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Senders of misleading email specifically disclaim that it’s misleading.

Domain Name Wire readers have surely received lots of fake renewal notices telling them they must pay or lose their domain name. Or, at least mislead them into thinking that.

This all ends up in my spam folder, but when I was clearing out that folder this week I decided to open one of the emails. I read the tiny fine print at the bottom and it gave me a laugh.

Here’s the email:

If you look carefully at the email you’ll see some tiny, light grey print at the bottom. It starts out with a fairly typical email disclaimer:

PLEASE NOTE:
This Email contains information intended only for the individuals or entities to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient or the agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, or have received this Email in error, please notify immediately the sender of this Email at the Help Center and then completely delete it. Any other action taken in reliance upon this Email is strictly prohibited, including but not limited to unauthorized copying, printing, disclosure, or distribution.

The disclaimer buries the lede. If you read on, it says you aren’t renewing your domains, just an “optimization” service for your “webside” (sic).

We do not register or renew domain names. This is not a bill or an invoice. This is a optimization offer for your webside. You are under no obligation to pay the amount stated unless you accept this purchase offer.

Then it talks about how the email complies with CAN-SPAM. It’s the second sentence that cracks me up:

Promotional material is stricly (sic) along the guidelines oft he can-spam act of 2003. They are in no way misleading.

Here’s a hint: if you have to tell people that your email is not misleading, it probably is.

Oh, by the way, I “elected to recieve notificaton (sic) offers” according to the email.

Gmail caught this email and put it in spam, warning that the link had been used to steal information. The link uses a .top domain…imagine that!

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2. FTC Settles with Con Artists in Domain Name Renewal Scam

Court exercises its option to re-evaluate its ruling before kicking appeal up to higher court.

A German court that ruled against an injunction last month in a Whois data dispute will reconsider its decision.

ICANN filed a legal action in Bonn after domain name registrar EPAG, which is owned by Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX), informed ICANN that it would no longer collect Admin and Tech contact information on domain registrations. EPAG made this decision based on its interpretation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The court denied ICANN’s request for an injunction that would have forced EPAG to continue collecting this data.

ICANN subsequently appealed the decision to a higher court.

The original court has the option to re-evaluate its decision before forwarding the case to the higher court. It has exercised this option and asked EPAG to comment on ICANN’s appellate papers.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the lower court thinks it erred in its original decision.

EPAG is due to respond to the court within two weeks.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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2. GDPR will make domain name transfers more difficult
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One panelist calls it a “clear” case of RDNH, two others decline to find RDNH.

A lot of reverse domain name hijacking decisions have been handed down in UDRP cases this week. Surprisingly, the majority of panelists in a dispute over CLH.com did not find the filing an abuse of the proceedings, and their reason is even more surprising.

Compañía Logística de Hidrocarburos CLH S.A. filed the case against a domain name investor who acquired CLH.com in July 2017.

The complainant had been trying to buy the domain since 2015 before the current owner bought it for $32,000. After multiple failed purchase attempts if filed the UDRP.

In the decision, panelists Clive N.A. Trotman and Reyes Campello Estebaranz discussed how the case has many of the hallmarks of RDNH: the complainant tried to buy the domain and filed a UDRP when it couldn’t, and CLH is a common acronym.

But they decided against RDNH, writing “Alternative views as to the legitimacy of speculation in domain name have been debated since the early days of the Policy…”

In other words, because the owner was a domain investor, they didn’t feel it was right to find RDNH.

This isn’t the first time Clive Trotman has made a questionable decision in a UDRP.

Panelist Neil Anthony Brown QC, in a dissent, said this is an obvious case of RDNH:

…In the present case, the Complainant’s case shows that it must have known it could not prove any element in the case other than the nominal requirement that it ‘has’ a trademark. Indeed, this case must be unique in the annals of domain name cases as not only does the Complainant not offer any evidence that the Respondent registered and used the domain name in bad faith but it does not allege it in any understandable way. In fairness to the Complainant, it ‘deems’ it to be so, but deeming it to be so is not evidence and it does not raise any inference or even suspicion that the domain name was registered and used in bad faith. Accordingly, as the Complainant adduced no evidence on that issue, it must have been very clear to the Complainant that it could not prove either prong of the important element of bad faith. Despite that, it alleged bad faith against the Complainant which, in any event, should not be alleged unless there is some reasonable ground for doing so.

