Transamerica drops lawsuit against domain registrars

Domain registrants can be sued for cybersquatting, but are registrars liable as well? Until recently, life insurance company Transamerica thought so. The company was in the process of suing several prominent domain registrars for trademark infringement— all because several of their customers had registered domains containing Transamerica’s trademark. Thankfully, the insurance firm dropped the lawsuit today.

The idea of blaming a registrar for the actions of its customers is a bit ludicrous. How can you expect a company that handles thousands of transactions per day to screen each domain for possible trademarks? You can’t. It’s up to the trademark holder to enforce his or her mark, not a third party. Even if Transamerica had continued its suit, I doubt it would have won in court.