A UDRP was filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for the Jolly.com domain name. The case ID is WIPO Case D2018-0924.
Jolly.com is a descriptive domain name that was registered over 20 years ago in 1997. The domain name is registered under Whois privacy at GoDaddy. If you visit the domain name, you can see the standard “Future home of something quite cool” coming soon landing page that is provided by the domain registrar. I do not see any monetization on the landing page.
Prior to the domain name going under Whois privacy in 2008, the domain name was registered to an entity called Jon B. Jolly, Inc. (according to DomainTools’ invaluable Whois history tool). According to Archive.org, the domain name was used for a developed website in the past. From what I can see, the domain name has also been used for email.
I looked through my email history, and I do not see this domain name listed for sale in any brokerage or other emails. I also looked at NameBio, and I do not see any sales record for this domain name. DomainIQ pegs the value of Jolly.com at $72,000, but I think the domain name is likely worthy substantially more than this.
The complainant in this UDRP is listed as Club Jolly Turizm ve Ticaret A.Ş. A Google search leads me to believe it is a company from Turkey that filed the UDRP. Assuming that is the case, the company uses the JollyTur.com domain name for its website.
I can see why the complainant would like to upgrade to the far superior Jolly.com domain name, but I do not see anything that would indicate that the domain owner registered and used the domain name in bad faith. I would be surprised to see the complainant win this UDRP. I would not be surprised to see a Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) filing because I can’t see why this UDRP would even have a chance at succeeding.
Update: The domain registrant won the UDRP, despite a lack of a formal response. The domain name will stay with the registrant. It does not appear that the panel considered Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.
