Domain dispute

[Kahr]

I call upon all the wise ppl of Entropia. The slightly demented are welcome too

I have recently been contacted by someone who are involved with a charity with a name similar to my domain. And now they want to buy my domain, or if i refuse and i do, they say they will go through WIPO in order to lay a claim on my domain.
Can it really be right that they can do that on a domain that are older then they are and are registered in a different country?
I am sure there are some of you entropians that knows how things like this works, and if so i would be happy to hear your input.

/Kahr

 

[Legion]

I call upon all the wise ppl of Entropia. The slightly demented are welcome too

I have recently been contacted by someone who are involved with a charity with a name similar to my domain. And now they want to buy my domain, or if i refuse and i do, they say they will go through WIPO in order to lay a claim on my domain.
Can it really be right that they can do that on a domain that are older then they are and are registered in a different country?
I am sure there are some of you entropians that knows how things like this works, and if so i would be happy to hear your input.

/Kahr

Most likely they will not be able to do anything, but if their "company" has been around for longer and they have a trademark or other protection they might be able to get it. But how much are they offering you for the domain just out of curiosity? And also is your domain the exact same name as theirs? If it's just similar tell them to (insert bad word) off

 

[jenny ferr]

Sounds like usual scare tactics various companies try with to me, and since they offered to buy it tell them your price then it's up to them to accept or not. Not like they can tell you what price you should sell it for or what it's worth to you lol

Edit: no legal firms offering some free advice where you live?
that's what I look for when I got some strange threats and 4/4 times nothing happened of the bad things they said would happen if I didn't accept their terms.

 

[Angel O2 Mercer]

From WIPO website:

What types of disputes are covered by the UDRP Administrative Procedure?

According to Paragraph 4(a) of the UDRP Policy, the UDRP Administrative Procedure is only available for disputes concerning an alleged abusive registration of a domain name; that is, which meet the following criteria:

(i) the domain name registered by the domain name registrant is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant (the person or entity bringing the complaint) has rights; and

(ii) the domain name registrant has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name in question; and

(iii) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith

Unless your domain name contains some trademark registered by them I would say they got nothing to do. They could have asked nicely but instead decided to threaten you so I would tell them to bend over and beep-beep-beep da boop themselves with a spoon.

GL

 

[Kahr]

Most likely they will not be able to do anything, but if their "company" has been around for longer and they have a trademark or other protection they might be able to get it. But how much are they offering you for the domain just out of curiosity? And also is your domain the exact same name as theirs? If it's just similar tell them to (insert bad word) off

How much they want to pay for it I dont know, coz so far I have told them to insert their claim where the sun dont shine... In a civil manner ofc
Their charity are call exactly the same as my domain, which i have had at least 6 years. And i think they started this year, judging from their website.

Sounds like usual scare tactics various companies try with to me...l

Sounds like it..

 

[aridash]

...Can it really be right that they can do that on a domain that are older then they are and are registered in a different country?

on that basis, almost certainly not. im not a formal expert but have looked up the matter, and the above post captures it in a nutshell. the processes are pretty fair, if you are first you will have priority, if you are trading or passing off as the company you will almost certainly lose. politely tell them you have no interest in discussing it further.

(on the other hand, if they pay good hard cash... )

 

[Grizgal]

The same thing happened to a friend and he was told that although he would win, it would take an age and cost a fortune if they took it through the courts, so its easier just to back down.

Not the advice you wanted I know but its up to you. I would ask for an inflated price and hope they take it!

 

[qamori]

If you had any copyright infringement, trademark infringement or cyber squatting... you would of received a cease and desist letter from their lawyers.

These are in most cases scare tactics...BUT


If your domain contains the same words that are registered to someone you can get away with it, IF your content is not related to that name or business.

If your domain and content are related to them, you can delete the content and still keep the domain (but this is useless for you)

If you want to release your domain name, and the company's name I can have a look for you.

 

[minim]

I think you can ask the forum owner about this. He should be a expert on this

 

[qamori]

on that basis, almost certainly not. im not a formal expert but have looked up the matter, and the above post captures it in a nutshell. the processes are pretty fair, if you are first you will have priority, if you are trading or passing off as the company you will almost certainly lose. politely tell them you have no interest in discussing it further.

(on the other hand, if they pay good hard cash... )

not necessarily true... trademarks and patents take priority even if your domain is older than the trademark.
Who ever trademarks it first owns the legal right to it. (but not the right to take it from you)

 

[Teiwaz Storm]

The same thing happened to a friend and he was told that although he would win, it would take an age and cost a fortune if they took it through the courts, so its easier just to back down.