Nor, with respect to the equally important element of rights and legitimate interests, was there any evidence offered to show that the Respondent might have done something untoward that would negate its obvious right to register a domain name which, according to the Respondent’s evidence, and as the Complainant could easily have ascertained, a good slice of the international commercial community was also using.

Instead, the Complainant’s case was substantially if not solely that it had a trademark. Even that issue is couched in a manner that does not help the Complainant’s case, either in general or on the specific issue now under consideration, as it seeks to invest that trademark with almost magical powers that it cannot possess. The Complainant’s case was that its trademarks, for it has several of them, “’shall extend to any type of goods, service or activities” and apparently anywhere in the world, including beyond Spain which is clearly where the Complainant has its principle business. For present purposes, that type of allegation is open to the inference that it is being made to harass or intimidate the domain name holder.

In addition, the history of the Complainant’s sustained efforts to buy the domain name shows that it has never believed it had an entitlement to it. It is also clear that after failing to buy the domain name, it turned to Plan B, which was to file the present claim. That approach has rightly been regarded by many panellists as raising a case for a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, as it shows the Complainant’s allegations were not genuine but were a recent invention.

In the present case, as in all such cases, the Panel has to decide what, in substance, was the intention and motivation of the Complainant in bringing the claim and on all considerations the Complainant must have known that this was a claim that, on the facts known to the Complainant, should never have been brought. The case for finding Reverse Domain name hijacking is therefore made out. Moreover, it is not a borderline case but a clear one.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Siris Capital to acquire domain name and web presence company for $25 per share.

Web.com (NASDAQ:WEB), the parent company of domain name registrars Network Solutions and Register.com, has agreed to be acquired by an affiliate of Siris Capital Group in a $2 billion deal.

Shareholders will get $25.00 per share; shares closed yesterday at $23.20. It’s a 30% premium over the 90-day volume-weighted average price for Web.com shares.

Web.com may shop for a better offer between now and August 5. It expects the transaction to close in Q4.

Once the deal is completed, Web.com will be a private company no longer traded on the NASDAQ.

The company is going through a difficult transition that has caused its short-term numbers to dip. Going private will help the company avoid short-term efforts to appease investors.

Siris Capital has taken other companies private in similar deals, such as Polycom and Digital River.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Time to hire a new lawyer.

Walker Edison Furniture Company or its attorney, J. Dustin Howell of Workman Nydegger, clearly doesn’t understand the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

Last month it was found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name ForestGate.com. Now the same finding has been handed down in a case it brought against the domain name ManorPark.com.

The complainant apparently doesn’t understand (or ignored) the fact that you can’t claim cybersquatting when the registration of a domain name pre-dates your trademark. In this case, it appears that Walker Edison just recently started selling a product line under the Manor Park brand. It filed an intent-to-use trademark application earlier this year.

Also, the domain name has been in use promoting Manor Park Guaranteed Investment Funds Limited, so it clearly wasn’t registered in bad faith and the owner has a legitimate interest in the domain name.

The domain owner says that Walker Edison first tried to by the domain name before it filed the UDRP.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Sedo has facilitated lots of end user domain name sales so far this month.

It’s been three weeks since I did an end user sales list. I’ve been putting it off thanks to what has happened to Whois records as a result of GDPR. In reviewing the past few weeks’ of data today, I came up with a process to continue publishing end-user sales information despite restricted Whois.

(In fact, if you are interested in becoming my end user report writer, I will train you how to do this and pay you to create the weekly post. Some WordPress publishing knowledge is required. If you’re interested, contact me at andrew (at) domainnamewire.com.)

