UDRP BC30.com UDRP lost by NamePros Member

[DaveX]

Sorry to read that Rob Monster lost a domain and a payday. I learned from this.

https://domaingang.com/domain-law/bc30-com-udrp-what-not-to-do-when-negotiating-a-domain-sale/

Let's discuss this.

I personally have never been involved in a udrp case, but naturally I've contemplated my plan if I ever am.

 

[Ategy]

What proof do you have of that? I’d ask anyone viewing this thread to tell us they got a domain back after 11 months of expiry at Epik or any other registrar for that matter. Doesn’t happen. Quit drinking the koolaid imo.

Again .. why is this even relevant. Even if he didn't allow it to recovered after 11 months, the only thing Epik has to do to be compliant is make sure the domain owner has rights to the domain while they're paying for it and whatever grace periods are in the terms of service.

Again .. you may not personally like @Rob Monster for whatever reason. You might not personally like the way he does business. But to single him out and make him look bad specifically for something almost ALL other registrars do, is nothing more than a personal attack. You aren't wrong to not like the current ICANN rules .. even I agree changes are needed .. but you are wrong in insinuating that any rules were broken here .. NO EXISTING RULES WERE BROKEN ... which means that your fight should be against ICANN and their rules .. and not specifically targeted at Epik in the off-topic manner you've done here!

 

[Keith]

Again .. please tell me why BC30 is different from any other domain? Sure it sucks sometimes that an original owner has an unfortunate set of circumstances that fall against them that leads to them unintentionally losing a domain.

BUT ...
1) Please tell me where in the rules a registrar is supposed to get the personal and direct assurance of all original owners of each and every domain that expires if they actually wanted to let it expire. The rules say registrars need to send X notices in X amount of time .. unless you have proof Epik didn't do that, then this attack is 100% without merit.

2) Where is your campaign against GoDaddy and almost all other registrars for each of the 50,000 expired domains each day where they didn't get some additional personal assurance from the original owner before they take and auction away their domains? Again .. I'm not against you not liking the current rules ... I'm just saying that it's extremely hypocritical to only be attacking this one specific domain and this one specific registrar when every year there are literally TENS OF MILLIONS other domains from hundreds of other registrars that have the exact some thing happen to them!

Thousands of domains delete from godaddy on a daily basis. They give customers first right to purchase expired domains. If no customers want to buy, they get deleted.

Did epik delete a domain that wasn’t wanted by their customer? If so, how did they get it back? Answer is...

 

[Samer]

Thousands of domains delete from godaddy on a daily basis. They give customers first right to purchase expired domains. If no customers want to buy, they get deleted.

Did epik delete a domain that wasn’t wanted by their customer? If so, how did they get it back? Answer is...

Thanks for replying to my HD post, Keith.
I thought most used Godaddy for Closeouts? Well i do to minimize bad faith bs... How about API they grant to all their customers? oh wait. You forgot to mention that too.

Use Godady expired auctions (70M inventory)
as an example how a business should be run.
Now i’ve seen it all. Epik treats customers fairer than GD hopes to be

Samer

 

[Grilled]

But the fact Rob's being attacked for what happens to 100,000 other domains EVERY DAY by almost ALL OTHER REGISTRARS is bad form and bad taste. It's a personal attack on him that should be directed on the entire industry and more specifically on ICANN and ICANN's rules.

OK, I want to agree to this.

But 100,000 other domains EVERY DAY? Really?! That seems like a fake number. Why double down on fake statistics by CAPITALIZING every day?

According to ExpiredDomains.net (Deleted Domains > past 24 hours) yields 145,887 results. To say this happens to 100,000 domains every day is a bit of a stretch.

Yes, 100,000+ domains delete every day. But this situation is unique. And while I agree @Keith biased and I don't support his views that epik.com sucks, I do commend him for sticking to specific talking points.

This specific domain acquisition is not like every other acquisition. Facts and specifics matter in terms of consistent and fair practice. A point Keith has been tirelessly trying to make since he felt robbed (pun intended) through his attempted acquisition of MobileWallet.

In regards to this turning into a personal attack that should be directed at the entire industry, specifically on ICANN, I agree the focus could be better directed elsewhere.

