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That expired domain you bought might come with a PayPal account
Domains connect to email which connect to…all sorts of things.
Domain name investors know that domain names get all sorts of misdirected email. Your .com email address might get email intended for the matching .org domain. The expired domain you acquire might receive email intended for the previous owner.
Those email accounts might be connected to financial services, too.
The Register wrote this week about someone who acquired an expired domain that was attached to a PayPal account. For months, the domain owner received PayPal statements, password reset notices, and other alerts from the PayPal account. He was also able to get into the account by doing a password reset.
PayPal didn’t seem to care or know what to do about it until The Register wrote about the issue.
Even people who don’t own a domain name can face the plight of email intended for someone else. It happens to my Gmail address all of the time.
One particularly frustrating example is when someone signed up for the SAT using my email address. I received score alerts for the person and couldn’t figure out a way to let them know. More frustratingly, I have now received about 100 emails from various colleges inviting this person to apply or visit an open house.
I was able to notify the student’s mother by doing a password reset on the account and finding a parent email address listed in the account that I used to contact her. Still, my email address is registered with many of the universities.
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Sedo removes appraisal requirement on $50k+ domains
$99 appraisal no longer required to list domains for high prices.
Domain name marketplace Sedo has removed its requirement to purchase an appraisal before listing a domain for over 49,999$/€/GBP.
Previously, sellers had to pay for an appraisal to confirm the value before listing a domain with a buy now or make offer (with asking price) above this threshold. This would also apply to domains with a fixed price that were included in SedoMLS.
Sellers could always reply to a make offer inquiry with a price above $50,000, but they couldn’t list that as the initial price without first getting an appraisal from Sedo. The company charges $99 for an appraisal.
Now, sellers can ask whatever they want without going through the time and expense of an appraisal.
Sedo is on a roll making seller-friendly changes. Earlier this year, it dropped its minimum commission on domain sales and lowered minimum sales amounts from $90 to $20, making it easier to sell low-priced domains. (I bought a domain on the platform for $30 last week.)
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MIT’s Scratch Foundation gets Scratch.org in settlement
Owner of Scratch.org domain name transfers it to non-profit as part of settlement.
Scratch.org now forwards to scratch.mit.edu.
Scratch Foundation has settled a cybersquatting lawsuit it brought against the domain name Scratch.org with the domain’s registrant, Ravi Lahoti.
Although full terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed, part of the agreement involved transferring the domain to Scratch Foundation. Scratch.org now forwards to the foundation’s website at scratch.mit.edu.
Previously, Lahoti was in discussions to settle the case by transferring the domain name for $20,000. That settlement didn’t go through.
After the previous settlement failed, the judge overseeing the case ordered Lahoti to provide extensive information about his domain name activities including a list of all domains he ever owned, how much money he made from each domains, and any allegations of trademark infringement made against him. Oh, and this information would be public!
That apparently sent Lahoti back to the negotiating table.
Lahoti registered the domain name well before Scratch Foundation existed, so his ownership of the domain name does not run afoul of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. However, the judge certainly didn’t approve of some of Lahoti’s alleged prior behavior, prompting his approval of the request for data and to make it public.
The settlement notice says that both parties will pay their own legal fees in the matter.
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Direct visits driving demand for domains in China
Kassey Lee reviews data about how people in China visit websites.
I often hear that domains are no longer relevant because consumers simply go to their search engines for anything they want to find. This, if true, must be detrimental to domain investment. Unfortunately, I could not find much data to support or reject this idea – except in China.
Baidu collects visitor data of more than 1.5 million websites every month since 2012. Based on this data, I have created the following table to give you a big picture of how Chinese consumers access websites.
According to Baidu, website visitors may arrive using one of the following methods.
Direct visit: Visitors explicitly specify a domain in the browser.
Referral: Visitors arrive via a link from another website.
Search engine: Visitors arrive via a search engine.
Directory: Visitors arrive via a directory of websites.
Social media: Visitors arrive via social media such as WeChat.
As you can see, direct visit accounts for the largest share of web traffic in China. It has also been increasing — from 39% in 2012 to 45% last year. Search engine is doing well too, rising from 27% to 30%. Referral, on the other hand, is trending down. Finally, directory and social media can be ignored because they each account for less than 1% of web traffic.
