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Integrity.com UDRP Denied with RDNH

Elliot Silver
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Every once in a while, I see a UDRP filing that appears to be unwinnable. More often than not, the domain name in question is a one word or three letter .com domain name that is rightfully owned by someone but coveted by another party.

A complainant called Integrity Marketing Group, LLC filed a UDRP against the one word Integrity.com domain name at the National Arbitration Forum (NAF). On appearance alone, I did not think the complainant stood a chance of winning the dispute for this high value dictionary word domain name.

The UDRP decision was published, and the three panelists ruled in favor of the domain registrant. In addition, the panel decided that this “Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding.” This finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) was not surprising.

There were multiple reasons for why the panel ruled against the complainant. For one thing, the domain name was owned by the registrant before the complainant existed.

Here’s an excerpt from the decision:

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NameJet: “Big Changes are Coming”

Elliot Silver
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On Friday afternoon, NameJet announced that some major changes are coming to the auction platform. The changes were outlined on a splash page, and include the following:

  • New look and feel
  • New process to place backorders
  • New option to remove backorder if you lose an auction on specific domain
  • New download file type choice of CSV or TXT
  • New way to pull Last Minute Board
  • And many others
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Google Exiting Domain Registrar Business

Elliot Silver
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I received a press release this afternoon with some interesting domain industry news – Google is selling off its domain registrar business. According to the press release, “Squarespace will acquire the assets associated with the Google Domains business, which will be winding down following a transition period.”

This is surprising news to me. Google has become a top 5 domain registrar, and selling domain names to its vast base of customers seems like a pretty solid cross-sell opportunity. That said, domain names have a very low margin and it might be a high touchpoint business requiring considerable customer support.

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Video: Home.com Keynote from NamesCon

Elliot Silver
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One of the largest domain name sales in history was Fairway’s acquisition of Home.com. The deal was brokered by Andrew Miller (Hilco Digital Assets) and Larry Fischer (GetYourDomain.com), but terms of the deal were kept private.

At NamesCon a couple of weeks ago, Andrew, Larry, and Fairway’s David Lazowski had a conversation about the Home.com acquisition. The keynote discussion is embedded below:

2024 ICA Member Meeting in Las Vegas

Elliot Silver
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The Internet Commerce Association, an organization that advocates on behalf of domain investors and industry service providers, announced it would be hosting its 2024 annual meeting in Las Vegas. Although the details have not been finalized, the event will be held from January 17 – 19.

Here’s what was announced to the ICA membership in an email this morning:

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Be Mindful of TMs on AI + 3rd Party Generated Content

Elliot Silver
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One semi-recent advance in relationship to domain name sales is the ability to create artificial intelligence content on landing pages. In addition to this AI content, some marketplaces allow, facilitate the use of, and/or encourage the use of third party created logos for domain names listed for sale. Domain investors need to be mindful of this content.

I was chatting with a colleague the other day, and he showed me something that could be concerning to a domain registrant. A domain name he was looking at had an image that was unrelated to the generic nature of the domain name but was associated with a trademark from a brand that has a similar name.

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