legal Blackrock, Inc. v. BALCKROCK.COM et al

[bhartzer]

This is an interesting case, especially because it was a lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of Virginia against 40 domain name owners.

In September 2022, Blackrock, Inc. filed a lawsuit against the owner of balckrock dot com for trademark infringement. They also included 40 other domain names as well:

BALCKROCK.COM, BLACKROCKINVESTMENTS.COM, BLACKROCKINVESTORS.COM, BLACKROCKBANK.COM, BLACKROCKFINANCIALCORP.COM, BLACKROCKMONEY.COM, BLACKROCKEQUITYPARTNER.COM, BLACKROCKFUNDING.COM, BLACKROCKHOLDINGINVESTMENTS.COM, BLACKROCKBANKS.COM, BLACKROCKTRADELLP.COM, BLACKROCK-PSA.COM, BLACKROCK-INVESTMENT.COM, BLACKROCKBITCOIN.COM, BLACKROCKUKINVESTMENT.COM, BLACKROCKCAPITALSOLUTIONSLLC.COM, BLOCKROCKCAPITAL.COM, BLACKROCK-FUND.COM, BLACKROCKCRYPTOBANK.COM, BLACKROCKBROKER.COM, BLACKROCKBROKERAGEFIRM.COM, BLACROCK.NET, MYBLACKROCKISHARES.COM, BLACK-ROCK-INVEST.COM, BLACKROCKINVESTMENTSGROUP.COM, BLACKSOCK-INVEST.COM, FUNDBLACKROCK.COM, BLACKROCKFINANCIALADVISERS.COM, BLACKROCKFINANCIALADVISORS.COM, BLACKROCKLOAN.COM, BLACKROCK-STOCK.COM, BLACKROCKE.COM, BLACKROCKDIGITALASSETS.COM, BLACKROCKINVEST.ORG, BLACKRPCK.COM, BLACKROCK-INVEST.COM, BLACKROK.COM, BLACKROCKGLOBALINVESTMENT.COM and BLACKROCKVESTMENT.COM

https://dockets.justia.com/docket/virginia/vaedce/1:2022cv01002/528315

Rather than filing a UDRP, they chose to file a lawsuit in Virginia. Blackrock, Inc. won the case, and it was finalized by the judge in December 2022.

What's interesting to me here is that GoDaddy, the registrar where at least 1 of the domain names were registered, at NO time during the lawsuit (when they were told to lock the domains), nor when the domains were moved out of the domain owner's account, did GoDaddy notify the domain owners.

I know one of the owners of the domains, and they were actually using it for a website that had nothing to do with finance, investment, etc. so it's quite possible that if they had known about the lawsuit they could have tried to defend the ownership of the domain.

The UDRP process notifies domain owners about the UDRP and gives them a chance to respond. However, if a lawsuit is filed, then domain owners are not notified at all. In this case, the domain owner went to renew the domain and found it was no longer in his GoDaddy account, so they came to me (through DNAccess' domain recovery service) and asked if I could find out what happened.

So what are domain owners to do? We're not notified when a lawsuit is filed, especially if the domain is at GoDaddy and it's locked.

 

[branding]

They wanted to know why their domain was missing from their account, as they considered it 'stolen'. I did some research and found this above-named lawsuit.

You're good at SEO, that doesn't make you a legal expert. It's one of the biggest concerns I would have when hiring a company like yours.

You're good at what you do but are lacking legal backup. Not trying to shit on your parade, pardon my french, but you should partner up with someone in the legal field to advance your reach.

 

[bhartzer]

You're good at SEO, that doesn't make you a legal expert. It's one of the biggest concerns I would have when hiring a company like yours.

You're good at what you do but are lacking legal backup. Not trying to shit on your parade, pardon my french, but you should partner up with someone in the legal field to advance your reach.

Thanks for mentioning, we already have. In fact, we do referrals regularly to qualified domain attorneys. One particular domain attorney we work with won a UDRP for one of our clients just a few weeks ago. We have 3 domain attorneys that we're currently working with, if/when it comes to that.

99 percent of the requests we get at DNAccess are resolvable because we've been our client's "domain advocate" so to speak, walking them through the process of recovering their stolen domain name, and telling them how to respond to the registrars' requests and support tickets. The last two were just that (2 recoveries in the past two weeks). One stolen from NetSol and moved to Public Domain Registry without permission, and the other domain stolen from CloudFlare (registrar). Legal was not involved or needed.

 

[Maggie Mae]

I have not read all the posts in this thread. I don't agree with infringing on IP and ppl need to be careful with sites that generate logos and landing pages. It's been a while since I've read GoDaddy's terms.

That said, I did a curious google search and this is what I found on Nasdaq•com (can't share the link); this is just fyi. Nothing more. I had seen a meme about all the companies Blackrock has invested in, so thought to search based on this post.

"BlackRock Increases Position in Godaddy (GDDY)​

February 03, 2023 — 12:13 pm EST

Written by Fintel Staff for Fintel

Fintel reports that BlackRock has filed a 13G form with the SEC disclosing ownership of 8.35MM shares of Godaddy Inc (GDDY). This represents 5.4% of the company.

In their previous filing dated February 9, 2022 they reported 8.24MM shares and 5.00% of the company, an increase in shares of 1.36% and an increase in total ownership of 0.40% (calculated as current - previous percent ownership).

..."
read the rest on the Nasdaq site.

This is just fyi, nothing more

 

[Debasis]

I always wonder why the company filed a lawsuit...is it a scare tactic.... why don't you buy blckrock.com directly by upfront...it shows how greedy the BLACKROCK people are..

 

[Maggie Mae]

I always wonder why the company filed a lawsuit...is it a scare tactic.... why don't you buy blckrock.com directly by upfront...it shows how greedy the BLACKROCK people are..

The US requires active protection of IP - companies must monitor and protect their brand, or risk losing it (a very simplified answer)

 

[Kazzia]

Well, blackrock owns most of planet Earth, so no one will ever be able to defend themselves in a lawsuit. Maybe they were right, but they could have just gone the UDRP route.