World's smallest-waist woman wins domain dispute

Cathie Jung may have the world’s smallest waist, but that didn’t stop her from filing a court lawsuit over the domain CathieJung.com. Jung, who has worn a corset every day for the last 12 years, wanted to transfer the name’s ownership away from a corset company. The owner was using it to redirect visitors to his site.

Naturally, she won. Hopefully this lawsuit didn’t cause her too much stress, because her waist is already a tiny 15 inches. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, that’s about the size of a mayonnaise jar.

Source | Domain Name Wire
Photo | Flickr

NBC and DONE! Ventures fight over failed domain deal

Many people think selling a domain is as simple as listing it, waiting for a buyer, making a few negotiations, and then transferring it. This may be true in many instances, but not in NBC’s sale of women.com to DONE! Ventures.

DONE! Ventures entered into a contract with NBC to buy the domains woman.com and women.net for $1 million. All was fine and dandy until the NBC CEO canceled the deal. Now DONE! is suing NBC to honor the contract.

In the meantime, NBC has forwarded the domains to a dead website. As a result, they lost all their inbound links and Google PageRank. DONE! says this significantly reduces their value and wants a court to transfer them to a third party until the dispute is settled.

I don’t know much about the deal between the two companies, but as far as PageRanks and links are concerned, DONE! doesn’t have a leg to stand on. When you buy a domain, you’re buying just that and nothing else. Links and PageRank are third-party factors that make a domain more attractive, but the seller has no control over them. DONE! should suck up the loss and be a man.

Photo | Flickr

Lawsuit sheds light on sneaky sales tactics at Go Daddy call center

A report from blog Domain Incite yields some intriguing information on Go Daddy’s sales practices. According to information obtained from documents related to a lawsuit against the company, Go Daddy’s support staff up-sell hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of products and services each day.

That’s right– each day. Customers call Go Daddy support for help with their purchases, but apparently are simply told to buy more Go Daddy products. One employee in the document, Toby Harris, generated some $10,000 in gross sales for the domain registrar over 9 working days. Not bad at all considering support staff also receive a 5% commission on all sales.

While this news do not necessarily mean it is hard to get real help from Go Daddy, I definitely would not buy from a company that uses sales tactics like this.

Academy Awards takes aim at Go Daddy

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, better known as the Academy Awards, gave Go Daddy something far different from an Oscar this week: a 134-page lawsuit for cybersquatting.

Here’s the catch: the lawsuit doesn’t accuse Go Daddy of cybersquatting. Rather, it is seeking millions in damages because the company ran advertisements on parked domains such as 2011oscars.com, academyawardz.com, jaylenososcars.com, and betacademyawards.com.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has hired three lawyers to handle the case. It has a reputation for vigorously pursuing legal claims. And this isn’t the only lawsuit Go Daddy is facing regarding its domain monetization practices. A group of domain owners are currently suing the company for displaying advertisements on customer domains without authorization.

Source | THR, Esq.
Photo | Flickr

Go Daddy hit with class auction lawsuits over PPC ads

Thought you were having a bad day? Disgruntled domain owners filed class action lawsuits against Go Daddy in Arizona and Arkansas today over the PPC ads it displays on customers’ domains. These advertisements appear only when the domain is parked at Go Daddy or no name servers have been set up.

Matthew McBride, the representative of the domain owners, states that he registered four domains with the company and is upset that it placed advertisements on them without his authorisation.

Currently Go Daddy, as well as many other registers, display these PPC ads on domains without consent of the owners. Personally, I think McBride has a genuine complaint and am glad he’s raising the issue. No registrar should be able to use customer property like this for profit.

Serial cybersquatter refuses to give up

Meet Alf Temme. His portfolio of more than one thousand trademark-violating typo domains has landed him numerous lawsuits over the years from a range of companies. These include Dell, Air France, and America Online. He admits to being a typosquatter, using names like d3ell.com to sell exercise machines on his website. Now Microsoft is going after Temme, and once again, he refuses to give up.

The Redmond company initially sued Temme last month for trademark violation. A number of his domains, including ho0tmail.com and hot5mail.com, are allegedly confusing users of Microsoft services. The firm originally asked for $2.4 million, but has now offered to settle for $500,000. Despite admitting to violating the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, Temme sees nothing wrong with his actions. “OK, so I did a naughty, right?” he said. “But a punishment that’s the same as the death penalty? That’s ridiculous.”
Read More >>

Goodwill Industries abandons lawsuit over Goodwill.com

Goodwill Industries, an American non-profit charity, has dropped a lawsuit filed against company Cyber2Media over the domain Goodwill.com.

Cyber2Media acquired the same at auction for$55,978 several months ago when the owner, a Japanese staffing company, allowed it to expire. The company parked the name and displayed charity-related PPC ads. Claiming, among other things, trademark infringement and interference with prospective economic advantage, GoodWill Industries filed a lawsuit against the buyer. It sought the domain and unspecified monetary compensation.

For reasons unknown, Goodwill is no longer pursuing the lawsuit. The case was “dismissed without prejudice,” meaning that the non-profit can sue again at any time.

Source | Domain Name Wire
Photo | Flickr

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.

Verizon goes after cybersquatters

The cellular provider famous for its “Can you hear my now?” adverts is making itself heard. This week Verizon filed a number of lawsuits against cybersquatters.

Some of the domains involved are varizon.com, vierzon.com, and virazon.com. These clearly infringe upon Verizon’s trademark.

The company is demanding $100,000 per domain in addition to other damages. This includes any profits earned from the names and legal fees. Verizon is also asking that the cybersquatters pay for corrective advertising to remedy “any consumer confusion or misperceptions” that resulted from the use of domains.

I have a feeling Verizon will win its case, but I doubt their damage requests will be fulfilled. It will be hard to prove that any loss of profits and consumer confusion occurred, and my guess is the individuals concerned are unlikely to have $100,000.

Photo | Flickr

Court: Acceptable for host to terminate rude customer

In a ruling issued last week, a Los Angeles court ruled that a web host did not breach contract by suspending a rude customer.

The individual in question became angry after his hosting account was suspended for nonpayment. After leaving a rude voicemail at the company’s headquarters, the web host terminated his account. He then filed a lawsuit against the firm for breach of contract.

As it turns out, the customer promised “not to abuse whether verbally or physically or whether in person, via email or telephone or otherwise … any employee or contractor of [defendant],” when he agreed to the host’s terms of service at sign-up.

I guess it pays to be nice.

Source | Internet Cases