Focusing on direct visit, it shows that Chinese consumers remember and specify domains in a browser to visit websites. This implies that domains that are easy to remember are important. What are the characteristics of such domains? Short, meaningful, memorable – and on .com extension, which is king in corporate China.
Examples can be found in the 10 listed companies covered by the latest “2019 Q2 Performance of Listed Internet Companies in China” report (2019年二季度我国互联网上市企业运行情况): Alibaba (Alibaba.com), Tencent Holding (Tencent.com), Meituan (Meituan.com), Jing Dong (JD.com), Baidu (Baidu.com), Netease (Netease.com), Tencent Music (TencentMusic.com), Pinduoduo (Pinduoduo.com), 360 Total Security (360.com), and Ctrip.com International (Ctrip.com). They all own their brand-matching .com domains.
Big brands understand this consumer behavior and so the importance of domains. Therefore, they are willing to invest a lot in domains. For example, Jing Dong shelled out $5 million for JD.com and 360 Total Security reportedly paid $17 million for 360.com. A few months ago, Hong Kong-based blockchain startup Block.One stunned the domain market with a $30 million purchase of Voice.com. Corporate China is ready for expensive domains.
In summary, direct visit by Chinese consumers will continue to drive demand for domains, and so memorable brand-matching .com domains will do very well in China.
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Oops. If you don’t renew your domain name, this could happen
A government watchdog let its domain name expire. Someone advocating for the other side registered it.
The new message at citizensforabetterkenner.com is in stark contrast to the old one.
An advocacy group in the city of Kenner, Louisiana let its domain name expire. Now someone in opposition to the group is using the domain.
Citizens for a Better Kenner, Inc., is a non-profit watchdog of the local government. It registered the domain name CitizensforaBetterKenner.com in 2011 to promote its cause.
Then, apparently earlier this year, it let the domain name expire. Someone with a very different message registered the domain. The website now has the message:
Thank you to Mayor Zahn, the Kenner City Council, and Chief Glaser for doing an excellent job keeping our city moving in the right direction in 2019.
The overwhelming volume of Kenner residents appreciates what you do!
In a lawsuit (pdf) filed to try to recover the domain (as well as the matching .net and .org) and get damages, Citizens for a Better Kenner states that “The opinions and content as currently displayed on the website are in stark contrast to the actual opinions of the actual CFBK.”
The non-profit alleges that the new owner of the domain is cybersquatting and has “a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill created over eight (8) years by CFBK.”
The group might have trouble proving this. It does not appear that the current owner has a profit motive. It simply appears to be exercising its own free speech with the “opinions and content,” which may be a plausible defense in the case.
Granted, it may not be clear to people when they visit the website.
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Boeing registers domain names about 737 Max
Aerospace company registers domains to provide information about the return of the 737 Max.
The 737 Max has been grounded since March. Picture courtesy Boeing.
Embattled aerospace company Boeing (NYSE: BA) has registered a handful of domain names about its troubled 737 Max airplane. Boeing has been providing regular updates about its progress getting the 737 Max back into the skies at www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-update.page. One of the following domain names would certainly make it easier for people to find this information.
This week, the company registered:
- 737maxupdate.com, .net .org
- 737maxupdates.com, .net, .org
- 737update.com, .net, .org
- 737updates.com, .net, .org
As of this morning, the domain names point to Boeing’s nameservers but none of the domain names resolve to websites.
The 737 Max has been grounded since March after the second fatal crash involving the plane.
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Categories: Domains
Clemson Tigers get off-field win in domain name dispute
Tigers score domain name in cybersquatting challenge.
The Clemson Tigers are having another great year on the football field, and now they have an off-field victory as well. This win took place at World Intellectual Property Organization.
Clemson University has won a cybersquatting dispute under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) for the domain name ClemsonUniversity(.)org. With the victory, Clemson will get the domain name in about 10 days.
Interestingly, Clemson doesn’t own ClemsonUniversity(.)com but hasn’t filed a cybersquatting complaint against that domain.
Both domains should concern the university. When I visited ClemsonUniversity(.)org today, Norton blocked my visit saying that it had the RIG Exploit Kit. The domain currently points to the Above.com nameservers, which means it’s pointing somewhere else from there and is likely serving zero-click ads that forward to various destinations.
