Don’t register domains that infringe on trademarks.
The first rule of the domain club: If it contains a trademark, don’t register it.
Not playing by this fundamental rule, domain squatters have targeted two large US retailers, Best Buy and Walmart.
Best Buy shared news of a new subscription service mimicking Amazon Prime, called Best Buy Beta. The electronics retailer is rolling out Best Buy Beta in select states in the US.
The matching domain, BestBuyBeta.com, was registered today and not by Best Buy themselves. The famous BEST BUY trademark is clearly being infringed upon.
Meanwhile, Walmart announced the rollout of Hazel by Walmart, an artificial intelligence fintech service similar to Siri, Alexa, and Cortana.
Walmart applied for the registration of the mark HAZEL BY WALMART and they might consider acquiring the domain Hazel.com. Breaking the first rule of the domain club, a domain squatter registered WalmartHazel.com, while another registered the exact match of the trademark: HazelByWalmart.com.
It’s registrations such as these that give domain investors a bad name.
People who register clearly infringing domain names such as those do not deserve to be called domain investors. There will be no return on their “investments” except perhaps a UDRP. Those are just ill-informed individuals or bad faith actors. They are not part of the mainstream domain investor community. Giving the impression that they are legitimate domain investors taints the reputation of the many good faith registrants who invest in domain names.