News
ICANN names Cyrus Namazi VP of GDD
Namazi to take over Akram Atallah’s role.
Cyrus Namazi. Photo from LinkedIn profile.
ICANN has appointed Cyrus Namazi as the Senior Vice President of the Global Domains Division (GDD). It’s a new title that replaces the President role that Akram Atallah held at ICANN before he left to be CEO of Donuts.Namazi has been filling in as ICANN searched for a replacement, so now he’s officially the replacement (just with a different title). He will report to ICANN President and CEO Göran Marby.
The GDD was created in 2013 as ICANN geared up for new top level domain names.
Namazi joined ICANN in 2013. He has served as the Vice President of the group’s Domain Name Services & Industry Engagement activities.
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Uniregistry makes Whois opt-in
New Cayman Islands law forces Uniregistry to change Whois policy.
Domain name registrar Uniregistry is making the publication of Whois data opt-in for registrants.
The move is in response to a new Cayman Islands Data Protection Law. Think of it as the Cayman Islands’ version of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
Many of Uniregistry’s clients are domain name investors who want their information disclosed in Whois and they will be able to opt-in to doing this.
Technically, ICANN requires all registrars to provide a way for their customers to opt-in to have their information published in Whois but few have enabled this capability.
For domains with masked Whois records, Uniregistry will provide a form for people to contact the domain owner.
Most (but not all) other big domain name registrars began masking Whois data carte blanche after GDPR went into effect in May even though the law doesn’t cover non-EU citizen/resident data.
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Nelson Mandela Foundation wants Mandela.org domain name
Organization files cybersquatting complaint under UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization.
Nelson Mandela Foundation Trust has filed a cybersquatting complaint against the domain name Mandela.org.
The organization was established in 1999 when Nelson Mandela stepped down as President of South Africa. It was created for Mandela to do charitable work such as building schools, HIV/AIDS work and research. It now also handles the legacy of Mandela.
It uses the domain name NelsonMandela.org.
A Brazilian man owns Mandela.org. Prior to that, the domain name was owned by domain name investment company Internet REIT.
For a long time Mandela.org has resolved to a scarcely populated website that says it is under construction.
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End user domain name sales up to £30,000
A German telecom company, tire distributor, and a Mexican paint brand bought domains last week.
This week’s top end user sale has an unknown buyer, but we will surely find out their identity soon. In addition to .com many ccTLDs made their way to the list: .de, .co, .ch and .it
Here are some end user sales from Sedo last week. You can view previous lists like this here.
DuoBank.com £30,000 – The Whois changed from someone in Korea to Scalar IT, a CDW company. I assume that’s outsourced IT for the buyer. When I search ‘duo bank’ I get a result for an investment firm that uses DuoBank.com.br.
Berel.com $8,200 – A Mexican paint brand and manufacturer.
Heuro.com €4,800 – Forwards to Heuro.ca, a Canadian resource and treatment program provider for those suffering from a brain injury.
Toniton.com $4,300 – Brand protection company Brimondo bought this domain name, ostensibly for a client.
CashOnly.com $4,000 – The domain name forwards to StaffOnly.com, which says “We help startups turn ideas into compelling products.”
Cannaflower.com $3,888 – Forwards to BerkshireCBD.com, a wholesale distributor of hemp flower plants.
MyBoardingHouse.de €3,750 – Forwards to MyBoardinghouse.net, a German apartment rental listing site.
Hiring.co $3,553 – Great keyword domain in development as a job listing site for the New York City area. Currently, they’re only showcasing security jobs but it’s hard to tell if that will be their sole focus.
3imedia.com $3,500 – Forwards to 3imedia.de/de/ – a German Telecom Firm that now owns the .Com of their domain.
Doc-Doc.com $3,300 – A Spanish language online portal and app of professional doctors available by chat, video consultations and home visits.
Kirchenaustritt.ch €2,990 – Forwards to mgqrmryww.cyon.link, which appears to be a template in development. It translates to roughly “leaving the church” in German.
Fritzreifen.com $2,500- Forwards to Fritzreifen.de, which has a literal translation of “Fritz tires” and is a German distributor of motorcycle and various types of commercial vehicle tires.
CorsoTrading.it €2,100 – MoSEO SrlS is an Italian web developer and SEO company. Its address is Corso Roselli, so this might be a domain for one of its clients or a project it is building.
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Two thoughts from GoDaddy’s conference call yesterday
GoDaddy execs comment on WordPress and the domain aftermarket.
GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) released Q4 2018 and full-year earnings yesterday and held its investor conference call.
Two things in the call stood out to me.
First, the company discussed continued progress on GoCentral and its growth in managed WordPress.
GoCentral is GoDaddy’s homegrown website builder. It’s designed to be extremely easy for any type of business to start a website. I’ve tested the product and it’s definitely an easy way for a restaurant, mechanic, or any of hundreds of other types of businesses to create a web presence quickly and without the help of a developer.
On the call, GoDaddy CEO Scott Wagner noted, “Our Managed WordPress offering automates the entire process of starting and maintaining a secure WordPress website, which saves our customers literally hours of work, frustration and distraction.”
Later, in response to an analyst’s question, he said (quoted from SeekingAlpha transcript):
The biggest issues with WordPress, if you are working and using on it, are plug-in maintenance and overall security and just the level of time and attention that it takes to actually run that. Look, our managed platform, managed WordPress platform, totally automates and simplifies that process and we are making it easier and easier and easier. And so the feature improvement is both security layer, but more importantly, on app plug-in and theme updates to just make it super easy for performance and reliability. So I think you are seeing it not just for pros, but also for pros handing sites like that off to individuals or small businesses that are managing it for themselves.
I think that starting a WordPress website is something in which GoDaddy really shines. It uses onboarding wizards similar to GoCentral to get you started quickly. I’ve used WordPress since 2005 and, despite all the improvements in the platform, still find it hard to spin up a site with a good design. It’s much, much easier with GoDaddy.
Wagner noted that GoDaddy is now the largest host of paid WordPress instances.
One future opportunity for GoDaddy is to help companies make the leap from GoCentral to managed WordPress. GoCentral is a good product and will meet many companies’ needs. Over time, though, they might want to get the flexibility of WordPress. It would be very powerful to have a one-click migration from CoCentral to managed WordPress.
Dreamhost is doing this to a degree with its Remixer product. Remixer is a much simpler website builder, though.
The other thing on the call that caught my attention was CFO Ray Winborne’s comment on the domain aftermarket:
For the first quarter, we expect revenue of $705 million to $715 million, representing 11% to 13% growth versus the first quarter of 2018, as we began to lap the gains from changes in merchandising of aftermarket domain sales in early 2018.
This reconfirms that GoDaddy saw a marked improvement to aftermarket domain sales when it changed how it presented premium domains in domain search results. At NamesCon this year, GoDaddy GM Paul Nicks said conversions increased 30% with this change. It apparently had a material impact on GoDaddy’s revenue. I think there’s other low-hanging fruit here that GoDaddy can tap in 2019.
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GoDaddy tops $3 billion bookings in 2018
Company crosses milestone as growth continues.
GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) released Q4 2018 and full-year earnings today after the market closed.
The company crossed $3 billion in bookings in 2018, coming in at $3.01 billion, up 15.0% from 2017.
Revenue was $2.23 billion, up 19.2%. GoDaddy expects slower revenue growth in 2019, targeting 12-13%.
Domain name revenue in Q4 was $314.3 million, up 11.6% from $281.6 million in the same quarter of 2018. For the year, domain revenue was $1.22 billion.
The company ended 2018 with 18.5 million customers.
Subscriptions to web presence products, including GoCentral and managed WordPress, were up 40%.
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Wix hits 4 million paid subscribers
Company adds 147k net paying subscribers during Q4.
Website building system Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) (Wix review) reported earnings and subscriber numbers today.
The company added a net 147,000 premiums subscriptions in Q4, reaching 4.0 million overall (rounded). That’s 24% growth in subscriptions compared to the end of 2017.
Wix also added 5.9 million registered users in the fourth quarter, bringing the total to 142 million. In other words, about 3% of registered users are paying subscribers.
Q4 revenue was $164.2 million, up 39% year-over-year. Collections (e.g. cash receipts) hit $176.1 million, up 33%.
For the year, revenue was $603.7 million, up 42%. Collections were $658,385, up 36%.
The company forecasts $755 million – $761 million in revenue during 2019 and collections of $817 million – $827 million.
Shares were down over 10% following the earnings release.
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ISP files lawsuit to recover Inch.com domain name
Company alleges that Inch.com and Siteline.com are stolen.
A New York internet service provider has filed a lawsuit (pdf) to recover Inch.com and Siteline.com, which it says are stolen domain names that the company registered in 1995.
Internet Channel Corp. filed the in rem lawsuit in Virginia last week. It notes that Inch.com still resolves to a website about its business.