But at the same point, Rob is seemingly the only CEO in the domain industry participating in a public forum, being as transparent as possible (other CEOs might argue too transparent) and thus, by virtue of being the only representative of "the other side" Rob receives more than his fair share of punches, when they are really industry wide concerns, its just we hear or are reminded of the practice, by those being most transparent, and not shying away from it in the shadows. Thus he becomes the easy target. When, in fact, the scope should be zoomed out, to see a greater picture at scale, and focus attention elsewhere. Don't hate the payer, hate the game, comes to mind. But I never completely understood that, given personal responibility has to account for something, somewhere.

 

[Keith]

Thanks for replying to my HD post, Keith.
I thought most used Godaddy for Closeouts? Well i do to minimize bad faith bs... How about API they grant to all their customers? oh wait. You forgot to mention that too.

Use Godady expired auctions (70M inventory)
as an example how a business should be run.
Now i’ve seen it all

Sorry but I don’t understand the majority of your posts.

 

[Samer]

Sorry but I don’t understand the majority of your posts.

deserve a gold star bad faith expired auctions.
i’ll put it in number format;

Godaddy expired auctions furthest thing from “fair” treat customers, for you to use as an example means nothing;

1) should be Illegal under table relationship with HugeDomains.... what was their # again?

2) Only granting their API to “special” clients
Doesnt Rob make his available to all? Rob didnt u just make the Epik Escrow API avail 2?

3) Charge yearly fees for auctions because well, they can. They’re a monopoly. oh and another for reserve. Nice “faith” Keith!

Need i go on? Godaddy system is so flawed in highest order, why cite GD expired auctions?
“good faith” for rob to follow? lol put him out business, if Rob follows Godaddy” “morals”.

 

[Keith]

deserve a gold star bad faith expired auctions.
i’ll put it in number format;

Godaddy expired auctions furthest thing from “fair” treat customers, for you to use as an example means nothing;

1) should be Illegal under table relationship with HugeDomains.... what was their # again?

2) Only granting their API to “special” clients
Doesnt Rob make his available to all? Rob didnt u just make the Epik Escrow API avail 2?

3) Charge yearly fees for auctions because well, they can. They’re a monopoly. oh and another for reserve. Nice “faith” Keith!

need i go on? Godaddy system flawed in highest order, why cite GD expired auctions
“good faith” for rob to follow? lol put him out of business, if he follows Godaddy way, ANY way.

I see what you are getting at but this is common amongst industry registrars.

What Epik and Netsol do is not ok.

 

[Ategy]

Thousands of domains delete from godaddy on a daily basis. They give customers first right to purchase expired domains. If no customers want to buy, they get deleted.

How do you know? More importantly ..That's not even the point. What matters is that they would be allowed to if they wanted to. Even more importantly .. they TAKE all our expired domains and try to sell them at a profit that they keep 100%! How is that any different from keeping the domain? Keeping the profit isn't any different from keeping the domain. In fact now somebody else owns the domain and the original owner has no further grace period to get it back, so in a way it's worse.

According to ExpiredDomains.net (Deleted Domains > past 24 hours) yields 145,887 results. To say this happens to 100,000 domains every day is a bit of a stretch.

I don't know what the exact number is. GoDaddy auctions a little over 50,000 expired domains every day (I should know, I go through the list every day for my lists at NameCult .. lol). And I've heard a few times that they represent about half of all domains. So with all the other auction platforms combined it's likely not far from 100k domains.

But again, it's not really the point. The point is that 100% of expired domains that go to expired auctions are "TAKEN" from the original domainer. The method and visuals might be different and different here .. but the end result is the same as those ~100,000 other domains every day .. and more importantly .. no existing rules were broken!

I'm not saying @Keith is wrong for not liking what happened .. but this personal attack is 100% inappropriate because nothing was done outside of the rules .. his attack should be on ICANN and the existing rules. I'm fine with that .. because Rob has done nothing wrong here. In fact .. with NameLiquidate he's set it up so original domain owners can get 91% of revenues from their expired domains .. GoDaddy takes 50,000 expired domains A DAY away from the original owners and gives them 0%! Yet somehow you guys feel it's appropriate to go off-topic and attack Epik as opposed to GoDaddy or more importantly the actual ICANN rules ??? That's 100% wrong!

