I own a domain that a big corporation wants to sue me into acquiring. Help • Hacker News Board

Re: I own a domain that a big corporation wants to sue me into acquiring. Help

#71

Post by ohashi » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 3:22 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #45

lacker wrote: post #27

Their initial offer was $150. I said no, that I had put way too much money into it for that low of a price. They came back with $250. Anyone who's bickering about $150 vs $250 to acquire a domain is not a "big corporation". The OP is being bluffed.

That may constitute a bad faith attempt to profit from the domain from the trademark holder, and may cost him the domain.

(1) the manner in which the domain name(s) is/are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and

(2) why the Respondent (domain-name holder) should be considered as having no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name(s) that is/are the subject of the complaint; and

(3) why the domain name(s) should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith

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The issue is registered AND being used. It would be pretty hard to argue that it was registered in bad faith when it is his name. Of course, ask the Nissan guy about this, there are exceptions.

Re: I own a domain that a big corporation wants to sue me into acquiring. Help

#72

Post by veyron » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 3:28 PM UTC

danssig wrote: post #66

veyron wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point: there's enough vested interest in seeing Uzi Nissan win that he wouldn't step down (and yes I donated some of my AllAdvantage revenue to the cause) And Nissan Motors can't be too happy that nissan.com criticizes the motor company. The FU price point now is probably much higher than 10M. But another interesting thing happened: auto companies started adding to the domains. For example, bmw uses bmwusa.co…

I suspect bmw and benz put a "usa" at the end of their name for their US branches since they're German companies that probably sell more cars in Europe (total out-of-thin-air guess).

For some non-German examples, take toyota (japanese) or kia (korean) or ferrari (italy) or land rover (britain).

Also, daimler sells way more cars in europe, although they are really stripped down compared to the US equivalents (and they also have stuff like sprinter, which I've only started to see recently in the USA). Even though those cars are lower margin, they sell many more (and most of their revenue comes from those cars)

Re: I own a domain that a big corporation wants to sue me into acquiring. Help

#73

Post by larrys » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 4:01 PM UTC

He states "They've already tried going through WIPO and lost. Now they are telling me that if I don't accept a ridiculously undervalued offer they are going to file litigation against me. I am a college student and can't afford a lawyer. Can anyone give me advice? What should I do?"

Something is a little fishy about this. It doesn't make sense that he won the UDRP without an attorney but hasn't been able to figure out an attorney that can give him free legal advice on these issues. (Ref: reddit comments) (See http://www.esqwire.com who gives free advice and has probably won the most cases). In order to respond to the UDRP he would have had to do some research and would have turned up the obvious suspects in this industry (Berryhill, Goldberger etc.)

While people have won UDRP's without a response (I've seen it happen) it is pretty rare.

Re: I own a domain that a big corporation wants to sue me into acquiring. Help

#74

Post by larrys » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 4:40 PM UTC

lacker wrote: post #27

Their initial offer was $150. I said no, that I had put way too much money into it for that low of a price. They came back with $250. Anyone who's bickering about $150 vs $250 to acquire a domain is not a "big corporation". The OP is being bluffed.

Actually it is common in domain name disputes like this for large corporations represented by even white show law firms to offer only trivial amounts of money for domain names. Amounts that fall far below the cost of pursuing a case legally.

UDRP specifically refers to "out of pocket costs" so offering a small amount of money allows the complainant to not exceed that without jeopardizing and potentially enhancing (by baiting the owner) any future legal actions.

One reason is to send a message of fear to the registrant that the company that wants the name is unreasonable and crazy and will take all actions at any cost to get the name.

Same strategy in personal injury cases. Some companies will settle for any reasonable amount because the legal cost is high. Others would rather send a message by spending three times the money on legal costs.

Re: I own a domain that a big corporation wants to sue me into acquiring. Help

#75

Post by flexd » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 10:31 PM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #55

flexd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a similar boat. A Norwegian name squatting company holds a bunch of last name domains not really using them for anything besides linking to their site "so everyone with that last name will be able to use it". The problem is the they want like a dollar per month to give you one email address. I'm well aware that is not much but it's annoying that they claim to do this to "share the wealth" of that domain name w…

"A Norwegian name squatting company holds a bunch of last name domains not really using them for anything besides linking to their site "so everyone with that last name will be able to use it". The problem is the they want like a dollar per month to give you one email address. " That's a perfectly reasonably business model. Renting email addresses is quite clearly "using" a domain. It might not be a hackernews/startu…

Yeah I am aware it's a perfectly good business model. But this specific type of domain squatting is incredibly annoying. I couldn't find any information on their website now but they were charging a lot more for just being able to point a sub-domain somewhere.

I'm sure I would have found the idea clever if I had thought of it first but the wording on their site makes it seem like they are trying to do people a good service when it seems their sole purpose is to make money (which is understandable).

Re: I own a domain that a big corporation wants to sue me into acquiring. Help

#76

Post by flexd » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 10:35 PM UTC

geegee wrote: post #70

flexd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a similar boat. A Norwegian name squatting company holds a bunch of last name domains not really using them for anything besides linking to their site "so everyone with that last name will be able to use it". The problem is the they want like a dollar per month to give you one email address. I'm well aware that is not much but it's annoying that they claim to do this to "share the wealth" of that domain name w…

If this is the company I think it is, then they took my last name as well. They're legitimately using it, even if you may not like the use. I got around it by using the .me extension instead. You can always pick one of those others instead of .com.

Yeah I just own a few other domains for email instead. Another problem for me is that a huge international (dutch originally) rubber company happens to share my last name with me. The .org/.net domains and a few others were free for a long time but I never thought of registering them which is sad as they recently did.