ClemsonUniversity(.)com also resolves to zero-click, which means visitors are sometimes exposed to scammy websites. When I visited this morning, it tried to install a Google Chrome extension.
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16 end user domain sales up to £42,500
A sustainable coffee producer, delivery app and video game maker bought domain names.
Sedo’s top end user sale of the week was Sudoku.net for £42,500. It’s surprising to see .net top the list, and it’s also surprising to see a .co.uk domain come in at #2.
Here’s a look at recent end users sales at Sedo. See prior end user lists here.
Sudoku.net £42,500 – An online sudoku puzzle website operator bought the domain.
Tide.co.uk £35,400 – The domain forwards to Tide.co, a business credit card company.
Grab.ai $12,500- GrabTaxi Holdings offers deliveries and transport via app request. It also owns the domain Grab.com.
Salv.com $10,000 – A new anti-money laundering, crime-fighting platform for financial companies.
Campings.be €9,990 – The same company that bought Campings.se for €4,000 earlier this year.
PureLifeFoods.com $8,888 – This domain was purchased by Mayorga Coffee, a sustainable coffee company.
BuyDo.com $6,995 – This is an ecommerce store selling electronics and fashion goods. Phonetically, it’s a lot like Baidu, isn’t it?
Atropa.com €6,595 – Forwards to Atropa.at. This new .com domain was purchased by Atropa Wellness, an Austrian wellness services provider focused on infrared saunas.
CloverGames.com $5,500 – Clover Games is a Korean video game maker.
UKDE.com €5,000 – The company’s website is still under development but it might offer financial services.
Panq.com $4,650 – A Netherlands-based software company service called Panq uses the domain name Panq.nl. It assists app developers in optimizing their offerings such as reducing the load times to increase engagement.
Probe.fr €2,300 – A French storage locker/cabinet maker called Probe.
Copter.io $2,200 – Lots of games use .io, and this is used by a game called Copter.io.
CureAmerica.org $2,112 – Purchased by Cure Violence Global, a nonprofit group with the mission statement “A World Without Violence”. It supports initiatives to aid in preventing the spread of violence by using the methods and strategies associated with disease control.
CompareISAs.com £2,000- A comparison site for ISA, which is a British term for Individual Savings Accounts.
TAF.us $2,000 – The Athlete’s foot shoeseller.
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A sock company, game store and more bought domains at Uniregistry
Here are some of the companies that bought domains at Uniregistry this week.
This Australian sock seller picked the domain name NoveltySocks.com for its website.
Would a gaming shop in Bentonville, Arkansas pay $10,000 for a domain name so that it could move is online presence from just a Facebook page to an actual website? It appears so.
It’s just one of the end users that bought domain names at Uniregistry this past week.
Here’s what I could find about the top 20 domains that sold at the marketplace:
1. extasy.com $18,000 – The domain has Whois privacy. This is another spelling of the drug ecstasy.
2. mytips.com $17,000 – Another domain with Whois privacy that doesn’t resolve yet.
3. ohne.com $15,000 – OHNE, which uses Ohne.co, bought the domain and forwards it to the .co domain. The company sells products for womens’ periods.
4. plantastic.com $12,000 – I believe the buyer is Premier Foods, which recently launched a product line called Plantastic.
5. earlyedition.com $10,500 – Whois privacy and no indications about the buyer.
6. wig.ca $10,000 – The domain may be for Canada, but it was bought by someone in Texas. Other than that, we don’t know much about the buyer.
7. geargaming.com $10,000 – It appears that a gaming store in Arkansas is upgrading from Facebook to a website.
8. stockauto.com $9,000 – The buyer also runs a site at OldsParts.com with Oldsmobile car parts.
9. houst.com $8,200 – This appears to be a play on the word “host”, as in Airbnb hosts. It forwards to Airsorted, a business that helps short-term rental hosts manage their homes.
10. LL9.com $8,000 – The domain is at GoDaddy using Whois privacy.
11. gotosea.com $8,000 – Whois shows the buyer is in Washington DC.
12. eaglex.com – $7,600 – This is likely related to a cryptocurrency project called Eagle Project.
13. noveltysocks.com $5,200 – What will you find on this website? Yep, socks.
14. screensource.com $5,000 – Whois reveals that the buyer is a German company, but that’s all we have to work on for now.
