Rick Schwartz is ready for war.
Rick Schwartz unleashed a salvo of pure lava yesterday, after a UDRP for his domain name SaveMe.com was initiated at the WIPO.
Rick’s hand-registration from 1996 somehow became the business name of a Brazilian corporation that aggregates daily deals from Groupon and other money-savings web sites.
Not only does the Brazilian company, SaveMe.com.br not have a registered trademark for the term per their own admission, but they went in business in 2010 – a whole 14 years after Rick Schwartz registered the domain!
The Brazilian lawyer, Márcio Mello Chaves, who handles the case on behalf of the SaveMe.com.br company made an offer to Rick Schwartz last August. The offer of $10,000 was deemed as substantially below market value for the domain king to accept. Rick would not sell the domain for $100,000.
Rick’s furious about this obvious attempt to reverse-hijack the domain name SaveMe.com and he’s determined to make it a “Case Law ” challenge, that will be remembered for years to come.
In a very odd and convenient twist, all three members of the WIPO panel are Brazilians, as chosen by the complainant of the UDRP.
The question is, what should Rick do with the domain SaveMe.com at this point? Here’s your chance to give some feedback.
What's the best use for SaveMe.com ?
- A web site about religious salvation and redemption from all sins. (11%, 11 Votes)
- A "green" web site about saving Mother Earth from pollution. (8%, 8 Votes)
- A web site for the victims of human trafficking . (10%, 10 Votes)
- Park it; it's a legitimate business option. (16%, 16 Votes)
- Point it to his blog to let the Brazilians know who's boss. (55%, 55 Votes)
Total Voters: 100
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Small and medium sized-domainers should be GETTING help from Rick Schwartz – not giving it.
He paid $150 for a domaining.com headline just so he could get several hundred worker bees to do his work for him.
At the same time, many small domainers will get silence (not even a simple no thank-you) in return from big-time domainers when we have a problem and reach out. The big-time domainers should be helping a few smaller domainers.
I don’t fault Rick for fighting the good fight, but it is not up to the hundreds and thousands of small-time domainers who read these blogs to help Rick make the guy he calls a moron famous. Rick is in a position to do that all by himself.
Jonathan Jacobs – I don’t believe Rick said he needs any help from anyone; he’s just spreading the news so that domainers are aware of this type of practice.
It costs $1,500 to start something like this, Rick is not just screwing around, he is trying to set a case law precedent for domain hijacking. This company does not have a trademark, recently regged an extension of his name, and calls him out for bad faith? He is going to try to go after then for damages, and set an example, it should be a 2 way street!
The Complainant spent $4,000 for a 3-member panel.
Pool of bullshit …they was born in 2010 and they want to have name of the other as their brand ..why didn’t they ask Apple to give them “Apple” name …