Domainsite.com and Associates sued for $12M

[Rubber Duck]

For those of you that need something legitimate to worry about, you might try this.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/30/domain_tasting_suit/

[alpha]

a word of warning.

According to a presentation given at ICANN this week, there is real risk that if you are using a registrars whois privacy functionality, and that registrar gets sued, there is a concern that those names may be treated as the registrars assets and not yours - and therefore those assets could be seized along with other assets,

if you are using domain privacy at DS, you may want to "switch it off".

as with all free advice, treat this as BS, until you do your own research and draw your own conclusions.

[thegenius1]

geez !

[Rubber Duck]

They settled out of court with Dotster.

It seems like they are partially on legally boggy ground.

Their problem would seem to be that it is encumbent on the Trademark holder to point out to the transgressor that he is infringing their trademark before they are entitled to claim damages. This principle is very important in places like the US where Trademark are often not registered. It is almost a pointless exercise trying to check if you might be infringing someones Trademark as there is no reasonable way of knowing.

Much depends on how Name.com and Domainsite.com responded to the Cease and Desist notice, if they ever received one.

On balance, I would not pannick just yet. They are probably just try to scare the sh*t out of everyone, will no serious intention of pursuing for damages unless they meet resistance.


Alphas advice on not having a Private Whois sounds good advice to me.

[mulligan]

25th March - 2007

The relevant privacy issue paragraph from Rob Hall, CEO of momentous.CA corp ... also the former vice chair of the Canadian association of Internet Service Providers, and had the privilege of serving as the chair of CIRA....


Let's talk a little bit about privacy services.
Privacy services are when a registrar puts their privacy name, their name, basically, on a registration. I think the first pioneer in this area really was Go Daddy with their domains by proxy service. Almost every registrar now has one.
The interesting thing is it makes transferring in this expiry period even easier because they are already the registrant of the domain name.
The curious thing I am concerned about privacy services, and I am not trying to pass judgment on good or bad, we certainly operate one, we operate privacy.ca which is our privacy service. But in order to make you aware, a bankruptcy or decision against a privacy service means that privacy service now owns a portfolio of domains that are an asset to the creditor of that privacy service.
So I can give you an example.
We currently have a lawsuit against a bunch of people that were committing fraud in our domain marketplace. We started a lawsuit, we sued all the registrants of the domain names and one of them happened to be a domain privacy service run by a registrar.
If we're successful in the suit, we would have a judgment against potentially against that privacy service, and if they were not able to pay the judgment, we could go in and say I want the 400,000 domains that are under that privacy service that they are the registrant of, even though they may be leased or committed to other people, that's an asset of that privacy service. So people need to understand what privacy service are and how they could be attacked or sold separately from a registrar.
It's also much easier to sue a UDRP in privacy service because the privacy service may have no rights to use the domain under a UDRP.
And we're seeing that, certainly, as well.
http://www.icann.org/meetings/lisbon/transcript-tutorial-expiring-25mar07.htm

[Rubber Duck]

So is the plaintiffs objective in this instance, to reverse hijack all the domains in the privacy service, and just using this legal procedure as a tool for doing that?

[mulligan]

Essentially yes, it is a dirty trick and one thought up by a scumbag lawyer no doubt ... technically legal? Who knows.

But would a judge allow them to sieze what are in essence other peoples domains? You don't actually own the domain after all, you just have a contract with the registrar to provide you with a service so they would be siezing all 400,000 contracts?
So the privacy service for all intents and purposes are the legal registrant of the domain, whats to stop them saying that you never registered the name in the first place?
I keep reasonable records of all domains bought but what a nightmare trying to prove you are actually the one who 'owns' the domain and not the privacy service.
Seems to me that the privacy service sector has no regulation and no-one to answer to. Bit like paypal

[Rubber Duck]

Essentially yes, it is a dirty trick and one thought up by a scumbag lawyer no doubt ... technically legal? Who knows.


Last time I checked that accounted for about 50% of US GDP!

[touchring]

Will snap be sued for registering trademarks? :p