A UDRP has been filed against the ResidentAdvisor.com domain name. The UDRP was filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the complainant is listed as Resident Advisor Limited. This UDRP is WIPO Case D2016-1038.
ResidentAdvisor.com has a creation date of March 23, 2002, making it 14 years old. Historical Whois records show that the domain name had been created even before that, although I guess it dropped and was re-registered in 2002. A few years ago, ResidentAdvisor.com was owned by BuyDomains. According to NameBio, ResidentAdvisor.com was sold for $6,000 via Afternic in April of 2013. The domain name is currently privately registered.
If you visit ResidentAdvisor.com, you can see that the domain name currently resolves to a standard GoDaddy landing page. Screenshots.com shows that the domain name had been used in conjunction with what appears to be a ticketing website in 2015. Archive.org indicates that the domain name may have been used as a forwarder.
The complainant in this UDRP filing is a company called Resident Advisor Limited. When I did a Google search for that company name, I saw that name mentioned on the privacy page of ResidentAdvisor.net. Because only the company name is listed on the UDRP page within the WIPO website, I cannot confirm with certainty that this company is the one that filed a UDRP on the domain name. According to its search engine meta tag, ResidentAdvisor.net is “One of the world’s largest independent electronic online music magazines.”
This UDRP case will be interesting because my first thought when I saw the UDRP was that a resident advisor is a commonly used term, often abbreviated as an “RA.” Upon further searching, it seems that RA is more commonly shortened from “resident assistant” rather than “residential advisor.” That said, Wikipedia’s page discussing “resident assistant” states that a resident assistant is “also variously known as a resident advisor” along with other similar terms.
I will be following this UDRP to see how it is decided.
Update: According to UDRPSearch.com, the panel has ruled that this domain name is to be transferred to the complainant. The decision has not yet been published from what I can see, but I presume it will be published soon.
Some schools have changed the name from Resident Advisor to Resident Assistant because “advisor” can imply some sort of liability for giving advice.
What a litigious society we live in…
UDRP complaint ruled in favor of complainant: http://www.udrpsearch.com/wipo/d2016-1038
I predict that lack of ‘use’ and the 2013 acquisition point will be points of contention within this proceeding. Looking forward to the full brief on the decision.
The decision was published: http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2016-1038