question Is this domainer taking a risk?

MapleDots · Oct 15, 2020

For my business I use a credit union instead of a bank and their web address is MeridianCU.ca

I made a mistake and typed in MeridianCU.com

Hmmm, is it just me or is the owner of this domain just asking for a UDRP?

Would you risk a few pennies of parking income on something like this?

There is no way anyone would EVER use a domain like MeridianCU other than to target the owner of the company that obviously owns the right to the name.

TCK · Oct 15, 2020

That's an interesting question. It appears MeridianCU.com was registered 2 years (in 2002) before the .ca version (in 2004). I'm not a lawyer but wonder if that will have a bearing. Was Meridian Credit Union around at that time and have they already been using that name?

MapleDots · Oct 15, 2020

Looks like it came to be in 2005

So I assume the .com was dropped in 2004 and then hand registered again in what year?

blogspotter · Oct 15, 2020

I don't think he thinks the domains had much resale value since it is too specific the said CU and just squeezing out the type in traffic for some parking revenue as long as it is working.

Windoms · Oct 15, 2020

I have a 4L which is the acronym of a very very very large organization.
That 4L was once parked using Godaddy's nameservers. Basic godaddy type of homepage lander.
Then GD changed so that when you use their nameservers, it directs to afternic parking landers with ads, that change happened a couple months ago.

One day I visited the domain and found ads pointing to that very specific company's website..

Bob Hawkes · Oct 15, 2020

I think having monetized ads is definitely a risk in the case you show.

Beyond that, meridian is a generic word that could be used in many areas - expeditions, consulting, navigation, sailing, reference, etc. OpenCorporates show more than 14,000 active listings for the word, indicating lots of possible uses all over the world.

So I see no risk with the domain, that I would view as valuable, but yes advertising that seems to target a TM owner is unwise and dangerous.

Bob

TCK · Oct 15, 2020

MapleDots said:
Show attachment 170235

Looks like it came to be in 2005

So I assume the .com was dropped in 2004 and then hand registered again in what year?

According to Whois, the registration year for .com version is 2002. So it doesn't appear to be dropped since.

Bob Hawkes said:
I think having monetized ads is definitely a risk in the case you show.

Beyond that, meridian is a generic word that could be used in many areas - expeditions, consulting, navigation, sailing, reference, etc. OpenCorporates show more than 14,000 active listings for the word, indicating lots of possible uses all over the world.

So I see no risk with the domain, that I would view as valuable, but yes advertising that seems to target a TM owner is unwise and dangerous.

Bob

Hi Bob. Interesting points you raise as well. The way I see it is that financial related ads do not violate TM. It's too generic. I can see if you had a tesla related domain and had tesla ads on it. That is very specific. But someone may prove me wrong.

The fact that the .com owner registered a matching name of the .ca owner 2 years earlier, it is hard to understand the motive unless that person had some real inside information and preemptively registered the domain knowing that the same name would be used by a Canadian company in a couple of years. It's possible but would need to be proven.

MapleDots · Oct 15, 2020

TCK said:
According to Whois, the registration year for .com version is 2002. So it doesn't appear to be dropped since.

Hi Bob. Interesting points you raise as well. The way I see it is that financial related ads do not violate TM. It's too generic. I can see if you had a tesla related domain and had tesla ads on it. That is very specific. But someone may prove me wrong.

The fact that the .com owner registered a matching name of the .ca owner 2 years earlier, it is hard to understand the motive unless that person had some real inside information and preemptively registered the domain knowing that the same name would be used by a Canadian company in a couple of years. It's possible but would need to be proven.

I don't think the issue is as much the Meridian tag as it is the combination of Meridian, CU (Credit Union), and the fact they are targeting similar in the ad.

So 3 no no no's in my opinion

I mean really, what are the odds of more than one MeridianCU in the world?

Bob Hawkes · Oct 15, 2020

MapleDots said:
what are the odds of more than one MeridianCU in the world?

Few minutes of search indicated at least two, one in US one in Canada. I expect others somewhere.

xynames · Oct 15, 2020

As I’ve said many times before

xynames said:
I’ve seen situations where the ads are being paid for by the very company that sent the “Cease and Desist!” A simple PPC landing page isn’t enough by itself to show bad faith use of the domain.

But, if this makes you fearful of creating landing pages for your domains with or without PPC that just leaves less competition for those of us that aren’t afraid.

People just repeat the same thing enough times about how you must avoid PPC landing page ads because these are somehow fodder for udrp claims until they think it’s true.

MapleDots · Oct 15, 2020

Bob Hawkes said:
Few minutes of search indicated at least two, one in US one in Canada. I expect others somewhere.

Yes you are correct www.meridiancu.org

CraigD · Oct 16, 2020

Cu is also the elemental symbol for copper, and there is a Meridian mining group who mine copper.

I'm just pointing out that it could be unrelated to a credit union.

question Is this domainer taking a risk?

More options

MapleDots

Account Closed (Requested)

TCK

Top Member

MapleDots

Account Closed (Requested)

blogspotter

Top Member

Windoms

Top Member

Bob Hawkes

Top Member

TCK

Top Member

MapleDots

Account Closed (Requested)

Bob Hawkes

Top Member

xynames

XYNames.comTop Member

MapleDots

Account Closed (Requested)

CraigD

Top Member

Similar threads

We're social

New posts

Auction activity

What non .com extensions have you sold in 2024?

Polls of interest

Popular this week

Community favorite

Popular this month

Blog favorites

Pinned

Appreciation

Agreement