Sedo has had some strong sales this month, including Flo.com for six figures. Also note the purchase by Express Scripts, the 25th largest publicly traded company in the United States. It’s a big list, so let’s get to it!

(You can view previous lists like this here.)

Flo.com €109,160 – Flo is an electric vehicle charging service.

WSB.com $85,000 – Washington Speakers Bureau bought its acronym.

Feed.co $85,000 – I’m not sure who the buyer is, but this is an end user price.

SecureChain.com $30,000 – SecureChain is a blockchain company that maintains SecureCoin.

eFounders.com $27,500 – eFounders is a business incubator.

Supervisor.com €22,000 – I can’t tell for sure because of GDPR’d Whois records, but I believe that Supervisor.cloud upgraded to Supervisor.com.

CandyPay.com $20,000 – The website resolves to a mobile payments company in China.

Sofortpay.com €10,000 – FinTecSystems GmbH is a German company that provides banking APIs and data analysis.

HomePick.com $8,000 – HomePick is a courier service in South Kora.

Nevax.com $7,140 – Nevax is a tissue brand from Essity Hygiene and Health AB.

Life.club $7,000 – GEDANKENtanken GmbH bought this domain and is promoting a personality test.

Mcwellness.com $6,450 – The domain forwards to Mcwellness.de, which is a day spa website.

Way.fr €5,999 – This is a domain hack for the ecommerce company Wayfair.

JSL.net $5,888 – JSL Software uses the domain name JSL.com.

Triodor.com $5,500 – Triodor software is a tech company creating technologies such as solutions for the Industrial Internet of Things.

NanoCable.com $5,000 – CirrusGH Technology is a tech company with a product called NanoCable.

Afinis.com $4,945 – National Automated Clearing House Association, an electronic payments association. I don’t see any services associated with NACHA called Afinis, so this might be something new.

ScriptVision.com $4,800 – Fortune 100 pharmacy company Express Scripts.

MysteryMinds.com $3,700 – This is a really cool concept. MysteryMinds operates Mystery Lunch, which connects people at a company for networking.

ChristChurch.us $3,588 – Christ Church is a church in Illinois.

Amirco.com $3,500 – Amirco is a business logistics company.

SitePro.net $3,450 – SitePro is a website builder and domain registration business.

CampbellSolutions.com $3,260 – The buyer’s last name is Campbell.

Curanova.com $3,000 – Curanova AG is a real estate company that uses the domain name Curanova.ch.

PixFix.com $2,999 – PixFix fixes images that have been damaged by noise or JPEG compression.

LiveLib.com £2,998 – LitRes Ltd is an ebook company in Russa.

SaratogaRacecourse.com $2,850 – This is for a horse racing site.

Knowhoo.com $2,750 – Knowhoo Quickfinder LImited is a company incorporated in the UK last month.

Vibux.com $2,700 – Vibux is a Building Information Modeling (BIM) company.

LoveYourLiver.com $2,577 – This is a forward for de-liver-ance.com, the name of a product that is a supplement for liver health. Gee, think they had a problem with their domain name?

GolfPlatz.com €2,500 – The domain name forwards to a page on mygolf.ch titled “golfplaetze-schweiz”.

WeddingCinema.com $2,500 – The buyer operates a wedding videography service.

CarDog.com $2,500 – CarDog offers CRM and other Saas solutions.

Puppetize.com $2,460 – It appears that Oracle’s DYN acquired the domain.

SoundBit.com €2,050 – Soundbit appears to be a new music service launching soon.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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3. More end user domain name sales

Window shading company filed cybersquatting complaint that had “no chance whatsoever of success”.

Mechoshade Systems, LLC, which goes by the name MechoSystems, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking for the domain name Mecho.com.

The window shading and coverings company filed a cybersquatting dispute against Mecho Investments, which registered the domain name in 1999. The domain was registered primarily for the family’s personal and business email addresses. It chose the domain based on a family nickname and provided evidence of use for email addresses.