15. pantechnicon.com $5,000 – It seems that a new London restaurant called Pantechicon bought the domain. It uses the domain ThePantechnicon.com.
16. aceauto.co.uk $3,900 – I can’t figure out anything about the buyer.
17. freebooksummaries.com $3,500 – Whois shows a buyer in Oslo but nothing else.
18. hairycellleukemia.com $3,500 – Hairy Cell Leukemia is a rare type of cancer. I don’t know who bought the domain.
19. kitun.com $3,500 – Chicago entrepreneur Scott Kitun bought the domain for his website.
20. bimcollaboration.com $2,393 – It has Whois privacy and resolves to a registrar holding page.
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Lotto.com and Naturals.com hit with cybersquatting complaints
Two valuable dictionary word domains are subject to UDRP filings.
A chain of beauty salons in India that uses the domain Naturals.in is trying to get Naturals.com through UDRP.
After publishing my story this morning about the fight between a lotto company and Lotto Sport, a reader pointed out that Lotto.com was recently hit with a UDRP. It’s not the only recent filing against a valuable dictionary term domain name.
For Lotto.com, the case was filed by Bremer Toto und Lotto GmbH. The company uses the domain name lotto-bremen.de. I’m not sure how lotteries work in Germany, so perhaps a reader can chime in with information on if this is a local lotto or some sort of national lottery in Germany.
The domain is registered to a company called Cavour Ltd. based in Isle of Man.
The second domain that caught my attention is Naturals.com. WIPO shows the Complainant to be Veena Kumaravel, an entrepreneur with a chain of 550 beauty salons in India that use the name Naturals. The company uses the domain Naturals.in.
The domain is registered to Daegu Law Auction in Korea.
[Update: Elliot Silver has more info on Naturals.com]
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Lotto Sport Italia and lotto company file dueling motions for summary judgment
Did a lotto company buy domains for its business or to cyber squat?
A battle over lotto-related domain names is about two-and-a-half years old, and it’s entering a critical period.
Lotto Sport Italia, the soccer apparel company, filed a cybersquatting dispute under UDRP against the domain names LottoStore.com and LottoWorks.com at the beginning of 2017.
The domain names were purchased by a Canadian man who runs a lotto (as in gambling) business. David Dent acquired lottostore.com in September 2016 for $4,820 and then purchased lottoworks.com in December 2016 for $6,500.
Lotto Sport won the UDRP. My take at the time was that this was an end user purchase of lotto-related domain names for a lotto business, but that Dent was not represented well in the UDRP response.
Dent sued to stop the transfer. Now, over two years later, both parties have filed motions for summary judgment in the case.
Will either party prevail in their motions? It’s difficult to say, but looking at this case from the outside, I belive my original supposition was correct: a lotto business bought domain names with the word lotto in them to operate its lotto business. It had no intention of infringing the rights of a soccer apparel company. It strains credulity to suggest otherwise.
We’ll see what the judge has to say.
The soccer company is represented by Marc Randazza. Its motion is here.
The lotto company is represented by John Berryhill and Jeffrey Johnson of Schmeiser, Olsen & Watts. Its motion is here.
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Lawyer labels domain investing “Anticipatory Cybersquatting”
Article published by ABA could lead trademark holders astray.
I was doing some research this weekend when I came across an article published by American Bar Association in June. The article by Tamara Kurtzman, a California attorney, rails against the practice of buying domain names for future sale to companies that may want to use them. Kurtzman calls this “anticipatory cybersquatting.”
Kurtzman blames people registering domains that might someday be similar to trademarks for causing a “frustration of corporate opportunity.”
She notes that not all of this activity is bad, though.
It is important to note, however, that not all instances of anticipatory cybersquatting quash legitimate business opportunity. Specifically, as the harms associated with this practice derive primarily from an interference with a trademark holder’s trademark rights, the registration of domain names that cannot be trademarks in the first place (such as generic terms) do not compromise corporate opportunity.
Aren’t most trademarks made up of “generic” terms?
Kurtzman explains that the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) doesn’t effectively counter “ancticipatory cybersquatting” because the trademark has to be distinctive or famous at the time the domain is registered.
