When a brandable marketplace...

[tomcarl]

....lists their top brandables on another marketplace, you can pretty much say the ship has sailed.

 

[PeppyNames]

Let me jump in here...

Domain listings on Flippa: We have a great relationship with Flippa, and have been talking to them for over 6 months about how we can work together to increase exposure of the BrandBucket inventory. We are currently running a test -- with only names owned by us since we do not yet have permission from other domain owners -- to see if there's the possibility of a fruitful partnership. We will know after the auctions have run their course. We aren't hiding anything, as the auctions are under our account and most actually mention BrandBucket in the title. Businesses grow through experimentation and innovation, not by maintaining the status quo.

The whole "sinking ship" thing: This is based on two things that I see: 1) The fact that we don't list the names that we sold, and 2) the musings of a competitor, which apparently seem to be rubbing off on a lot of people on this forum.

Our business has always been that the customer comes first, and we WILL NOT compromise the decision we've made to keep our transactions private and out of the search engines since this is a huge concern for many of our customers. What I can share is that we are on track to exceed the $1M mark that we did last year, while maintaining an average sale price of about $2500.

My personal belief is that a business should be built on a great idea, hard work, and positivity. Words live forever on the internet, including negative ones, which is why I try to stay out of forum pettiness. The bottom line is that people choose to do business with people, and I want to be the kind of person that customers and domainers want to do business with in the long run. That's especially important since I and the company I built are supporting many more people than just myself.

Well in a reality its a shame that BB states "we are on track to exceed the $1M mark that we did last year". Last year you had a very selective small portfolio and $1M mark on it was something but by adding all the shitty names which BB has been doing recently and portfolio has increased by manyfolds and still just able to exceed by last year $1M is a shame IMO. From your business perspective it is alright from my perspective as an investor it is real bad as it devalues my quality name with really shitty ones which have flooded BB.

 

[DomainVP]

I'm sorry, but I have to ask, why would you possibly need to change all of your pages to HTTPS? Of course for purchase pages and logins... but name listings?? And your home page?? Not only will changing your pages to HTTPS likely slow down your website some but you've sacrificed pretty much all of your rankings in Google (how, I don't know)... for something not even Pinterest or even the web-development forum behemoth Stackoverflow does. Just curious I guess.

I think this was due to pre penguin & panda tactics that previously worked but became the death of many sites. Some sites cleaned it up in time to avoid big penalties, but some of that bad link juice remains and the updates seem to pick it up. That HTTPS explanation is just bogus, in the end I do think it was the remnants of bad pre 2011 SEO catching up; and sites doing good 'manual' SEO overcoming. Have you seen that backlink profile, yecht!

 

[equity78]

Actually, it is true.

Last time I spoke to Zane Gocha he said it is not true. I emailed Margot she said it was not true.

 

[gina ferrano]

Last time I spoke to Zane Gocha he said it is not true. I emailed Margot she said it was not true.

Yes no point in spreading rumors if they're not true. My source confirmed this as well.

 

[Coral Cove]

Interesting. When I spoke to Zane he said he had sold his interest in the company. I thought for sure he meant to BB. Sorry about that.

 

[hookbox]

Seems like Brand Bucket is doing the same thing that everyone is complaining about Brand Root doing. Type in Namerific and Brand Bucket's ad shows up at the top.

 

[gina ferrano]

I get that ad too, not when I type in BR though. Though to be honest I understand, they are the biggest and the original. It's competitive and a niche market so one does what one must do.

 

[Coral Cove]

Seems like Brand Bucket is doing the same thing that everyone is complaining about Brand Root doing. Type in Namerific and Brand Bucket's ad shows up at the top.

Show attachment 7297

Nobody is complaining about Brandroot doing this, they are complaining about BrandBucket doing it, although we did start a campaign to counter theirs just today. We'll play there game, even though it will likely get very expensive for the both of us.

 

[Archangel]

Hell, claim a TM & go bitch at Google. Make BB remove their buying of your TM or else, Google could take action.

Cheap solution.

Nobody is complaining about Brandroot doing this, they are complaining about BrandBucket doing it, although we did start a campaign to counter theirs just today. We'll play there game, even though it will likely get very expensive for the both of us.

 

[Coral Cove]

Hell, claim a TM & go bitch at Google. Make BB remove their buying of your TM or else, Google could take action.

Cheap solution.

Good idea, thanks!

 

[Namerific]

Hey guys, my name is Mike and I'm the current owner of Namerific. I was going to post a long reply here, but posted a new thread instead. You can find it here: namepros . com / threads / namerific-com-update.833890/

(Sorry for the spaces in the URL but since I'm using a new account, NamePros won't let me post a link)

 

[PeppyNames]

Well competition gets more intense.

 

[Archangel]

For the interested, here's some help with giving the link:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/namerific-com-update.833890/

Hey guys, my name is Mike and I'm the current owner of Namerific. I was going to post a long reply here, but posted a new thread instead. You can find it here: namepros . com / threads / namerific-com-update.833890/

(Sorry for the spaces in the URL but since I'm using a new account, NamePros won't let me post a link)

 

[Doron Vermaat]

Welcome to Namepros Mike and good luck with Namerific!

