First UDRP Filed Against .App Domain Name

.App domain names are not yet for purchase in a general availability phase, but a UDRP has already been filed against a .App domain name. A company called Roofoods Limited filed a UDRP against Deliveroo.app at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO Case D2018-0994).

According to a Whois search at DomainTools, it looks like Deliveroo.App was registered on May 2nd at GoDaddy. The domain name is registered under Whois privacy proxy, so it is unclear who the registrant is. Because of the May 2nd registration date, it would appear the buyer may have paid $3,148.99 to buy Deliveroo.App in “Phase two,” according to the GoDaddy .App payment schedule.

At the time of publication, Deliveroo.App is not resolving to a website for me.

The company that filed the UDRP, Roofoods, operates a fairly well known online food delivery platform called Deliveroo. The website operates on Deliveroo.co.uk, but it also owns the matching .com domain name as well as a wide swath of ccTLD domain names. Deliveroo operates in the UK and Europe, and I do not believe it operates in the US. The company has raised nearly $900 million in funding since it was founded

It will be interesting to see if the domain registrant opts to fight this UDRP. If so, I am curious how they will attempt to defend their ownership of the domain name since it doesn’t seem like a generic term to me.