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The Lowdown
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May 27, 2008 Post
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Here's the The Lowdown
from DNJournal.com! Updated daily to
fill you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name
industry!
Compiled
by Ron Jackson (Editor/Publisher)
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Allegations
of trademark infringement are filling the air
this week. A few days ago David Castello, COO of Castello
Cities Internet Network, left a post at TheDomains.com
noting |
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that GoDaddy had
several obviously infringing domains for sale on their TDNAM.com
service, including DisneyStudio.com, KinkosCommercialSolutions.com,
JetBlue.tv and BarclaysCapitalGroup.com.
The price tag on each was $50,000. Castello wrote,
"It is outrageous and unethical that GoDaddy is allowing these obvious TM violations to be promoted on their site. A six year old could tell you these names would not last two seconds in
UDRP arbitration. As an industry leader GoDaddy is setting a terrible example. They need to be part of the solution, not part of the
problem."
In a reply to Castello's
post, the author of the blog, attorney Michael
Berkens, said "The drop sites are no better. Pool.com sends out a daily list of dropping domains, often they contain terrible trademark domains.
NameJet.com |
David
Castello |
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displays the dropping domains in the same manner on their site.
These companies are hurting the domain industry by allowing it and profiting off it from drop auctions, backorders, commission and parked page revenue."
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Michael
Berkens |
About GoDaddy
Berkens added, "Most of their business comes from outside the domainer
community... when you got non-domainers (who go) to the site and see domains with famous trademarks for sale at big prices, how many of them think
it's OK to register and own such names? We will never
know, but my guess is some. Some people will see a name like
DisneyStudio.com for sale for 50K and register some infringing names of their own, not knowing anything is wrong with it, especially when they see the name advertised on a site that just advertised on the
Super Bowl."
Some aftermarket
venues like those operated by Moniker.com
and Fabulous.com strive to keep TM
domains off their sites. That is the wise way to
go as a |
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flurry of trademark
lawsuits clearly illustrates. Earlier this month
Verizon filed a lawsuit against Navigation
Catalyst Systems (NCS) alleging wholesale
infringement, but in an interesting turnabout,
NCS has now filed a counter suit against Verizon
claiming they they are cyber squatters
too. They have a point as Verizon operates a DNS
wild card system that allows them to profit from
typos of trademarked terms entered through their
ISP service. There is a thread about this
donnybrook at the DomainState
forum and one of their senior members, George
Kirikos, has also posted all of the relevant
legal documents on his site.
It's clear that there are |
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bad actors
on both sides of the playing field, a
fact tidily summed up by noted attorney John
Berryhill who wrote in the thread
referenced above "These suits are
simply jousting matches between two
different gangs of pirates."
Still, it
is individuals and companies in the
domain industry who are under the
greatest scrutiny. The fact that so many
continue to put themselves at great risk
through ownership and marketing of
clearly infringing domains is baffling.
It would be one thing if they were
hurting only themselves, but today those
who play by the rules are also harmed by
stereotyping of the whole industry due
to rampant TM abuse. That being the
case, it's little wonder that more and
more of the white hat operators are
calling on their less fastidious peers
to clean up their portfolios. |
John
Berryhill |
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(Posted
May
27, 2008) |
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