 

[equity78]

Interesting. When I spoke to Zane he said he had sold his interest in the company. I thought for sure he meant to BB. Sorry about that.

No problem Michael that's understandable, I had just been talking with Zane a lot so I had asked him if he sold to Brand Bucket and he said no, he was vacationing in Croatia and said he sold out to his partner's brother.

 

[equity78]

Hell, claim a TM & go bitch at Google. Make BB remove their buying of your TM or else, Google could take action.

Cheap solution.

Randy Google does not take action, they usually have to defend these and have won every time.

Is Buying Competitive Keyword Advertising Trademark Infringement?

1-800 Contacts argued that Lens.com created initial interest confusion by buying 1-800 Contacts' trademarks. The Tenth Circuit adopted one of the nation's most favorable definitions of initial interest confusion in its horrible 2006 case Australian Gold v. Hatfield. That case said initial interest confusion “results when a consumer seeks a particular trademark holder’s product and instead is lured to the product of a competitor by the competitor’s use of the same or a similar mark.” If this is just a restatement of bait-and-switch law, fine, but it’s generally believed the Tenth Circuit standard covered more than bait-and-switch. Bait-and-switch requires an initial falsity to bait the hook but the 10th Circuit's standard didn't mention falsity, and there’s no intrinsic falsity in a typical competitive keyword ad buy where the competitor's trademark is used to trigger ad copy.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...-keywords-is-not-trademark-infringement.shtml


Buying Keyword Ads on People's Names Doesn't Violate Their Publicity Rights
Comment Now
Follow Comments
Can you imagine someone buying Google ($GOOG) AdWords keyword advertising triggered by your name? Most of us wouldn’t dream of it, usually because our names just aren’t valuable enough for anyone to bother. In contrast, some professional service providers, such as lawyers and doctors, tout their names in expensive advertising campaigns to consumers—and have competitors who would love to piggyback on that advertising to reach the same consumers. In a novel and persuasive ruling, a Wisconsin appellate court recent rejected a professional service provider’s attempt to use publicity rights to shut down a competitive keyword advertiser.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgol...-names-doesnt-violate-their-publicity-rights/

Google wins case against Louis Vuitton

The European court of justice today ruled in favour of Google in a long-running court battle with Louis Vuitton over the use of the luxury goods company's trademarked brand names in search advertising.

However, the ECJ added the caveat that companies that use trademarked brand keywords to push sales must be more transparent about who the seller is.

Louis Vuitton, which is part of the LVMH group of brands including Moet & Chandon and Dior, had argued that Google was acting illegally by allowing other companies to bid for and use its brand names as keywords to trigger ads on its website.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/mar/23/google-louis-vuitton-search-ads

 

[Archangel]

This is something I didn't know. Thanks for the clarification

Randy Google does not take action, they usually have to defend these and have won every time.

Is Buying Competitive Keyword Advertising Trademark Infringement?

1-800 Contacts argued that Lens.com created initial interest confusion by buying 1-800 Contacts' trademarks. The Tenth Circuit adopted one of the nation's most favorable definitions of initial interest confusion in its horrible 2006 case Australian Gold v. Hatfield. That case said initial interest confusion “results when a consumer seeks a particular trademark holder’s product and instead is lured to the product of a competitor by the competitor’s use of the same or a similar mark.” If this is just a restatement of bait-and-switch law, fine, but it’s generally believed the Tenth Circuit standard covered more than bait-and-switch. Bait-and-switch requires an initial falsity to bait the hook but the 10th Circuit's standard didn't mention falsity, and there’s no intrinsic falsity in a typical competitive keyword ad buy where the competitor's trademark is used to trigger ad copy.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...-keywords-is-not-trademark-infringement.shtml


Buying Keyword Ads on People's Names Doesn't Violate Their Publicity Rights
Comment Now
Follow Comments
Can you imagine someone buying Google ($GOOG) AdWords keyword advertising triggered by your name? Most of us wouldn’t dream of it, usually because our names just aren’t valuable enough for anyone to bother. In contrast, some professional service providers, such as lawyers and doctors, tout their names in expensive advertising campaigns to consumers—and have competitors who would love to piggyback on that advertising to reach the same consumers. In a novel and persuasive ruling, a Wisconsin appellate court recent rejected a professional service provider’s attempt to use publicity rights to shut down a competitive keyword advertiser.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgol...-names-doesnt-violate-their-publicity-rights/

Google wins case against Louis Vuitton

The European court of justice today ruled in favour of Google in a long-running court battle with Louis Vuitton over the use of the luxury goods company's trademarked brand names in search advertising.

However, the ECJ added the caveat that companies that use trademarked brand keywords to push sales must be more transparent about who the seller is.

