Another black-eye moment for the speculative/traffic domain market.
Hopefully the recent trend in the domain parking PPC industry of excluding or devaluing dubious domains will accelerate the end of practices such as this case encompasses.
I wonder if the guy lost that particular domain only because he didn't respond.
I wonder if the guy lost that particular domain only because he didn't respond.
There are cases where the complainant lost even if the respondent didn't reply.
Reading the actual decision, I think these portions clinched it:
The Domain Name #*$! currently resolves to a website headed "custom bracelets", with a copyright notice by "CUSTOMBRACELETS.NET". It does not offer LIVESTRONG bracelets for sale. Instead, this website advertises that organizations can design their own promotional bracelets and order quantities of them through the website.
In the course of one of the telephone conversations, the Respondent said that he also owned the Domain Name #*$! and would transfer that as well to the Complainant. Despite repeated assurances by the Respondent that he would transfer the Domain Names, they remain registered to the Respondent at the time of this UDRP proceeding.
98% of the players in this realm really don't care about anything but profiting as long and as much as they can from the traffic.
1% at least feign an interest in the trademark/brand/celebrity subject - but - they still operate in ways intended to profit.
I've posited for some time that the end of this practice will come when the trademark owners go after the profit source - the PPC companies - treating them as "acting in concert" in an illegal scheme, whether by lawsuit or government agency action.
Maybe 1% of the domains used in the realm of 1 off trademark use by non-rights holders are true fan based operations, websites that are actually and directly good for the bottomline of the rights holder.
