Hello,
We just re-reviewed this matter and resolved it with the following resolution note:
Listing closed / member notified / Blatant Trademark name of globally known athlete / However, keep in mind that going down the road of not allowing first/last name domain assets, where more than one (Most times multiple) people share the same name, it could lead to no names at all being allowed anymore, for consistency and fairness. Especially when a listing makes no direct reference to a particular person with the same name
Note: If the listing had refereed to Soccer or the Athlete in the listing, it would have been considered a blatant trademark listing in the first report review, however, that wasn't the case in this matter.
Examples:
- Blatant Trademark Violation: Microsoft.whatever - (A made up brand name known globally that is not a dictionary word)
- Questionable Trademark Violation: AmazonInsects.whatever - (Dictionary word that is also a GEO location and a company brand - There are insects in the Amazon forest and toy insects sold in the Amazon marketplace. It comes down to how the listing is referencing the term in order to determine if it violates a rule.)
- Questionable Trademark Violation: - Apple.whatever - (This is a popular dictionary word, fruit, and a brand name - It comes down to how the listing is worded and referenced in order to determine if it violates a rule.)
- Questionable Trademark Violation: - First+Last name.whatever - (With so many people sharing the same first and last names all over the world, even if only 2, 5 or 10 (Most are hunderds if not thousands), the name is no longer unique and each first+last name individual with a legal government birth certificate and identification document has a right to use said domain with their exact name in it. It's hard to enforce first+last name domain assets because of that. Basically, you are stating that 5, 10, 50, 100, potentially 1000+ people are not allowed to purchase their own name domain because one famous person whom they are not related to has more press and marketing exposure than they do, rendering their first+last name unclaimable by anyone else except that one person.)
At the end of the day, we can certainly understand the concern of selling famous first+last domain names, however, if the seller is not referencing anything that relates the domain to a specific person, there is no way for us to determine intentional unethical business practices. Especially when there are several other people in the world with the same first+last name.
If at any time, a seller mentions/references a specific person, brand, product, etc. that would be considered blatant (Globally known). that leaves no question as to their intent, a moderator can immediately get more involved. Without reference, it becomes a gray area, in which enforcement is a two way street and can go either way.
You are more than welcome to request another moderator team to give their opinion on this matter and if the two opinions are different, we can forward the matter to management for additional review so that a new policy can be created that all moderator teams must follow moving forward when questionable first+last names are listed again.
Just keep in mind, once you start barring some first+last names multiple people have on their birth certificates from being listed, it could domino, eventually, into all first+last names from being listed in the future. So think about where such a new policy could take the industry, first.
We hope that helps clarify this moderator teams stance when reviewing such listings.