Louis Vuitton, which is part of the LVMH group of brands including Moet & Chandon and Dior, had argued that Google was acting illegally by allowing other companies to bid for and use its brand names as keywords to trigger ads on its website.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/mar/23/google-louis-vuitton-search-ads

 

[Coral Cove]

Yup I just had a long conversation with a Google rep about it. But as you can see if you search any large company, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pepsi, etc. (even Louis Vuitton) as a keyword in Google you won't see any advertisements on the results. I'm guessing that Google doesn't care about smaller business who can't fight them and cost them tons of money, which I told the rep. It looks like they take measures to protect big brands to avoid these kinds of lawsuits, otherwise you'd see tons of ads filling these competitor's pages. Anyway, @margotb of BB wants to play dirty by stealing our brand identity, we'll have some fun too, except you'll always see Brandroot above BB ads because we don't have a bid limit. Also, I don't see that BB has any trademark on the name, so we can freely use "BrandBucket" in our ad text, whereas they cannot use our name.

Let me know when you want to stop using our trademarked brand for your gain Margot.

 

[equity78]

I don't mean this with any disrespect Michael but Google has taken on and allowed many big corporations to do this, you find it in insurance, luxury brands, the examples you stated why would anyone want to advertise under Twitter ? Geico went after Google in 2005 and lost.

Can Google or other search engines sell keywords registered as trademarks? For example, can Coca-Cola buy the keyword "Pepsi-Cola" so that every time a searcher enters the term in a search engine, advertisements for Coca-Cola appear?

The practice is quite permissible, according to an important case recently settled in the U.S. This ruling is particularly important because several cases have ruled against Google and other search engines in France on this issue, and several lawsuits in the U.S. and other countries (including Israel) are pending.

http://www.infotoday.com/it/oct05/mirchin.shtml

Louis Vuitton went after Google and lost as I posted above

In education,

The Recent Ruling

The lawsuit involves two competing web services that help college students research options for transferring to other colleges. CollegeSource sued AcademyOne for a long laundry list of perceived wrongs, including competitive keyword advertising.

CollegeSource owns the trademarks “CollegeSource” and “Career Guidance Foundation.” AcademyOne purchased the keywords “college,” “college source,” “career guidance,” and “career guidance foundation” in Google AdWords. Its ad copy displayed the titles “College Transfer Help” or “Find Transfer Information” and the domain name “collegetransfer.net,” but didn’t include CollegeSource’s trademarks. The court granted AcademyOne’s summary judgment motion because, among other reasons:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgol...tiser-defeats-trademark-infringement-lawsuit/

 

[Coral Cove]

Right, I understand it's all permissible, but do you see it happening now? Search "Geico" you won't see a single ad there. Even though it is permissible I think Google implemented some measures to protect bigger protects in order to protect themselves. Even when they win these cases, they've put out millions during the fight. So who would want to advertise under "Twitter?" The thousands of companies who provide Twitter brand building services and the like. I can think of tons of reasons why companies would want to advertise under "Twitter." It's a surefire way of getting exposure to those going to Twitter, because they offer a service for it, same for "facebook" and anything else. There are countless companies built around providing services related to huge companies.

 

[equity78]

Yeah good point on the Twitter although I see most of those companies to be very cheap when it comes to spending to promote.

I think the companies in certain industries got together and did that, because like you can say you can make it expensive for everyone buying up each other's keywords.

I still see it on things like Luxury brands but Insurance does look like it stopped.

I think Google is in favor since it makes them more money,

t’s gone relatively unnoticed, but Google earlier this week announced a fairly important update to its AdWords trademark policy.
In a nutshell, Google has revised the policy to lift a restriction on using trademarks as keywords in AdWords campaigns in a range of countries, including China, Australia, Brazil and Hong Kong (full list below).

The Internet search, advertising and services giant says it will stop preventing the use of rivals’ trademarks as keywords in Google AdWords advertising campaigns, starting Tuesday 23 April 2013 in all regions affected by the revised policy.

The change means that the Google AdWords trademark policy for keywords in ad campaigns is now harmonized throughout the world.

Advertisers will thus need to comply only with one trademark policy, rather than several, when selecting keywords for their AdWords campaigns. Google points out it has made similar efforts to streamline its AdWords trademark policies in 2009 for more than 100 countries, and more changes affecting parts of Europe in 2010.

http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/0...-trademarks-as-keywords-in-adwords-worldwide/

 

[gblasting]

The battle is about to get hotter.

@equity78
I will be expecting 'The Brandable Wars 2' on TLDInvestors.

Yeah, just like Star Wars 2!

 

[equity78]

The battle is about to get hotter.

@equity78
I will be expecting 'The Brandable Wars 2' on TLDInvestors.

Yeah, just like Star Wars 2!

You are a mindreader as I am writing it right now

 

[DomainVP]

This thread was just mentioned in a Domaining (d0t c()m) newsletter on TLDInvestors.

Fancy, fancy.

 

[tomcarl]

Interesting