6 ms·

i registered my company's domain name in 1999 as a .net (because we were a networking company) and a squatter has been sitting on the .com since 2001. i eventu

by there 15y ago

i registered my company's domain name in 1999 as a .net (because we were a networking company) and a squatter has been sitting on the .com since 2001. i eventually applied for and got a registered trademark on the company name. since the squatted domain just showed a page full of ads, the whois information pointed to a holding company with a PO box in the cayman islands (how shady can you get), and they never responded to any inquiries about buying the domain, i tried to take it through UDRP. i was betting on the squatters not responding (which would be a default judgement in my favor) and since i had a trademark on the name, i had the .net for longer than they had the .com, and the ads they were serving were somewhat related to my business (one of the 3 things you have to prove in your argument - that they were trying to be deceitful), i paid the UDRP fee ($1300) and just processed the paperwork myself. surprisingly, the holding company responded to the dispute with lawyers, who wrote up a whole response claiming i was doing a "reverse hijacking" because i applied for the trademark after they registered the domain. maybe my arguments weren't solid enough and i should have paid a UDRP lawyer to handle it. i lost the case and didn't get the domain. not surprisingly, all of my documents that i mailed to their PO box were returned months later - their whois information was bogus. shortly after that, they stopped serving ads on the domain, and now it just redirects to another domain. i can only hope that any money they've made on the ads from the domain was more than spent on the lawyers to respond to the case. though now i'm sure i'll never get the domain from them without paying tens of thousands of dollars.

larrys 15y ago
"holding company with a PO box in the cayman islands (how shady can you get)" Not shady at all. "surprisingly, the holding company responded to the dispute with lawyers" They responded because they own many names. And they can't afford to have a loss which could be held against them. Superblock.com is a decent domain so that's a reason right there to defend. You could have checked history also by looking at whether they had defended other UDRP filings to determine your strategy. Here is one case they one and one they lost. They selected the same panelist (you can choose panelists) that ruled for them in the previous case. In this case the opposite happened! (I would have never chosen the same panelist btw.) http://www.udrpsearch.com/naf/849009 http://www.udrpsearch.com/naf/849009 http://www.udrpsearch.com/naf/267475 http://www.udrpsearch.com/naf/267475 "they never responded to any inquiries about buying the domain" Did you write to them as "superblock.net" or from another address? Common mistake to write as someone who has rights to the name. That will completely spook them because the way this thing goes it can be used against you.
- there 15y ago
  Did you write to them as "superblock.net" or from another address? Common mistake to write as someone who has rights to the name. That will completely spook them because the way this thing goes it can be used against you. my emails were always from another address, if only because i didn't want them to know what i'd be using the domain for and possibly raise the asking price.
  - larrys 15y ago
    That's good. But another reason a domain owner won't respond is because they don't think a particular buyer is legitimate enough to offer a price that they will sell for. So they start with a little friction and see what happens. Additionally if you were a big fish buyer, you would also follow a certain pattern if initially rebuffed. All this depends on the domain and the situation of course. If a large company wants your name they could start out any number of ways. But eventually they will throw a decent offer on the table to let you know they are serious. Obviously everything is for sale at the right price.
- gcb 15y ago
  I hate squatters just like the next guy, but target taking over target.org is just wrong. They are purely a commercial institution. Stay in .com and be quiet.

by there 15y ago

larrys 15y ago

"holding company with a PO box in the cayman islands (how shady can you get)" Not shady at all. "surprisingly, the holding company responded to the dispute with lawyers" They responded because they own many names. And they can't afford to have a loss which could be held against them. Superblock.com is a decent domain so that's a reason right there to defend. You could have checked history also by looking at whether they had defended other UDRP filings to determine your strategy. Here is one case they one and one they lost. They selected the same panelist (you can choose panelists) that ruled for them in the previous case. In this case the opposite happened! (I would have never chosen the same panelist btw.) http://www.udrpsearch.com/naf/849009 http://www.udrpsearch.com/naf/849009 http://www.udrpsearch.com/naf/267475 http://www.udrpsearch.com/naf/267475 "they never responded to any inquiries about buying the domain" Did you write to them as "superblock.net" or from another address? Common mistake to write as someone who has rights to the name. That will completely spook them because the way this thing goes it can be used against you.

there 15y ago
Did you write to them as "superblock.net" or from another address? Common mistake to write as someone who has rights to the name. That will completely spook them because the way this thing goes it can be used against you. my emails were always from another address, if only because i didn't want them to know what i'd be using the domain for and possibly raise the asking price.
- larrys 15y ago
  That's good. But another reason a domain owner won't respond is because they don't think a particular buyer is legitimate enough to offer a price that they will sell for. So they start with a little friction and see what happens. Additionally if you were a big fish buyer, you would also follow a certain pattern if initially rebuffed. All this depends on the domain and the situation of course. If a large company wants your name they could start out any number of ways. But eventually they will throw a decent offer on the table to let you know they are serious. Obviously everything is for sale at the right price.
gcb 15y ago
I hate squatters just like the next guy, but target taking over target.org is just wrong. They are purely a commercial institution. Stay in .com and be quiet.