Upon seeing Mecho Investment’s response to the complaint, MechoSystems decided to double down rather than admit that its case was busted. National Arbitration Forum panelist David Bernstein found that the case was filed in bad faith in an abuse of the UDRP. He wrote:

…Respondent is correct that Complainant’s allegations are so weak that Complainant must have known – and at the minimum should have known – that its Complaint had no chance whatsoever of success.

On its face, the Complaint was woefully deficient. Its allegations of bad faith were themselves insufficient, and even in the absence of a Response, would have led to the rejection of this Complaint.

Complainant compounded its bad faith with its additional submission. In its Response, Respondent persuasively explained the origin of Respondent’s use of “mecho’” in the Domain Name (it was Mr. Ramirez’s grandmother’s nickname), provided proof of its legitimate use of the Domain Name, denied any knowledge of Complainant’s trademark rights (which itself eviscerates any possible finding of bad faith registration), and credibly showed that there was no bad faith use of the Domain Name (either under the examples listed in the Policy or otherwise). Instead of acknowledging these points, Complainant continued to pursue this case, including with the frivolous and demonstrably incorrect argument that use of a Domain Name for purposes of a family email address is not a legitimate interest…

…At the bare minimum, after receipt of Respondent’s Response, Complainant knew or ought to have known that Respondent has rights or legitimate interests in the Domain Name, and that Respondent’s registration and use of the Domain Name could not, under any fair interpretation of the available facts, been undertaken in bad faith. Yet Complainant nevertheless persisted with its Complaint.

Mechoshade was represented by Ryan D. Ricks, a partner at Snell & Wilmer who specializes in intellectual property law. It’s surprising to see someone who specializes in IP file such a baseless UDRP.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Company filed baseless cybersquatting dispute at WIPO.

A New York brand strategy company that uses the domain name Cassandra.co has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking in its attempt to get the domain name Cassandra.com.

Deep Focus Inc. filed the complaint against Abstract Holdings International, a domain name investment firm.

Abstract acquired the domain name in 2012 as part of a 1,427 domain name portfolio. The portfolio included many personal names such as natalia.com, jodie.com, and gabriella.com.

Deep Focus tried to buy the domain for $2,500. Abstract countered with a $200,000 price. Deep Focus then filed the UDRP as a Plan B for acquiring the domain.

A three-member World Intellectual Property Organization ruled that Deep Focus, which was represented by the law firm Hayes, Scott, Bonino & Ellingson, LLP, filed the case in abuse of the UDRP cybersquatting policy:

In the view of the Panel, the Complainant has disclosed no reasonable grounds for believing that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name with the Complainant or its trademark THE CASSANDRA REPORT in mind or with the intention of taking unfair advantage of the Complainant’s trademark. Nor, for the reasons set out above, has it disclosed reasonable grounds for believing that the Respondent has used the disputed domain name in bad faith. On the contrary, the Panel infers on balance that the Complainant commenced the current proceeding in the hope of acquiring the disputed domain name without paying the full price legitimately demanded by the Respondent for the sale of the disputed domain name. Noting also that the Complainant is legally represented in this proceeding, the Panel finds that that (sic) the Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding.

Domain name lawyer Zak Muscovitch represented Abstract Holdings International.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Anastasia Poulopoulos filed a cybersquatting dispute in bad faith, panelist determines.

The owner of Appealmytaxes.BIZ, which offers a service to challenge property tax assessments in Illinois, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking in an attempt to get the domain name Appealmytaxes.COM.

Anastasia Poulopoulos filed the case with National Arbitration Forum arguing that the owner of AppealMyTaxes.com was cybersquatting. The owner of AppealMyTaxes.com registered the domain name before Poulopoulos registered the matching .biz. Poulopoulous subsequently registered a figurative mark made up mostly of text that reads “WWW.APPEALMYTAXES.BIZ OUR ONLY BIZNESS IS LOWERING YOUR REAL ESTATE TAXES”.

Not surprisingly, the panel didn’t find that this trademark was confusingly similar to the domain name AppealMyTaxes.com. It also found that the domain wasn’t registered in bad faith, which was the reason panelist David L. Kreider determined that Poulopoulos had engaged in reverse domain name hijacking.