Not the advice you wanted I know but its up to you. I would ask for an inflated price and hope they take it!

Was he told as well it will be his money for courts???

 

[Xen]

If you had the domain name before the name of their business existed, then it is obviously not cyber squatting, and I think they have zero rights.

I think there is an arbitration procedure detailed somewhere online, search for it.

 

[Razer]

I think you can ask the forum owner about this. He should be a expert on this

Just lol

Don't know if it is possible for you, but if you have legal insurance I would let it go to court for sure. Asking me politely would make me think about it, threatening me is an instant 'in defense mode' for me.

Having a domain long before their company even existed makes me think they would have the short straw in court, but you hear about weird outcomes in these kind of things, so I don't know.

 

[Teiwaz Storm]

not necessarily true... trademarks and patents take priority even if your domain is older than the trademark.
Who ever trademarks it first owns the legal right to it. (but not the right to take it from you)

Hmmm I wonder if WIPO name is trademarked... and what they would do if someone would trademark it...

 

[qamori]

Its been trademarked since 1968

 

[aridash]

The same thing happened to a friend and he was told that although he would win, it would take an age and cost a fortune if they took it through the courts, so its easier just to back down.

this is along way from courts. there's an established arbitration process which you have to go through before courts. you should be able to do so without any legal expertise, just following the process documented.

not necessarily true... trademarks and patents take priority even if your domain is older than the trademark.
Who ever trademarks it first owns the legal right to it. (but not the right to take it from you)

ah, thats why i qualified it "almost" trademarks would make it a lot more complicated, but then it would be for the other party too. for example they'd only have a claim if a tradmark is registered in your country and usually only if it is in a related field. for example if i open a IT company called "McDonald's IT" the burger chain would have little to no chance of making me change it (assuming im called McDonalds, otherwise bad faith would come in). If i open a pie shop in my village called "Ari McDonald's Pies" i'd have a cease and desist enforeced before the sign was put up. the domain arbitration has been setup with decades of case history in mind, designed to be a bit fairer and simpler.

on which note, im sure you have to go through a layer of arbitration involving the registrar, before it would get to WIPO. certainly the case with .co.uk, have to go through Nominet first. not sure for a .com, .net etc.

 

[qamori]

for example they'd only have a claim if a tradmark is registered in your country and usually only if it is in a related field. for example if i open a IT company called "McDonald's IT" the burger chain would have little to no chance of making me change it (assuming im called McDonalds, otherwise bad faith would come in). If i open a pie shop in my village called "Ari McDonald's Pies" i'd have a cease and desist enforeced before the sign was put up. .

The above is correct.
The exception to the country trademark are indeed the : .com, .net, .org (and a bit of blur on the .edu)

After a formal complaint to the registrar they will change your domain's DNS and NS1/NS2 siteservers so the site will no longer be online until the investigation is over.

So we would need to see the OP's site content and know the business.

 

[byubi]

kinda off-topic: this reminded me of the story (you probably know it) of the kid who started MikeRoweSoft.com (Mike Rowe is his real name) so Microsoft went after him (if you wanna read more)

Indeed these disputes have weird outcomes sometimes... let us know what happens, gl

 

[the-unknown]

Check out www.nissan.com -- they fought Nissan Motor and won.

They got some stuff on the legal stuff. Maybe that can provide some ideas.

 

[Tepes]

The slightly demented are welcome too

Well, I was thinking you'll never ask !

In my opinion any charity who charge in threatening in order to get a domain name is dodgy, and nullify the whole idea of compassionate charity. Unless of course is a charity who defends pond scum rights against human beings... they tend to behave like that.

Also they can be a fake charity based on a recent event, trying to get some money out of everyone or even to get hold on the domain name for resell. I would say to do some research about them, eventually contact them from another generic email posing as a donor to see what they have in mind with their charity. Then screw them.

Also having a site named "helppoortalibanget10wives.com" just in jest maybe was a bad idea

 

[Haruto Rat]

A NGO is offering you money instead of demanding it? (Most examples offered in this thread pertain to commercial disputes; NGOs these days are much more merciless and better connected)

That sounds so much OOTO that it must be one of the few real charities left around. That, and the fact they don't seem to know about arbitration process, makes me think they're simply noobs who have read too much scare stories about evil cybersquatters.

I'd check whether my site comes up in common searches related to them and, depending on the results, either explain they don't really need the domain or offer to put up a notice & link.