Splitting Hairs with Flippa

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Over the years, I’ve pointed out several instances where Flippa has allowed questionable domain names to be a part of their featured auctions; there is no need to scour their entire listing to point out the rest as it’s commonly known that the place is plagued with them already.

Though, to be fair on Flippa, many of the other marketplaces don’t do a very good job at vetting trademark domains as well (with the exception of Sedo's automatic system). However, unlike other marketplaces, Flippa charges a listing fee for any domain that is added. This can be anywhere from $9 to $326(+/-) with the use of upgrades.

I would expect with a listing fee, especially with an upgrade to include a picture in the listing, that Flippa would take the time to vet submissions to ensure a successful sale is possible to take place as they would also receive a commission on top of the listing fee.

If not for that reason mentioned, to prevent what I'm about to discuss.

There’s an auction running on Flippa now which just so happens to be Forbes.bio. Okay, we can argue left and right that it’s not a trademark and this and that it's not "because of what's right of the dot" (I've heard many times before). But, the fact of the matter is: It is a trademark, remarkably so when the seller uses Forbes’ logo in conjunction with their listing – an upgrade on its own.

With such a "proactive" Marketplace Integrity Team, one would think these types of listings wouldn't seep through the cracks. Though, it appears to be a frequent sighting these days. Have you given up, @FlippaDomains ?

More importantly, why should sellers continue to use a marketplace that, when it comes down to it, doesn't have their seller's best interest in mind?

 

[FlippaDomains]

All queued (plus 50+ more) to be deleted, with the exception of grey-area ones. Standby...

 

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Kevin (@FlippaDomains),

Thanks for the great work. And, I'm sure less will slip through once the counter-measures are in place to detect these names. Because of that, I'm positive more people, other than myself, will respect Flippa for taking the right step in preventing the sale of trademark infringing domains; it will be the second marketplace of my knowledge that actively does so (namePros being the first). Hopefully, we didn't get off on the wrong foot here; I'm just looking out for the buyer's best interest. I know some buyers do want TM domains, and, they can purchase them in silence as they always have. I believe that there's no reason to make the buying and selling of them mainstream to attract even more of this trade from happening in the future as it attributes us all having a bad name in the public's eye.

I'll continue to let you know if anything else slips through in the meantime.

Thanks,
David

 

[FlippaDomains]

Thanks @David Walker - I seek to earn your trust and will continue to work on this. There's a distinction between TM'd websites and TM'd domains, which is the holdup on an overarching code switch on the platform; I can delve into that further when I get a little more info from our websites team. But all in all, while I dislike them personally, I cannot censor outright. It has to be blatant abuse, which is prone for a takedown - I'm all for that and will work to eradicate.

 

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