In regards to this turning into a personal attack that should be directed at the entire industry, specifically on ICANN, I agree the focus could be better directed elsewhere.

I'm glad you're starting to see the light .. lol .. Because that's all I'm saying .. that this specific and personal attack against Rob is unjustified as long as he's playing by the rules and not doing anything that ultimately ends up being any different from hundreds of other registrars.

 

[nothere]

I am debating whether to give the defendant the chance to settle for $4200, their last offer.

That's a good one and makes financial sense for both sides, but be aware that this might be seen as bad faith: "Now you are aware of the trademark and are seeking to profit from it" they might say.

Big companies are funny, sometimes they want to make a point and bury you. Depends how much sleep their C level exec had the night before. Legal expenses are part of their life.

 

[Ategy]

That's a good one and makes financial sense for both sides, but be aware that this might be seen as bad faith: "Now you are aware of the trademark and are seeking to profit from it" they might say.

It's irrelevant if he's aware of the trademark now. For the 3rd part of the URDP (aka bad faith registration) it only matters if it can be proven if he was aware of the company's trademark at the time he acquired the domain (which would be back when he paid the first renewal ~8 years ago).

There has been a case somewhere where I think a panellist/judge set the time as being the last renewal, but for the most part it's generally when the current owner acquired the domain.

Otherwise it is always safe not to make outgoing offers to trademark holders, but once they've contacted you the first time it's fine (although be careful as they could indeed be playing tricky games .. be sure to be very aware of the specific words used .. and always inform and educate yourself)

 

[nothere]

It's irrelevant if he's aware of the trademark now. For the 3rd part of the URDP (aka bad faith registration) it only matters if it can be proven if he was aware of the company's trademark at the time he acquired the domain (which would be back when he paid the first renewal ~8 years ago).

You are wrong, and paying their legal fees can run into tens of thousands. In Fed court they'll say that they learned that our name was trademarked and sought to profit from our trademark by selling it to us. No one cares about panelist opinion there, it starts fresh under US Federal Law.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_...7863741&q=Dealerx+v.+Kahlon&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33

Defendant's actions after being made aware of his infringement are relevant to the bad faith analysis. In Sleekcraft Boats, the Ninth Circuit found no bad faith where the defendant had adopted the infringing mark unwittingly and, after notification, "designed a distinctive logo" to prevent consumer confusion. 599 F.2d at 354. The defendant in this case did the opposite. According to the complaint, upon learning of his infringement defendant amplified the infringement in an attempt to essentially extort money from the plaintiff. Taking plaintiff's allegations as true, defendant's behavior following notification of infringement demonstrates bad faith. The merits of this claim favor entry of default judgment.

 

[Ategy]

Yes .. Admittedly I was talking within the scope of a UDRP.

Although in Rob's case they already made a $4200 offer, so in the context of settlement my uneducated guess would be that's it would pass. But just to be clear my area of knowledge is focused on the UDRP.

Although that case you mention was actually what I was saying, as I'm thinking "extortion" means the domain owner contacted the trademark owner specifically for money/profit (aka outbound). If he had done nothing, or if he had only mentioned money after an incoming offer was made it could have been a different outcome.

 

[nothere]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Group they own the BC30 trademark apparently. 23000 employees, billions in revenue etc etc. They don't care about chump change to hire a local firm to defend their win. And since loser pays it's even better.

Maybe a lawyer can suggest a settlement but for $4200 maybe no one will get involved.

 

[Grilled]

Yes .. Admittedly I was talking within the scope of a UDRP.

Although in Rob's case they already made a $4200 offer, so in the context of settlement my uneducated guess would be that's it would pass. But just to be clear my area of knowledge is focused on the UDRP.

Gotta love free legal advice...

 

[Rob Monster]

That's a good one and makes financial sense for both sides, but be aware that this might be seen as bad faith: "Now you are aware of the trademark and are seeking to profit from it" they might say.

Big companies are funny, sometimes they want to make a point and bury you. Depends how much sleep their C level exec had the night before. Legal expenses are part of their life.