She contrasts this with UDRP, in which she makes a startling statement:
Although the UDRP does not directly prohibit anticipatory cybersquatting, it is currently the preferable means of extricating a domain name from anticipatory cybersquatters in many circumstances. Unlike the ACPA, the UDRP does not require that the domain name at issue be distinctive or famous at the time of registration. As such, even holders of after-acquired trademark rights may seek relief under the UDRP.
The UDRP specifically states that the domain must have been “registered and used in bad faith”. So if it was registered before the Complainant had a trademark, then it’s not a case subject to transfer under UDRP because it couldn’t have been registered in bad faith to target the new trademark holder.
Kurtzman clarifies:
In light of these largely ineffective efforts, UDRP panels have been increasingly broadening their interpretations of the bad-faith UDRP element in order to find against anticipatory cybersquatters. Specifically, administrative panels increasingly are willing to rule that, even though a trademark holder may have acquired trademark rights after the registration of a domain name, action by the domain registrant that seeks to take advantage of a complainant’s goodwill in its mark is sufficient to constitute bad faith under the UDRP. Similarly, UDRP panels increasingly have been willing to find that website inactivity (a respondent’s passive holding of the domain) is evidence of bad-faith use and registration in that it suggests registration for the purpose of selling the domain for profit.
I’m not sure what timeframe Kurtzman is considering, but I don’t find panels to be “increasingly broadening their interpretations.” It is true that some rogue panelists have tried to bend the plain language of UDRP to find in favor of Complainants, but this practice seems to have significantly diminished, especially since the release of the WIPO 3.0 update in 2017.
Also, filing a UDRP when trademark rights postdate the registration is grounds for being found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. As stated in WIPO’s overview:
Reasons articulated by panels for finding RDNH include: (i) facts which demonstrate that the complainant knew it could not succeed as to any of the required three elements – such as the complainant’s lack of relevant trademark rights, clear knowledge of respondent rights or legitimate interests, or clear knowledge of a lack of respondent bad faith (see generally section 3.8) such as registration of the disputed domain name well before the complainant acquired trademark rights,…
I could not find any UDRP cases in which the author has been listed as representative by searching UDRPSearch and UDRP.tools.
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Improving GoDaddy – DNW Podcast #257
A discussion about GoDaddy and how to improve it.
GoDaddy has made many improvements to its domain platform. What more can it do to make the experience better for domain investors going forward? On today’s show, Shane Cultra and I discuss some ideas for the company that dominates the domain name aftermarket.
Also: Pablo Escobar, domain hijacking, .UK, .Uno, and Tucows sends its cows out to pasture.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts 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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Pickleball cybersquatting dispute ends in kitchen violation
Panelist finds reverse domain name hijacking in pickleball domain dispute.
That’s me playing pickleball on Court No. 1, where the game was invented.
An Oregon man has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking in a dispute over a pickleball domain name.
Trevor Meier filed a dispute with National Arbitration Forum in an effort to get the domain name globalpickleballnetwork.com. The domain is owned by a person in Florida who runs pickleball.global. That person forwards the subject domain to pickleball.global and the headline on that site is “Welcome to Pickleball Global Network”.
Meier appeared to believe that he could get the domain name from the Respondent if he had a trademark for “Global Pickleball Network” even though the Respondent owned the domain before he started his business.
In finding reverse domain name hijacking, panelist Charles Kuechenmeister wrote:
Complainant is not represented by legal counsel in this proceeding but the evidence of bad faith in bringing this action is compelling and even a person not familiar with UDRP practice should have known that doing so was fundamentally wrong. In August of 2018, one year before bringing this case, Complainant called Respondent to tell him that he was planning to start a business called “Global Pickleball Network” and requested Respondent to sell him the Domain Name. Respondent refused, explaining that he had been using the Domain Name in connection with his operations for several years and wanted to continue to do so. At that point, Complainant became aggressive and informed Respondent that he planned to start his business under the name mentioned, that he would obtain a trademark registration for it, and force Respondent to turn the Domain Name over to him (Response Exhibit A). Complainant then took those actions, with full knowledge of Respondent’s business and his rights in the Domain Name. Respondent notes that one year later, when the USPTO registration was issued, Complainant filed this proceeding the same day. Respondent also notes that one of the grounds for a finding of bad faith alleged by Complainant is that Respondent refused to sell the Domain Name to Complainant for any amount of money. This is just the reverse of the circumstance articulated in Policy ¶ 4(b)(i). It is clear that, for whatever reason, Complainant believes himself entitled to the Domain Name and initiated this proceeding to obtain it, without regard for any of the requirements imposed by the Policy.