The domains have an interesting history. The historical Whois records at DomainTools change from Internet Channel to Thorn Communications in 2006.
I can’t find much information about Thorn Communications, but a Yelp review states that the company is non-responsive. The phone number on its website doesn’t work. And the company’s landlord won a judgment against it.
Thorn is an outsourced IT shop, so these domains might be stuck in limbo.
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.Inc domains will be about $60,000 at Early Access
Start a purchase order if you want to buy a .Inc domain in April.
Yesterday was day one of early access for .Dev domain names. I watched with amusement as Google’s Ben McIlwain (podcast) responded to complaints on twitter about the $10,000+ price tag. He explained that it was a Dutch auction and they should just wait a few days to buy the domains at lower prices.
If people were startled by .Dev’s early access prices, wait until they hear about .Inc.
Early access for .inc starts on April 30, but you’ll need to raise your credit card limit to participate. Expect to pay about $60,000 (not a typo) to get a .inc domain on day one. That drops a few thousand dollars on the second day. Wait until day 3 to pay about $30,000. The final day is still in the $6,000 neighborhood.
.Inc will always have a premium price tag, even in general availability. Retail prices will be about $2,000 per year.
I assume the value in these domains is for companies with common names that could be registered by someone else. I doubt cybersquatting will be a big problem; I don’t know many cybersquatters who will risk $2,000 on these names.
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Google’s .Dev domains are now available…for a hefty price
Wealthy developers can get a .Dev domain today. Others should wait until next week.
Today is the first day that non-trademark holders can register domain names ending in .Dev.
Google is releasing the domain name in Early Access today. The Dutch-auction style phase started at 4:00PM UTC.
On the first day, expect to pay over $10,000 for the right to register a .dev domain. This drops to roughly $3,000 tomorrow and under $200 on Monday.
General availability begins February 28. Expect to pay around $10-$15 retail for .dev domains that Google has not marked as premium.
Google’s .app domain took off like a rocket ship last year and there are now more than 350,000 .app domains registered.
.Dev looks like it won’t be quite the same juggernaut. Sunrise trademark registrations appear to be lower than .app.
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Tucows releases “Tiered Access” Whois request data
2,100 requests for Whois data so far.
Most Whois data requests are related to trademark infringement.
Domain name registrar Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) released data today about requests for Whois information under its tiered access program.
The company started the program following the implementation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Policy (GDPR) last year. At that time, Tucows masked Whois records for all domain names on its platform.
People could still ask for Whois data through an online platform.
The company, which has over 20 million domains under management, said it has received 2,100 data access requests since starting the tiered access program in May. 65% of the requests came from a single requestor.
While Tucows didn’t name this company in its blog post, it’s certainly AppDetex on behalf of Facebook, which flooded Tucows with requests timed around ICANN meetings.
Overall, Tucows provided data on 25% of requests including for 21% of AppDetex’s requests.
These numbers don’t tell the whole story. Only about 5% of requests were denied; the other 70% of requests weren’t fulfilled because the requestor didn’t respond to Tucows’ request for more information. So the majority of requestors that provided all the information Tucows wanted got data.
90% of requests came from commercial litigation. This includes the AppDetex requests.
Tucows points out that few requests came from security researchers. (That said, I believe most security researchers use Whois data in bulk to connect the dots, so requesting individual records is not feasible.)
The data don’t include ICANN Compliance requests. Tucows has not given personal registration data in response to any of ICANN’s requests but has been able to help ICANN investigations without disclosing this data, it said.
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WIPO panel says Celgene tried to mislead it in cybersquatting claim
Panel says Celgene left important communications out of filing.
CellGene.com is one letter off from CelGene.com, but that doesn’t make it cybersquatting.
A three-person World Intellectual Property Organization panel has found Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name CellGene.com.
Through an intermediary, Celgene tried to buy the domain name in 2018, 15 years after the domain was registered. The domain owner responded with an asking price of $7,500.
The panel determined that Celgene did not prove that the domain owner lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain name, nor was it registered in bad faith.
It found reverse domain name hijacking because it believes that Celgine tried to mislead it:
…In the Panel’s view, however, there is a more significant issue in the present case, which is that the Complainant has sought to mislead the Panel in accordance with item (iv) in the fourth paragraph of 4.16.
The Complainant claims that it offered the Respondent USD 2,000 for the disputed domain name when it became aware that the Respondent was listing it for sale in September 2018, that the Respondent counteroffered USD 7,500, which was “much more than what the domain should be sold for” and that it was highly likely that the Respondent significantly increased the price when it discovered that the Complainant was interested in the disputed domain name. As mentioned above, the Complainant invoked this counteroffer by the Respondent as evidence that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name in bad faith for the purpose of sale to the Complainant under paragraph 4(b)(i) of the Policy.