It appears to the Panel that the Complainant became aware of the Respondent’s registration on May 12, 2008 of the DDN , and within weeks, acted to register her own “appealmytaxes.biz” domain name and file an application with the USPTO on June 23, 2008 to register the trademark WWW.APPEALMYTAXES.BIZ OUR ONLY BIZNESS IS LOWERING YOUR REAL ESTATE TAXES, with the intention of competing in the same professional services business as the Respondent had launched, or at that time, appeared to be preparing to launch.

The Panel concludes that the Complainant instituted these UDRP proceedings knowing that the Respondent was prior in time in registering the DDN and that the Complainant could not possibly establish the element of bad faith registration by the Respondent, which is required under the Policy Paragraph 4(a)(iii).

The Panel finds that the Complainant has engaged in Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

Related posts:

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Defendants are due in Los Angeles courtroom on June 29 for arraignment.

Sahar Sarid’s mugshot after being arrested in Florida. He faces arraignment in California later this month.

The defendants in a criminal case against Mugshots.com’s owners face arraignment on June 29, according to the Superior Court of California website.

Domain investor Sahar Sarid is among the four people named in the complaint. He faced extradition to California to face the charges brought by the Attorney General there. The extradition hearing in Florida was dropped, apparently after Sarid turned himself in in California.

Sarid faces 51 counts including extortion, money laundering, and identity theft. The Attorney General alleges that he and the other defendants extorted people by charging them to have their mugshot and arrest records removed from the website in violation of the law.

The Mugshots.com website does not currently resolve.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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In a common occurence, company fails to disclose prior corresondence and misleads panel.

Here’s a common pattern in cybersquatting disputes under the UDRP:

A company reaches out to the domain name owner in an effort to either buy the domain or coerce the domain owner into transferring it on the threat of legal action. The domain owner responds and explains why he or she is not cybersquatting, and the complainant lets the matter lie. Then, out of the blue many years later, the complainant files a UDRP and doesn’t mention the prior correspondence between the parties.

Sometimes this is because the people responsible for filing the case weren’t knowledgeable about the prior attempts. Sometimes they were and thought they could slip it by.

In fact, some companies leave out key information or even try to mislead a panel with the hopes that the domain owner won’t respond, so no one will call it on its malfeasance and the domain will be transferred.

That’s what appears to have been the goal in a case Mexican company Proeza, S.A. filed against the French owner of Proeza.com.

An IT admin at Proeza tried to buy the domain in 2011 and the owner, who uses the domain for email, declined to sell. Then an outside lawyer for Proeza threatened the domain owner in 2012. Proeza seemed to drop the issue when the domain owner clearly explained why it wasn’t a case of cybersquatting.

When Proeza filed its case, it didn’t mention any of the prior communication. When the inside counsel for Proeza referred the UDRP matter to another outside counsel, it’s feasible that he didn’t know about the IT admin’s overture, but he clearly knew about the previous threat communications from prior outside counsel. Here’s what the World Intellectual Property Organization panel wrote about this lack of disclosure:

With this information and with a minimal review of the prevailing standards under the Policy as reflected in panel decisions, it should have been obvious to Complainant at that time that a claim under the Policy would be a dubious pursuit. Nonetheless, and apparently without any additional information or evidence five years later, Complainant initiated this proceeding in 2018 with allegations that Respondent had a “clear intention to take an unfair advantage” of a “recognized trademark.” Fortunately for Respondent, he kept the communications from Complainant and its counsel from five years earlier, and could document the exchanges in his Response. If Respondent had not done so, the Panel in this case might have been left with the false impression that the Parties were total strangers at the time of the Complaint’s filing. Accordingly, the Panel finds it misleading that Complainant omitted this information from the Complaint and aggravated the omission by alleging that Respondent had a “clear intent” to target Complainant’s PROEZA mark.