Complainant knew or should have known that he would be unable to prove that Respondent lacked rights or legitimate interests in the Domain Name or that Respondent registered and was using the Domain Name in bad faith. This meets well-established criteria for a finding of reverse domain name hijacking.
In pickleball, a “kitchen violation” is when you hit the ball out of the air standing too close to the net. The play is dead in favor of the other team when you commit a kitchen violation. It seems like an apt description of this case.
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Panelist declines RDNH because…well, I don’t know
Moonchul Chang doesn’t give a reason for not finding reverse domain name hijacking in a dead-on-arrival case.
A World Intellectual Property Panelist has decided a UDRP decision for the domain name MIAX.com in favor of the domain name owner. But for an inexplicable reason, he declined to find reverse domain name hijacking.
The circumstances have all of the trappings of reverse domain name hijacking:
- Domain owner registered it in 2000
- Complainant wasn’t formed until 2007 and the trademark it relies on was registered in 2015 with first use claim of 2012
- Complainant sent several communications to the domain owner, which the owner describes as “offers” and then a cease & desist
- Company files UDRP
Based on the information in the published decision, it’s a classic case of RDNH. The domain owner asked for RDNH, but panelist Moonchul Chang declined to find it without really giving a reason. Instead, he merely wrote:
The Panel cannot conclude that the Complainant filed its Complaint in bad faith for the purposes of RDNH, and mere lack of success of the Complaint is not in itself sufficient for a finding of RDNH.
The Panel is of the opinion that the Complainant has not filed its Complaint in bad faith as an attempt at RDNH.
That’s like a panelist ruling that a domain was registered in bad faith by writing “The panel concludes the domain was registered in bad faith” without giving any reason.
Instead, according to the information in the decision, this case was dead on arrival due to the chronology.
The Complainant, Miami International Holdings, Inc, was also represented by counsel. It uses the domain name MIAXoptions.com.
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Registration now open for Fashion.com domain name auction
Original owners of domain name send it to the auction block.
Companies interested in acquiring the valuable domain name Fashion.com can now register for the auction at Fashion.com.
The auction will begin October 24 and it follows an unusual format.
It begins with a sealed bid auction process in which bidders can submit a single bid. Once someone bids the secret “buy now” price, that bidder wins the auction so long as no other company submitted a higher bid on the same day. It seems that the most likely scenario of having multiple bidders meet the reserve price on the same day would be on the first day of the auction.
If none of the sealed bids meet the reserve price, the sellers will either accept the highest sealed bid or push the domain to a public auction. The reserve price carries over to the public auction.
Escrow.com is handling the financial side of the auction. It will hold $25,000 bidder deposits and be the escrow for the winning bidder. Amsterdam company Auction-Experts will manage the bidding.
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Sudoku.net sells for £42,500, showing .net isn’t dead
This sale shows the .net market isn’t dead.
If there’s one big top level domain that was hurt by the launch of new top level domain names, it’s .net. .Net has typically been a “darn, I couldn’t get the .com” domain extension. Now people can choose from a bunch of other options.
So the sale of Sudoku.net at Sedo for £42,500 (which just came across the company’s RSS feed) is notable. It’s the equivalent of about $53,000 at today’s exchange rate.
NameBio’s all-time list of .net sales over this amount totals 63 names. But no .net domains have publicly sold for this much in the past 12 months.
It’s a big sale for a .net domain, and it shows a bit of life for the extension.
The buyer appears to be a company called Edito. Although the domain was once forwarded to a Sudoku site, it doesn’t appear to have been for many years and a backlink check shows no links.
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Categories: Domains
15 end user domain sales up to $40,000
A Celtic bookseller, Spanish blog network and Shopify bought domain names this past week.
Sedo’s top sale this past week was Sexe(.)com at EUR 210,000, but it’s not clear if it’s an end user purchase or not. Sexe means sex in French.
The top end user purchase is a financial company that is launching a brand under the name Hey Money. It smartly purchased both HeyMoney.com and Hey.money.
Here’s a look at recent end users sales at Sedo. See prior end user lists here.
