertisements on domains such as Bobthebiulder.com and teltubbies.com has been fined again by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

John Zuccarini has agreed to give up US$164,000 in typosquatting revenue he is alleged to have raked in, the FTC said Tuesday in a statement. Five years ago, a federal court had barred Zuccarini from registering domains that are misspellings of legitimate brands, a practice called typosquatting, but he ignored the order, according to Carolyn Hann, a staff attorney with the FTC.

“He was engaging in practices that violated certain provisions of the order,” Hann said. “He had certain domain names that were transpositions or misspellings of popular domain names.” — Source: PC World