A company called Kitchens to Go filed a UDRP against the valuable KTG.com domain name at the World Intellectual Property Organization. This UDRP filing is WIPO Case D2017-2241.
KTG.com has a creation date of February 22, 2001, where it was picked up on the drop as Archive.org shows some entries prior to that. The domain registrant appears to be an entity with an address in Belize. When I visited KTG.com this evening, I was forwarded to a Domain Holdings inquiry page, indicating the domain name is likely listed for sale. I don’t see any public sales history for this domain name on NameBio.
The complainant in this case is a company called Kitchens to Go. Obviously the acronym of KTG would explain why Kitchens to Go would want to own this domain name. I took a brief look at the company’s website, and I do not see any references to “KTG” on the homepage. On the company’s blog found within its website, I see a few mentions of “KTG” in articles about the company.
KTG.com is a valuable LLL.com domain name, and there quite a few companies that would probably want to own this domain name. A Google search for KTG shows several KTG entities, although Kitchens to Go was not listed in the top results for my search. Some of the top websites that were shown in this Google search were:
- KTG USA
- K.T.G. (USA) Talent Network
- Kentucky Tuition Grant
- KTG ENGINEERING
- KTG Wikipedia page
Interestingly, another kitchen entity showed up towards the very bottom of my Google search page with 100 results, and that was a page within a Philadelphia art gallery’s website, KTG TALKS — Kitchen Table Gallery.
There have been quite a few UDRP filings against three letter .com domain names this year. The vast majority of these cases have gone in favor of the domain name owner. One exception was the recent IMI.com UDRP decision, which was quite surprising to me. In that case, the domain owner did not respond to the UDRP.
I will continue to monitor this UDRP proceeding and provide an update when a decision is rendered.
Update: According to DNW, the complaint was denied and the panel found this to be a case of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. Zak Muskovitch represented the owner of the domain name.
Thank you Elliot for being a dedicated,vigilant & well informed URL professional who has the backs of sincere, high integrity domainers
I agree. Thanks Elliot
Someone pointed out on Twitter that the company owns K-T-G.com, so it is even more clear why they want the non-hyphenated domain name: https://twitter.com/dommunity/status/930627027098636288
Complete and utter travesty
Elliot, I have never had to deal with a UDRP, but in the case of IMI.com, besides costs of hiring an attorney, why would the owner not respond? The result i was shocking.
I did not see any active (or applied for) tm for ktg.
They do have one active tm for kitchens to go from 2007.