How can one get a misspelled domain?

Misspell domain - a setback for offline/online marketing campaigns

[shaadi]

With one alphabet missing yet pronounced the same way - we have a competitor enjoying our huge marketing campaigns both offline and online.

How do we get hold of this misspelled domain name? There must me some way out...

Thanks in advance.

[victor]

You could ask them nicely, you could try a lawyer's letter.

Ultimately, you shell out USD1300 (I think) and go for the ICANN/WIPO dispute resolution process:

[icann.org...]

[arbiter.wipo.int...]

[shaadi]

Thanks a lot victor, I appreciate your help.

[Jenstar]

Is your name trademarked? "Confusingly similar" trademarks also apply to domain names.

[Jivey]

buy him out? cash talks.. reason with him..

[shaadi]

buy him out? cash talks.. reason with him..

Did that, she won't sell! No matter what, after all - she profits from it.

When I pitched her, I didn't giveout my true identity.

[SevanB2]

If you have Trademark on the domain, best thing is to email them a Cease and Diceased letter from your true identity. I have a sample letter that I can email you if you are interested. If they don't comply in transfering the domain, then go through ICANN. If you win they will be liable for paying the fees, but collecting could be a different story. Most such cybersquaters use fake identities to register domains...in which case you will win the domain back and ICANN will transfer the domain to you, but you won't be able to get the $1300 from them unless you can track them down.

[shaadi]

>I have a sample letter that I can email you if you are interested.

Sure, pls check your StickyMail [webmasterworld.com].

[anallawalla]

His domain is a transliteration of a generic word in Urdu, Farsi and Arabic but commonly used in India since the Hindi equivalent sounds sterile. Even though his domain name is trademarked, the other spellings might belong to someone else. It will involve lawyers and courts as the competitor I am thinking of has anticipated the situation and mentions that their "legal address" is a US postbox. They came along 11 months after shaadi's domain, so there might be a strong case.

IMHO, the other company chose the better spelling. Indian words during the British rule were spelt to suit a native English speaker. After independence, the Indians decided (the film industry did to a large extent, as movie names were written in English) to change the spellings to be more "accurate" to Indians (who could read English).

e.g. "translate" (pron traanslate in much of the Commonwealth), "example" (pron exaample in much of the Commonwealth) etc. shaadi's company went for the "aa" version. His problem is that the potential customer remembers the generic word and types in the typical Indian transliterated spelling (which tends to use the "a" spelling). Hence the company can't run a radio campaign for "exaample.com" without spelling it out.

Google for: homophone +trademark +domain for some discussion on this problem.

shaadi: "alphabet" refers to the full, ordered set of 26 letters.

[shaadi]

Great post anallawalla, really very helpful.