In those circumstances, it was incumbent on the Complainant to produce all relevant communications relating to the counteroffer; but it did not do so. The emails included in the factual summary in section 4 above only came to the attention of the Panel at the behest of the Respondent.
Even these emails do not appear to tell the full story, as they include no reference to the initial USD 2,000 offer mentioned by the Complainant. The Panel therefore deduces that this initial offer was made through the Respondent’s website and that, perhaps having received no or an unsatisfactory response, the decision was taken to follow up with the enquiry email of September 11, 2011. Crucially, this email was sent in the name of CSC. It made no mention of the Complainant and indeed gave no indication that CSC was acting for a client rather than on its own behalf (“We are interested in purchasing…”). Thereafter, the Respondent’s broker responded with the counteroffer of USD 7,500.
Accordingly, the communications appear to contradict the Complainant’s version of events and to confirm the Respondent’s assertion that the Complainant never revealed itself in the course of the purchase enquiries. In these circumstances, it is difficult to see how the Complainant can persuasively claim not only that the counteroffer indicated that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name for the purpose of sale to the Complainant but that the Respondent specifically increased its asking price to USD 7,500 when it allegedly discovered that the Complainant was interested in the disputed domain name.
Celgene is a biopharma company that is being acquired by Bristol-Meyers Squibb.
Cozen O’Connor represented Celgene. ESQwire.com represented the domain name owner.
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Verisign’s Annual Report and .com price increases
Verisign’s 10-K gives clues to how it is approaching a .com price increase.
.Com registry Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) published its 2018 annual report on Friday. I reviewed the document to look for information about Verisign’s hopes of raising the price of .com domain names.
Last year the U.S. Department of Commerce and Verisign agreed to Amendment 35 of their Cooperative Agreement. This amendment lifted a ban on price increases in .com that had been in place since the 2012 contract renewal with ICANN. It allows ICANN and Verisign to enter into a contract that would allow Verisign to increase .com prices 7% in each of the last four of each six years of the contract.
Verisign still needs ICANN’s approval to make this happen. So far it seems that Verisign is making two arguments to push this along.
First, that ICANN has historically deferred to the U.S. Department of Commerce on .com pricing.
Second, that its 2016 contract renewal anticipates this possible pricing change and that ICANN should approve it. Here’s language from Verisign’s 10-K:
Following the extension of the .com Registry Agreement on October 20, 2016, the .com Registry Agreement provides that we will continue to be the sole registry operator for domain names in the .com gTLD through November 30, 2024. As part of the extension of the .com Registry Agreement, the Company and ICANN agreed to cooperate and negotiate in good faith to amend the terms of the .com Registry Agreement: (i) by October 20, 2018, to preserve and enhance the security and stability of the internet or the .com TLD, and (ii) as may be necessary for consistency with changes to, or the termination or expiration of, the Cooperative Agreement. ICANN and Verisign are engaged in discussions related to these obligations, including modifying the .com Registry Agreement based on changes to the Cooperative Agreement arising from Amendment 35.
The use of the term obligations here suggests that Verisign will argue to ICANN that it is obliged to allow it to raise rates as allowed under Amendment 35. But take a look at the language in Amendment 35:
Without further approval by the Department, at any time following the Effective Date of this Amendment 35, Verisign and ICANN may agree to amend Section 7.3(d)(i) (Maximum Price) of the .com Registry Agreement to permit Verisign in each of the last four years of every six year period, beginning two years from the Effective Date of this Amendment 35 (i.e., on or after the anniversary of the Effective Date of this Amendment 35 in 2020-2023, 2026-2029, and so on) to increase the Maximum Price charged by Verisign for each yearly registration or renewal of a .com domain name up to seven percent over the highest Maximum Price charged in the previous calendar year.
Note the word “may agree”, not “must agree”.