HeyMoney.com $40,000 and Hey.money $8,888 – Advanced Planning Solutions filed a trademark in August for Hey Money for financial services, and ostensibly is the buyer of both of these domains.
Madrid.net €35,000 – Oscio Networks LLC runs a network of blogs in Spain.
PowerHost.com $12,000 – Forwards to PowerHost.cl, a hosting services company in Chile.
Investors.Club $7,000 – There’s a page saying the site is under construction. Whois has a privacy service so I don’t know who is creating the site.
InStars(.)com $5,000 – Instars is a new cryptocurrency platform in development.
ATTB.de €4,000 – Forwards to ATBB.eu, the site for Antenna Technology Bad Blankenburg, a high-tech company that designs intelligent multi-functional antennas for the automotive industry. It also provides communications services, radio and smart meter applications for the energy sector and the device industry.
GrandBeds.com $4,000 – Bought by Sonnenberg Manufaktur AG, a German furniture manufacturer.
CelticBooks.com $3,750 – Bought by Casement Publishers and Distributors who provide sales, marketing and distribution services for book publishers, in both the academic and trade fields. It has a focus on Celtic books.
Vivino.be €3,250 – Forwards to Vivino.com, an online wine community and app. It is buying some of the ccTLD versions including the .es name last week.
Shopify.pe $3,000 – Ecommerce platform Shopify bought the Peru country code version of its domain.
MyCredit.es €2,999 – Forwards to MyKredit.es, a quick loan service in Spain.
MoKnows.com $2,500 – A coming soon page for the site has a picture of a dog and the message “Mo Knows things. Lots of things. So many things. Give us a few Mo-ments to get his site ready.”
AquaResearch.com $2,350 – Aqua Research is a a water treatment company that uses AquaResearchLLC.com. It forwards the shorter domain to it.
SellSage.com $2,155 – SellSage LLC appears to be a new business in Michigan.
This post was updated to correct the price for Madrid.net.
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Glovo App maker found to have tried reverse hijacking
They should have checked historical Whois records.
A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has found that the maker of the Glovo app for delivery attempted reverse domain name hijacking of the domain name Glovo.com.
The Spanish company uses the domain name GlovoApp.com.
Glovo.com was registered in 2001, well before the app maker was founded in 2015. So the panelist found that the domain could not have been registered in bad faith to target the app maker.
Panelist Matthew Kennedy found that the complaint was brought in bad faith because of the dates, noting that the domain owner made Glovo aware of these dates before it filed its complaint.
But it’s here that the Complainant’s attorney made a mistake. Based on historical Whois records, it appears that the Chinese owner of the domain name didn’t acquire the domain until 2016. It was previously owned by a company in California and then Sedo’s DomCollect.
Per UDRP precedent, the Complainant could have shown that the domain was registered after the company was founded because of the transfer date.
It still would have had to show bad faith, which would have been difficult, but it would have cleared the hurdle that made its case dead on arrival.
Nonetheless, the fact that Glovo filed the case when it thought 2001 was the relevant date is indicative of filing the case in bad faith.
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Pablo Escobar posthumously gets his domain name
Panelist doesn’t question trademarks for dead drug lord.
Escobar Inc. holds a number of tradmearks for “Pablo Escobar”, the infamous druglord. The company sells a flamethrower (pictured).
Pablo Escobar has returned from the grave.
The notorious Colombian drug lord may have died in a shootout in 1993, but his intellectual property and holdings live on through Escobar Inc.
Escobar Inc. filed a cybersquatting claim with National Arbitration Forum, arguing that the owner of PabloEscobar.com was cybersquatting with his ownership of the domain name. According to the decision, the domain owner was asking $3 million for the name.
Panelist Terry Peppard didn’t question Escobar Inc’s trademark claims and the domain owner didn’t respond. I don’t know that I would have, either.
Due to some untimely deaths, Escobar Inc. went under the radar for a while. But it was reincorporated in 2014, at which point it applied for intellectual property related to Pablo Escobar. Then it started litigating its rights, including suing Netflix over its show Narcos.
Among the fields of use for its trademarks are balloons, toys and games, and prize ribbons. You know, stuff you’d associate with Escobar.
Its latest businesses? Cryptocurrency (why not) and flamethrowers.
Escobar Inc’s website brags about earning over $100 billion since it was established in 1984 (before Pablo’s death).
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