The fact that outside counsel may not have been told about these letters does not excuse Complainant’s failure to disclose them, especially since Respondent’s response to those letters made the point that “proeza” is a dictionary term (see further below) and that Respondent rebutted the assertion of bad faith registration and use. A party should not be able to avoid the consequences of its conduct by shielding its counsel of knowledge about that conduct. This omission lies at the doorstep of in-house counsel, who should have appreciated the significance of these letters or should have asked outside counsel about them; the Panel does not agree with Respondent that outside counsel is responsible to the extent it failed to inquire about the letters (about which it had no knowledge).

Proeza also tried to slip by the panel that proeza is a dictionary word. The panel pointed out that it wouldn’t have known this if the domain owner hadn’t responded to the case:

In any event, if that was the Complainant’s view, it should have explained this clearly in the Complaint. The Panel finds it troubling that a Mexican Complainant could omit the fact that “proeza” is a dictionary word in the Spanish language – Mexico’s official language. Arguably, if Respondent had not filed a response, the dictionary meaning of “proeza” would not have been brought to the Panel’s attention, the Domain Name more likely would have been transferred, and an injustice would have been done. In the UDRP process, there is no discovery and rarely a hearing: panels rely on the candor of the parties in order to reach a just and fair decision. In this case, Complainant was not candid with the Panel. In sum, the Panel finds that Complainant’s misleading statement about the word “proeza” supports a finding of RDNH.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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ICANN gives nod to adult domain name ownership change.

Domain name overseer ICANN has approved the transfer of the .xxx, .porn, .adult and .sex top level domain names to Minds + Machines (MMX). As a result, MMX (London AIM: MMX) is completing its acquisition of ICM Registry, which controlled the domain names.

MMX paid $10.0 million cash, but the majority of the acquisition is being paid with 225 million shares in the company. At the time of the original acquisition announcement, those shares had a value of $31 million. They are now worth closer to $20 million, which is not surprising given the dilution that will occur with the share issuances. The shares will be issued over time and they have lock-in periods.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Why these three people chose new top level domain names.

How do people learn about new top level domain names? Why do they decide to register them rather than go with a .com? What are their experiences using the domains? On today’s show, we talk with three people who registered new TLDs: Kristi Kohut, an artist who uses KristiKohut.studio, Raluca Comanescu, who sells a planner at TheFeathers.ink, and Dave Rohrer, a digital marketer who uses BusinessOf.Digital for his podcast. Listen to their stories on today’s podcast.

Subscribe via iTunes to listen to the Domain Name Wire podcast on your iPhone or iPad, view on Google Play Music, or click play below or download to begin listening. (Listen to previous podcasts here.)

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Donuts, one of the original applicants for .fan, acquires it from failing registry.

The owner of .fan and .fans has failed, and Donuts was more than happy to pick up .fan–a domain name it originally applied for.

Donuts announced today that it has “re-acquired” the .fan top level domain name. Why the “re-acquired” language? Well, Donuts was one of two original applicants for the domain name. It entered into a private settlement with Asiamix Digital in which Asiamix won the contention set. Correction: Asiamix did not apply for .fan. Donuts won the domain and transferred it to Rightside (through a complicated deal) and Rightside later sold it to Asiamix.

.Fan is Donuts’ 241st top level domain under management.

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Package proofreading firm guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.

A Canadian company has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name GlobalVision.com.

GVE Global Vision Inc (which goes by the name GlobalVision) helps companies like P&G and Coca-Cola with proofreading and inspecting their packaging.

It filed a complaint under UDRP with National Arbitration Forum, arguing that the UK company SDB Organisation Limited was cybersquatting with the domain name.

SDB registered the domain name in 1995, about 23 years ago. This is before GVE Global Vision had any rights in the Global Vision name. The complainant registered GlobalVisionInc.com in 1997.

GVE Global Vision tried to buy the domain from its owner in 2016. When that failed, it filed a trademark in Canada for Global Vision. Then it filed the cybersquatting complaint after getting the Canadian trademark.