In the Risk Factors section of the 10-K, Verisign discloses that it might not get the price increases it anticipates:
Modifications or Amendments. In October 2016, the Company and ICANN entered into an amendment to extend the term of the .com Registry Agreement to November 30, 2024 (the “.com Amendment”). As part of the .com Amendment, the Company and ICANN agreed to negotiate in good faith to amend the terms of the .com Registry Agreement: (i) by October 20, 2018, to preserve and enhance the security and stability of the internet or the .com TLD, and (ii) as may be necessary for consistency with changes to, or the termination or expiration of, the Cooperative Agreement. ICANN and Verisign are engaged in discussions to satisfy this obligation including modifying the .com Registry Agreement based on changes to the Cooperative Agreement arising from Amendment 35. We can provide no assurance that any new terms for the .com Registry Agreement that we agree to as a result of these discussions will match the changes permitted in Amendment 35 nor can we provide assurances that certain terms that we agree to will not increase the costs or risks associated with the operation of the .com TLD. Under Amendment 35, standard renewals of the .com Registry Agreement will not require further DOC approval. If, in connection with a renewal of the .com Registry Agreement the Company seeks any additional changes to the pricing section other than as approved in Amendment 35, changes to the vertical integration provisions, the functional or performance specifications (including the SLAs), the conditions for renewal or termination, or to the Whois service, as set forth in the Amendment 35, DOC approval is required. We can provide no assurances that such approval would be obtained.
Although we can’t be sure, I suspect Verisign is pushing ICANN on the idea of there being an obligation to match the price increases in Amendment 35. If ICANN resists, this will get very interesting.
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American University to host domain name IP discussion
Event brings together ICANN, IP interests and EFF.
American University will hold an event on Monday, February 25 to talk about Intellectual Property protection and new top level domain names.
Participants include representatives of ICANN, brand protection domain name registrars, universities and Electronic Frontier Foundation.
There will be two panels. The first will be about IP protection in new top level domains. The second is titled “Walled Gardens: Should gTLDs Become Private Platforms?”
Attendance is free but guests must register online. (Select event: 2019-02-25 – ICANN and New Top-Level Domains).
The event is sponsored by American University Washington College of Law, American University School of Communications, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, and Internet Governance Lab.
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Blockchain and Domain Names – DNW Podcast #224
How can domain names and blockchain technology together?
Is there an opportunity for domain names and blockchain technology? This week’s guest helps separate hype from reality. Matthew Gould is founder of Unstoppable Domains, a company marrying domain names and blockchain. Learn if this nascent idea has legs and what it could mean for you.
Also: Blockchain.io scuffle, Tucows/GoDaddy deal and the cobbler and the internet.
This week’s sponsor: DNAcademy (use code DNW for $50 off)
Subscribe via iTunes to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, view on Google Play Music, or click play above or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)
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Executive changes at GoDaddy
Four notable changes at GoDaddy.
GoDaddy Chief Marketing Officer, Fara Howard
GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY) announced several executive changes before the weekend.
Steven Aldrich, Chief Product Officer, is stepping down effective the end of February.
Arne M. Josefsberg, Executive Vice President, Chief Infrastructure Officer and Chief Information Officer, is retiring at the end of June.
The company promoted Andrew N. Low Ah Kee from Chief Revenue Officer to Chief Operating Officer as of February 25.
Finally, Fara Howard has joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer. Howard was previously the Chief Marketing Officer at Amazon Fashion.
Barb Rechterman, one of the earliest employees at GoDaddy, had been in the CMO position.
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Bad Karma: Reverse domain name hijacking in Karma.com case
An ironic finding in Karma.com UDRP.
Karma is….a company being found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking for the domain Karma.com while being represented by a lawyer who is also a UDRP panelist.
Karma International, LLC filed a UDRP against Karma.com and struck out on all three counts. The panel found that it didn’t show that the domain was confusingly similar to a mark in which it has rights, nor that the domain owner lacked a legitimate interest in the domain, nor that he registered it in bad faith.
That’s a rare trifecta.
The case is rather stunning. The Complainant tried to buy the domain name in 2009 and failed. Ten years later it followed up with a UDRP.
The domain owner registered the domain way back in 1994.
In other words, this was a dead-on-arrival case.
In finding reverse domain name hijacking, the three-person National Arbitration Forum panel wrote:
…The Panel is in agreement with Respondent’s submissions and finds, on any construction of the facts, that Complainant knew or should have known that it was unable to prove its Complaint. The explicit claims to bad faith registration and use made in the Complaint are largely specious and the accusations levelled at Respondent are groundless and malicious.
This is not the picture of an assiduous infringer slowly engineering the downfall of the rightful trademark owner. Indeed, on one construction of the evidence, it could be said that the Complaint was the design of a party disappointed by its failure, ten years ago, to secure the purchase of the domain name, who has turned the Policy against Respondent, indifferent to the integrity of that party.
