Lawsuit help please: estimate how much to switch URLs

Extortionist claims outrageous sum to compensate

[luckychucky]

My federally registered trademark has been modified slightly and used by a cyberSquatting competitor in my same trade. He has no case whatsoever, and I could squish him like a bug in court. But that will cost more than settling, and the way the law works, my attorneys' fees are a longshot to recover. Despite that every fibre of my being wants to go at him with a baseball bat (in a metaphorical sense only, of course ;o) I have to listen to the advice of counsel, friends and trusted colleagues, swallow a lot of emotion and actually pay this creep to stop...it's awful.

ANYWAY,

Part of his absurd US$15,000 sky-high estimate for what he 'realistically' needs to adandon the domain is $3750 for programming costs. I'm pretty ignorant about these details but took a guess and replied:

<<
Tech Costs for New Domain and SSL certificate Installation:
You estimated tech costs for installing a SSL certificate, plus moving and testing your entire site, at $3750.00. I am puzzled by this estimate. Unless I am mistaken, nothing in your existing site needs to be changed except its categorical tree, so that all pages which root back to [___].com would instead root back to whichever new domain you choose. You would also need to redirect your DNS pointing, which requires around 5 minutes of typing at your new registrar's admin, and instruct your hosting company to port over the new DNS changes. Realistically, such changes to a website could be completed well within circa 3 to 5 hours.

My website coders are highly credentialed and tops in their trade. My managing programmer has been directly responsible for as many as 300 employees at some of the most well-known dotcoms on the web, among them the Xerox and Sony Corporations. His contract rate is $50 per hour. Also, hired tech, and without foreign outsourcing, could probably build a basic eCommerce site like yours entirely from the ground up for between $500 and $1500.

Allowing, for the sake of settlement, that the transfer will require a full 8-hour day to complete and that you will not be able to find competent technical help for under $75 per hour:
8 hours x $75 = $600.00. I estimate tech costs between $150 and $600 for reconfiguring your existing website to the new domain.
>>

I need some knowledgeable feedback please.
Is this high? Low? Please do chime in.
Thanks much

[edited by: luckychucky at 12:58 pm (utc) on May 22, 2005]

[dauction]

Umm..and why arent you just taking him to UDRP?

a. Applicable Disputes. You are required to submit to a mandatory administrative proceeding in the event that a third party (a "complainant") asserts to the applicable Provider, in compliance with the Rules of Procedure, that

(i) your domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and

(ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and

(iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

In the administrative proceeding, the complainant must prove that each of these three elements are present.

[icann.org...]

If you are certain you can squish him like a bug .. costs under $1500

[luckychucky]

Next time...
We're highly lawyered-up on both sides, and his side has thrown up a wall of obfuscating case law, enough to make any arbitrator throw his hands up in the air and defer to a determination by trial. He has conjured up just enough of an appearance of ambiguity over the domain (all of it bogus), and done it with such a mountain of bombast and filings, that things are now not quite so easy.

What I meant to say is that if we ever got to court I could rip his arguments to shreds, and yes, squash him like a bug. No doubts. But going through with a full court action will cost an unrecoverable little fortune, and he and his lawyer know it. To extend the metaphor, squishing him like a bug first involves getting at him under the thick steel plates welded all around him. Unfortunately this happens to companies large and small all the time. The nauseating bottom line is that it's cheaper to swallow my pride and settle, to bend over and take it. I've been agonzing over this mess for months. And believe me, I've been ready to gut him all that time, all go go go, kill kill kill. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe an ICANN complaint would have done the trick, but it's too late for that now.

I can't get into all the details of this wretched dispute; suffice to say it's a little nightmare, and kindly just take my word for it, that it is almost certainly too late for such a perfectly logical & simple solution. With 20-20 hindsight, maybe an ICANN filing will work better next time. I've filed a ton of successful DMCAs over content/copyright issues (I attract a lot of parasites because I'm the industry category-killer and #1 in the SERPs for all money keywords) but with my trademark, these kinds of turkeys have always just given up after the first cease and desist nastygram. I had no experience with anyone actually digging in his heels and being a real [edit_by_author]. Live and learn- try ICANN first.

For this one, I need quick feedback on this estimate issue. If I can get a few knowledgeable opinions it would really help. And thanks for the tip. Believe me, I do appreciate it and I'll keep it handy.

So, again: is it really such a big deal to change the domain name of an existing site, and what's a realistic estimate of cost?
Do chime in please

[Matt Probert]

But going through with a full court action will cost an unrecoverable little fortune, and he and his lawyer know it.

We are in exactly the same position. Indeed I am sure there are lots of small companies being ripped off by miniscule adaptations of their trademark domain names by large criminal companies, who know full well that the legal costs and international boundaries, not to mention "The American Way" make justice impossible.

Welcome to the realm of US law, where justice is bought, not deserved.

Matt