Panelist Darryl C. Wilson wrote:

Respondent asserts Complainant and Respondent’s companies co-existed for 21 years without issue until 2016, when Complainant made an attempt to purchase the disputed domain name from Respondent, which Respondent refused on the grounds Respondent is an active company. Respondent asserts Complainant subsequently registered a trademark and engaged a legal team to intimidate Respondent by filing the Complaint to illegitimately gain control over the domain. The Panel here finds that Complainant knew or should have known that it was unable to prove that Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in the globalvision.com domain name and that Respondent registered and is using the disputed domain name in bad faith. The Panel thus concludes that reverse domain name hijacking has occurred.

GVE Global Vision was represented by Legal Logik Inc.

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GoDaddy Auctions increases its expired domain footprint.

Namecheap is the latest domain name registrar to send its expired domain name inventory to GoDaddy Auctions.

A Domain Name Wire reader noticed a domain in the GoDaddy Auctions expiry stream today that is for a domain registered at Namecheap. I subsequently ran searches uncovering many more.

Namecheap joins Tucows and Endurance International Group, which have been sending their domains to GoDaddy for a while. This means that GoDaddy Auctions has the expired domain inventory from the #1, #2, #3, and #6 largest domain registration companies (based on their .com registration base).

I predicted that Namecheap would end up in GoDaddy’s stable. Namecheap just had a nasty divorce with Tucows, which operates the competing website NameJet where Namecheap names were previously auctioned off.

(Yes, Tucows sends its expired domain inventory to GoDaddy despite owning 50% of a competing expired domain service. That speaks volumes.)

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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Man tried physically force domain owner to transfer the domain name.

A Cedar Rapids, Iowa man will head to prison for 20 years for trying to steal a domain name, the Associated Press reports.

By steal a domain name, I mean physically.

Sherman Hopkins Jr. broke into a man’s home on June 21, 2017 with a handgun and demanded that the resident transfer the domain name DoItForState.com to another account, the AP reports. He shot the man with the gun and used a stun gun, but then the man got control of the gun and shot Hopkins back.

Domain name theft happens all of the time, but rarely does it involve a physical altercation. Usually, it’s a matter of stealing someone’s domain name registrar credentials or hacking into their email.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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See a limited Whois record through Port 43 as well as GoDaddy’s full Whois records.

Earlier today ICANN continued its battle in German courts over what data domain name registrars need to collect for WHOIS now that the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation is in effect.

Because of GDPR, ICANN has changed the data that domain name registrars must display in Whois records.

In this video, you’ll see what information domain name registrars need to provide for Port 43 lookups. It also shows what GoDaddy is providing if you do a web-based lookup on GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy continues to provide full Whois records for web-based lookups. Most other registrars limit the data.

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ICANN wants to know if collecting certain Whois data is a violation of GDPR.

A court battle in Germany over the impact of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) continues.

ICANN filed a legal action against EPAG, a registrar owned by Tucows, on May 25–the same day GDPR went into effect. It asked for an injunction after EPAG informed ICANN that it would no longer collect the administrative and technical contacts for Whois.

EPAG’s argument is that these two contact types are not necessary because it’s still collecting the registrant information. In most cases, the admin and technical contacts match the registrant data, and in the other cases EPAG would be holding data on parties it doesn’t have a contractual relationship with.

The German court ruled against the injunction.

However, ICANN notes that the court did not say whether or not collecting the data would be a violation of GDPR. That’s the information ICANN wants, so the group has appealed the ruling.

An English language translation of the appeal has been posted to ICANN’s website.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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See how to lock keywords for your domain name.

The recent DVT.com UDRP decision was a good reminder of how parking a domain name can be helpful in a cybersquatting case…IF the ads are related to the dictionary context of the name rather than a trademark owner’s goods and services.

If you park your domain names and let the system determine the correct keywords, you could find yourself in hot water.

Uniregistry has a tool that lets you set keyword topics for your domains to make sure they target the right concepts.

This video walks you through how to set a keyword topic for your domain names parked at Uniregistry.

© DomainNameWire.com 2018. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact copyright (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.

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