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Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

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Re: Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

#31

Post by nathanstitt »

laurencei wrote: post #11
nathanstitt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not always, and not quickly. See http://nissan.com/ for an example that's been dragging on for around 10 years or so. He's not squatting on nissan.com per se, but in my opinion is fairly close to it. It's a David vs. Goliath situation that's for sure, I'm amazed he's managed to keep the domain.

Why do you think he is "close" to squatting? He registered a 'nissan' company in 1991, and registered the domain in 1994. Just because a 'big' company missed out - its not his fault.

Because he's not using it primarily for his computer company any longer. Instead he's running ads for insurance and talking about the lawsuit.

I'm not saying he's a bad guy. Instead, I believe that the domain would serve a better purpose if it pointed to something that met the expectations of people who blindly type nissan.com into their web browser looking for an auto. Which in my case is exactly how I found out about it.

Re: Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

#33

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

EwanToo wrote: post #24
WA wrote: post #9

How does that even happen? My domains get renewed automatically.

There was a story on here the other day which basically revolved around people removing their credit card details immediately after purchasing domains, to prevent auto-renewals - they managed to mishandle removing their details, and deleted the domain involved. Some people are odd!

You're mis-remembering that story.

GoDaddy (their registrar) charges more for auto-renew than for manual renew. So people wishing to save money disable auto-renew for that registrar.

GoDaddy's interface is really bad, and somehow when you remove your CC information it also asks you if you want to remove the domains entirely too (default: yes).

People click through without paying attention (thinking "it is just my payment info, what can go wrong?!") and BOOM their domains are gone.

Naturally GoDaddy charges a fee to restore the domains...

Re: Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

#34

Post by phillmv »

darxius wrote: post #29
ajross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's maybe going too far. Clearly this is a prank. The current owner has the right (abstractly -- honestly I have no idea how this works in French law) to express their opinion as parody, and Michelin shouldn't be able to use the trademark as a cudgel to suppress that. That said, the proper remedy here is for them to buy back the domain name at a fair market price (whatever that may be, again I have no idea). The o…

Why not? It was their mistake, they forgot to renew a domain (something even I keep on top of). The guy bought it legally and is now hosting his own website. I don't see how the company would have any right to get that domain back if the guy doesn't want to sell it. Then again, IANAL.

That's not how trademark law works, and in this case, for good reason http://www.chillingeffects.org/domain/faq.cgi#QID245

Fucking with a guy who thought MikeRoweSoft was funny? Probably not cool. Losing out on MichelinGuides for a dude who set up a prank? Eh, I'm siding with Michelin in this case.

Re: Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

#35

Post by nwienert »

nathanstitt wrote: post #26
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's not squatting on nissan.com per se, but in my opinion is fairly close to it That doesn't make sense. Sounds like you, and several other people, think that anyone who is under-utilising a domain is automatically "squatting." That the biggest user of a property is entitled to it... He runs a business, the business is called "Nissan Computer(s)." That to me is the furthest thing from squatting...

I disagree & believe it does. Where is he advertising the business on that web site? I see it mentioned in the header but that's not even a link. Instead he's running adds for insurance on it. In my mind it comes down to what visitors of the website expect to see. I believe that the only possible expectation for someone visiting nissan.com is to see Nissan Motors. (At least in North America, I'm aware that Nissan is…

That's a personal opinion (and you're entitled to it) but the fact is he has a legitimate claim to the name and that's all he needs. If Nissan Motors wants it badly enough, they will convince him with money.

Until then, I (and the law) fully support his right to the domain.

Re: Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

#36

Post by darxius »

darxius wrote: post #29
ajross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's maybe going too far. Clearly this is a prank. The current owner has the right (abstractly -- honestly I have no idea how this works in French law) to express their opinion as parody, and Michelin shouldn't be able to use the trademark as a cudgel to suppress that. That said, the proper remedy here is for them to buy back the domain name at a fair market price (whatever that may be, again I have no idea). The o…

Why not? It was their mistake, they forgot to renew a domain (something even I keep on top of). The guy bought it legally and is now hosting his own website. I don't see how the company would have any right to get that domain back if the guy doesn't want to sell it. Then again, IANAL.

I don't see how he's infringing on their copyright with the site he currently has set up. It's not like he's masquerading as the real deal and tricking people into donating or whatever.

I don't see why this guy should have to give up his legally obtained domain because some company failed to do their job. If he's smart, he'll skip court and settle for a lot of money/perks.

Re: Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

#37

Post by gus_massa »

In the Archive WaybackMachine (http://web.archive.org/web/*/michelinguides.com ) most of the previous captures look like parked domains, except one (Feb 2012) that is in Chinese and the autotranslation say that it is some kind of "micro bloging site". (Whatever that means, I still don't understand it.)

So this domain probably was never an official site of Michelin as reported in the article.

(Official site: http://www.michelintravel.com/ )

Re: Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

#38

Post by nathanstitt »

nwienert wrote: post #35
nathanstitt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree & believe it does. Where is he advertising the business on that web site? I see it mentioned in the header but that's not even a link. Instead he's running adds for insurance on it. In my mind it comes down to what visitors of the website expect to see. I believe that the only possible expectation for someone visiting nissan.com is to see Nissan Motors. (At least in North America, I'm aware that Nissan is…

That's a personal opinion (and you're entitled to it) but the fact is he has a legitimate claim to the name and that's all he needs. If Nissan Motors wants it badly enough, they will convince him with money. Until then, I (and the law) fully support his right to the domain.

I agree it's not a legal issue. The law is pretty firmly on his side, as it should be. I believe that things of this nature are too fuzzy to be encoded in law, it's more of a "I know it when I see it" type of thing that reasonable people can have differing opinions on.

However, a really stupid part of domain law is that Nissan Motor's can't convince him with money. If he had offered to sell to Nissan Motors or attempted to negotiate a price in response to an offer by them, that could be considered evidence of squatting and he could have lost the domain in court. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Pro...

Re: Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

#39

Post by [deleted] »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #18
eli wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, WIPO has a arbitration system that should theoretically allow them to get their domain back.

It isn't really "their" domain. They not only failed to renew it, but they also failed to contest it when it was in suspended status. They have at least 14 days to save "their" domain and then it entered the general pool and became someone else's domain entirely.

[deleted]

Re: Michelin Guides forgets to renew domain name, becomes "Michel in Guides"

#40

Post by drcube »

ajross wrote: post #17
oellegaard wrote: post #8

They made a stupid mistake, they should not be allowed to get it back.

That's maybe going too far. Clearly this is a prank. The current owner has the right (abstractly -- honestly I have no idea how this works in French law) to express their opinion as parody, and Michelin shouldn't be able to use the trademark as a cudgel to suppress that. That said, the proper remedy here is for them to buy back the domain name at a fair market price (whatever that may be, again I have no idea). The o…

I'd be a lot more sympathetic if the domain was actively used and somehow a clerical error made them lose it. However, according to gus_massa in another comment, this was always just a parked domain.

Why should someone return (or sell back at a "fair" price) a domain they legally bought, just to have it fall back into disuse?

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