Yup, that's off the table.

Notice of Service of Process has been sent to the Defendant's counsel tonight. We're filing Monday or Tuesday in WA.

Also, upon further review, we think their BC30 trademark is nonsense and may challenge its validity. The legal case will allow us to pursue discovery there.

 

[Ategy]

Gotta love free legal advice...

Free legal advice is should only be taken with a grain of salt if it's by a non-lawyer like me! lol ... @jberryhill gives free advice and information all over NamePros and it's total gold!

 

[nothere]

Yup, that's off the table.

Notice of Service of Process has been sent to the Defendant's counsel tonight. We're filing Monday or Tuesday in WA.

Also, upon further review, we think their BC30 trademark is nonsense and may challenge its validity. The legal case will allow us to pursue discovery there.

well, good luck. Apparently they have https://bc30probiotic.com as their site so bc30 would serve them better. Your refusal of $4200 and counteroffer will be painted as bad faith ("maybe he learned of our trademark and then judged that we want it so ...")

 

[Ategy]

Your refusal of $4200 and counteroffer will be painted as bad faith ("maybe he learned of our trademark and then judged that we want it so ...")

I didn't want to be the first one to say it .. but yeah ultimately I think that's their only argument that has any chance. Although I'm not sure what the actual law says on that. In theory Rob should be allowed to charge what he wants at any time. But trademarks are not black and white .. and sometimes you don't have the freedom to do just anything with your own domains. One thing is for sure .. it's going to be a very interesting case.

 

[nothere]

I didn't want to be the first one to say it .. but yeah ultimately I think that's their only argument that has any chance. Although I'm not sure what the actual law says on that. In theory Rob should be allowed to charge what he wants at any time. But trademarks are not black and white .. and sometimes you don't have the freedom to do just anything with your own domains. One thing is for sure .. it's going to be a very interesting case.

It's in lawyers hands now. Or it will be when filed and served. They will pour through UDRP history, comments here and all. Lawyers have a duty to do their best for clients and they love billable hours. One side will pay them, along with a possible $100K fine and other fees, so it's no game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act

 

[Rob Monster]

It's in lawyers hands now. Or it will be when filed and served. They will pour through UDRP history, comments here and all. Lawyers have a duty to do their best for clients and they love billable hours. One side will pay them, along with a possible $100K fine and other fees, so it's no game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Protection_Act

As for managing the expiry stream, each day I have to decide which domains to let go to Snapnames after the grace period. This is a very efficient process done through a single screen with some analytics.

On some days, the review involves a lot of names with really no time to research them. It is a quick gut decision of whether or not to let a name to go to the wolves or to warehouse them.

For sure, I had never heard of the Kerry/Ganeden people before acquiring that domain. It was just a short name. We own a bunch of those, and this one looked brandable for variety of concepts.

I do recall that initial thought was that it would be a clever name for a name for a game. ICYMI, there was a lot going on with the Roman empire on our around 30 BC. I am a fan of both history and strategy games.

That said, had the former registrant come back within 1 year, and we still had the domain, they could have placed a retail backorder for $199 and we would have honored it.

Assuming this goes to trial, we'll seek to keep the domain and challenge the validity of their trademark for the specific term "BC30" in any class, let alone the narrow class in which they were later granted a mark:

I am still dumbfounded that WIPO found anything other than RDNH. It looks to me like they were relying very much on the bad faith narrative.

The reality is that when I defended, e.g. Gorgonzola.city, I won the case. There was no bad faith here.

The fact is that in cases where I know I have no case, or a weak case, I simply hand over the domain. That is my consistent pattern.

I did not do that here because I thought there were one of 2 outcomes:

1. WIPO would do the right thing.

OR

2. WIPO would seal their own fate.


They did the same thing with IBM20.com. The Chinese client there had bought THOUSANDS of bulk combinations of 3 letters and 2 numbers. The registrant could not be bothered to respond and lost in UDRP.

So, as for BC30.com, I am confident that the facts are fully on my side, and look forward to justice being served, and for a high profile win against corporate sponsored WIPO thuggery.

Fiat justitia ruat caelum