Karma International was represented by Kristin Kosinski of Cislo & Thomas LLP. According to her bio, she is a panelist for National Arbitration Forum. I cannot find any cases she has heard as a panelist, and perhaps it’s best that she not decide cases given filing an RDNH case.
The domain name owner was represented by David Weslow of Wiley Rein LLP.
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Dialoga Servicios Interactivos, S.A. tries reverse domain name hijacking
Company mistakenly included internal communications about bad faith in its submission.
Dialoga Servicios Interactivos, S.A. of Spain has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name Dialoga.com.
The company filed a UDRP against the domain name in 2017 and lost. That domain registrant let the domain expire and a domain investor bought it. Dialoga tried to buy the domain from the domain investor and ultimately filed another UDRP.
Two things were problematic for the Complainant. First, dialoga is a dictionary word in at least three major languages.
Second, the Complainant appears to have accidentally included internal communications about its intent in inquiring about buying the domain name. The communications suggest that it had an ulterior motive in its purchase inquiry:
In an internal communication in Spanish whose contents appear to have been inadvertently reproduced by the Complainant in the evidence submitted with the Complaint, and which has been translated by the Respondent, the Complainant proposes to call the Respondent and indicate that it is only interested in a purchase of the disputed domain name and would offer EUR 1,500. The Complainant notes that “the idea is to get them to imply that they will then do something else with it… something we can hold on to in order to prove bad faith on his part…”
Whoops.
LetsLaw represented the Complainant. Muscovitch Law P.C. represented the Respondent.
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How to turn your Gmail address into more addresses (and why)
If you have a Gmail account you really have unlimited email addresses.
If you use Gmail, did you know that you actually have unlimited email addresses you can use? The secret is the + symbol.
Let’s say your email address is me@gmail.com. By adding a plus symbol after ‘me’ you can create unlimited variations of your email address and all will be delivered to your inbox. For example:
me+1@gmail.com
me+bank@gmail.com
me+whois@gmail.com
These will all be delivered to the me@gmail.com account.
Here are reasons you might want to use email variations using the plus symbol.
1. Filter your Gmail.
Get a lot of newsletters? Want to send certain emails directly to the archive? Use unique email addresses in combination with filters to sort your email.
2. Track Whois harvesting.
Use your Gmail account +whois for your Whois records to see who is contacting you by harvesting the Whois database.
3. See who is selling your address.
Use a unique email address for each account/login you create online to see if the business is selling your email address.
4. Reduce phishing attempts.
Use a unique identifier for each account you create to make sure you aren’t getting phished. For example, your bank email could be me+wellsfargo@gmail.com. If you get a message from Wells Fargo that uses just me@gmail.com instead of me+wellsfargo@gmail.com, then someone has harvested your email address and might be trying to trick you.
5. Reduce the chances of hacks impacting your accounts.
When hackers steal credentials from a service they then sell this information to people who run scripts to use the username/email and password combos to break into more accounts at other providers. If you use a unique email address for each service then they will be less likely to get into your other accounts.
The only problem I’ve run into using + symbols is that some web forms won’t accept the symbol and won’t accept it as a valid email address.
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Wow, this WIPO panelist should have considered RDNH
This sure seems like an abuse of policy to me.
I just read the decision in a UDRP for SecretLab.com and TheSecretLab.com and I’m flumoxed as to why WIPO panelist Clive L. Elliott didn’t consider reverse domain name hijacking. The Respondent might not have asked for it, but Elliott still should have considered it.
1. The Respondent registered the domain names some 16 years before the Complainant existed.
2. The Complainant offered $20,000 for the domains before filing the UDRP.
3. According to the respondent, “Complainant contacted Respondent after the commencement of this proceeding and indicated that the proceeding was instituted to help Complainant gain leverage in its efforts to buy the Domain Names.”
That’s an abuse of policy if I’ve ever seen one. I mean, check out this part of the Complainant’s argument:
Complainant considers Respondent has registered and is continuing to hold and use the Domain Names in bad faith, having not used the Domain Names for over 20 years, and with the specific intent to take advantage of inadvertent mistakes by the Internet.
Complainant goes on to assert that there is no evidence that the Domain Names have been used in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services, and nor is Respondent making a legitimate noncommercial nor fair use of the Domain Names.
Complainant submits that this disrupts Complainant’s business and frustrates Complainant’s customers, or potential customers, who, not realising their mistake, are apt to blame Complainant for not having the web presence they expected when they reach the landing page.
This is a classic case of a company wanting to get domain names that were registered before it existed. It tried to buy them but got frustrated and filed a UDRP.
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