Domain name recovery from competitor.

Domain name recovery from competitor.

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Discussion

BGARK

Original Poster:

5,493 posts

245 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
quotequote all
My competitor has purchased a domain name that is exactly the same name as my company and re-directs to their own website.

It is one of the new odd "XYZ.stuff" type of names but very relevant to what I do, I wanted to purchase but found out they have it.

I am not crying over this but would like to challenge if there is a way.

Appreciate any advice. Thanks.

Funk

26,254 posts

208 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
quotequote all
Known as 'cybersquatting':

said:
Cybersquatting

These are common disputes. Cybersquatting involves the registrant having registered a name, or names in most cases, in bad faith to gain some commercial advantage. This can involve trying to sell it back to a party it knows would be interested in having registration of the domain name for an inflated price or more commonly using it to direct traffic to their website or the website of a trade competitor of the trade mark holder in return for payment of a commission.

(3) Bad faith. The disputed domain must have been registered and used in bad faith. Both these elements of bad faith must be proved. The UDRP has set out a non-exhaustive list of what constitutes bad faith. These include the following:
  • diverting users to other sites by creating a likelihood of confusion;
  • if the registrant has multiple domains registered;
  • an approach made to a party that would be interested in the domain demanding money or moneys worth greatly in excess of out of pocket expenses;
  • passive holding of a domain was held to constitute bad faith if the impression that the domain was being offered for sale was given (the www.vivendiuniversalsucks.com case) and panels are increasingly inferring that the domains are being held for sale;
  • offering to sell the domain on an auction site has been construed as being in bad faith; however, on occasions the fact that the registrant has offered to sell the domain by auction, or agreed to negotiate a price when contacted about the dispute does not automatically constitute bad faith for the purposes of UDRP. This was the case in the www.avnet case where the respondent had a long standing interest in the name; and
  • being difficult to contact or untraceable has been construed as bad faith.
I'd approach the company who the domain was registered with and open a case with them in the first instance. You could also possibly seek legal advice as to whether it's possible to force the competitor to hand over the domain name to you?

thepeoplespal

1,615 posts

276 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
quotequote all
Surely this is passing off https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off if it's your name and redirecting to a competitor.

Is it worth a chat to a commercial lawyer with a strongly worded letter? I'm not sure how far you want to take it, law is expensive.

Funk

26,254 posts

208 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
quotequote all
thepeoplespal said:
Surely this is passing off https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off if it's your name and redirecting to a competitor.

Is it worth a chat to a commercial lawyer with a strongly worded letter? I'm not sure how far you want to take it, law is expensive.
AIUI, it's 'bad faith' rather than 'passing off'.

If I'm Bob the Builder and take davethebuilder.co.uk to point to my bobthebuilder.co.uk site, that's bad faith. If I'm still Bob but take davethebuilder.co.uk and point it to a site called Dave the Builder (with Bob) then that would be passing off as I would be pretending to be Dave in order to take his customers who thought they were contacting him not me.

Edited by Funk on Thursday 1st October 21:15

uber

855 posts

169 months

Thursday 1st October 2015
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Is it your actual company name or a generic word?

BGARK

Original Poster:

5,493 posts

245 months

Friday 2nd October 2015
quotequote all
uber said:
Is it your actual company name or a generic word?
Our actual company name.

BGARK

Original Poster:

5,493 posts

245 months

Tuesday 3rd November 2015
quotequote all
Hi chaps, any ideas who I could contact that could take a look at this for me, much appreciated!

marshalla

15,902 posts

200 months

Tuesday 3rd November 2015
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BGARK said:
Hi chaps, any ideas who I could contact that could take a look at this for me, much appreciated!
If it was a .uk, you could pursue it through the Nominet DRS ( http://www.nominet.uk/domains/resolving-uk-domain-... ). All TLD registrars should operate something similar ( https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/help/dndr/ud... ), so what's the top-level domain you're dealing with ?

Of course, you could just approach the competitor and try to buy it from them.


Edited by marshalla on Tuesday 3rd November 09:13

BGARK

Original Poster:

5,493 posts

245 months

Tuesday 3rd November 2015
quotequote all
marshalla said:
so what's the top-level domain you're dealing with ?
mycompanyname.sport (its not actually *.sport but very similar)

Edited by BGARK on Tuesday 3rd November 11:23

marshalla

15,902 posts

200 months

Tuesday 3rd November 2015
quotequote all
.sport doesn't seem to be live yet. I can't find a whois server for it, and ICANN's wiki suggests there's some dispute over it. http://icannwiki.com/.sport

How did you find out that a competitor has registered the name ?


Edited by marshalla on Tuesday 3rd November 10:39

BGARK

Original Poster:

5,493 posts

245 months

Tuesday 3rd November 2015
quotequote all
marshalla said:
How did you find out that a competitor has registered the name ?
Because it takes you straight to their website. Its a very small industry, they have clearly done it on purpose.

Happy to PM specific info just not on an open forum. Cheers.

marshalla

15,902 posts

200 months

Tuesday 3rd November 2015
quotequote all
BGARK said:
Because it takes you straight to their website. Its a very small industry, they have clearly done it on purpose.

Happy to PM specific info just not on an open forum. Cheers.
Please do. I need to know the domain to be able to figure out how it's managed to go live.