Famous marks and brands are often targeted by cybersquatters.
The term “domain investor” does not apply to cybersquatters.
The latter, is the kind of careless, ignorant or malicious registrant, aiming at monetizing existing famous brands.
Typo-squatting is a form of cybersquatting, and it relies on the registration of domain names that are slight variants of existing, high traffic domains and web sites.
While not all typo-domains or cybersquatted trademark violations perform as expected, they are registered regardless, to gauge their monetization potential.
One such globally famous brand is Harley-Davidson. Quite often, UDRP cases are filed en masse, to address the practice of trademark infringement of similar domains, by the same registrant.
In a case involving several Harley-Davidson related domains, one can only shake their head at the sheer bravado of the Chinese domain squatter who registered them:
<harley-davidsonus.com>, <harleydavidsonjacken.com>, <harleydavidsonleder.com>, <harleydavidsonvestes.com>, <harleygiacche.com>, <harleyleatherclothing.com>, <harleyleatherdealers.com>, <harleyparka.com>, <h-djackets.com>, <hdcoats.com>, <hdfurau.com>, <hdfurfr.com>, <hdfurclothing.com>, <hdjackor.com>, <hdleatherclothing.com>, <hdvestes.com>, <hdparka.com>, <hdcuir.com>, and <hdfurclothes.com>
All of these domains were registered with Ename, the Chinese domain registrar of choice for many Chinese cybercriminals.
In this case, however, this is merely a reference, as domain registrars cannot directly police the registration of domains violating even famous trademarks. The exemption being, new gTLDs that have been registered with the Trademark Clearing House (TMCH.)
Naturally, the UDRP filed for the aforementioned domains, ordered the transfer of the domains to the Complainant.
For the full text of the decision, click here.
Pretty crazy how people expect to get away with this type of behavior. Sucks because all they are doing is wasting their time and also creating a bad reputation for all the actual legit domainers in the industry. It is a positive fact that they are not getting away with that type of stuff anymore and are definitely suffering the consequences. Hopefully this will help in decreasing the occurrence of this type of action.
– Will