Domain Name Disputes
I’ve been threatened to be sued about 4 times now, none of which have actually come to fruition.
Here is the latest one that I received on 19th June this year from mobiles.co.uk:
“Kieron
I’ve noticed that you are now actively using the domain www.mobiles.org.uk and driving traffic to the site.
Mobiles.co.uk is a £9m turnover mobile phone reseller, employs 30 people and has been trading for over 10 years on the web. The similarity between the URLs www.mobiles.co.uk and www.mobiles.org.uk could lead to confusion for customers, as to which entity they are dealing with. It might also be determined that www.mobiles.org.uk is attempting to pass off as www.mobiles.co.uk.
In order to prevent any confusion in the market and to save management time, I am prepared to make you an offer for the purchase of www.mobiles.org.uk. Please could you let me know by return an offer price.
If no response is received by 26 June 2006, or an unrealistic offer proposed, then I will initiate Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Procedure.”
Anyway, I checked the Nominet Dispute Resolution Service Decisions and found out that most generic domain names (i.e. like mine) aren’t given to the complainant. Plus, I am not attempting to pass my site off in any way, shape or form.
To be honest I see this communication from www.mobiles.co.uk as nothing short of bullying tactics. If I was green I could have easily caved in to them at the first sight of any form of legal letter. Luckily I’m not and would have been more than happy to take them on via Nominet (and still am). Not surprisingly I never heard from mobiles.co.uk again after I told them I wasn’t going to sell my domain to them.
What I’m listening to right now: 504 - “Get Out Of Jail”
Affiliate Marketing - Nominet - Domain Names
Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:31 am
I have been threatened before as well. I think so long as your site doesn’t infringe on any copyrighted material (which it doesn’t) then you are fine.
It is a bullying tactic.
Best wishes, George
September 19th, 2006 at 12:31 am
The only thing you have to be careful of is if they try to use the .org.uk charter against you… “Registrants in .org.uk are intended to be not-for-profit or public service enterprises” blah blah blah.
However, in your favour is the fact that mobiles.co.uk aren’t a non-profit or public service enterprise either, so they have no right to it at all.
On the face of it, it looks like you have a pretty solid case, unless Nominet get shirty about the charter.. which, to be honest, I haven’t heard of happening before.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:31 am
Good man - I’ve had much bigger clients trying to bully one of my companies in the past. What small traders don’t realise is that in 99% of the cases, the person trying to do the bullying doesn’t have the actual authority to do anything about it.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:50 am
To be fair, if you were in their situation you’d probably try the same thing - it’s not “bullying”, it’s business. Bullying would be hiring a firm of solicitors to write these letters, not informally approaching you with an offer for a domain that is after all confusingly similar to their own.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:55 am
Anonymous - it is not business at all. If it was and they thought they had a legitimate claim to my domain name then they would have followed it through via Nominet. The fact is that they sent that email hoping I would just cave in and give them the domain.
September 19th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
What exactly was the point in them telling you how much turnover they generate etc? I think they’d be quite suprised to learn that you’re not just some guy with a site, if you responded with your turnover and years trading.
I’m not saying that would help, it just seems that they think you’re a small fish in a big pond, and they’re trying to exploit that.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:30 am
Utterly ridiculous. Obvious bully-boy tactics… “I’m a giant and if you don’t sell up, I’ll shut you down anyway”
Laughable.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:30 am
there are loads of scum doing business on the internet and it looks like you’ve just come across one of them. Tell them where to go..politely!
September 20th, 2006 at 8:31 am
I agree with the first Anonymous, it’s not bullying - it’s business. They presented you with an option, you rejected it.
For them, it’s a gamble - some will come to an arrangement, some won’t.
It’s a big bad world out there, we just have to live with it.
September 20th, 2006 at 8:31 am
I remember reading somewhere that once the person defending their domain has offered to sell it to the owner of the similar domain (i.e. has put a price on it), this adds to weight of the case against them. The reason being that it implies that the domain was purchased with the intent of either cyber-squatting or passing off.
Do you think it’s possible that the email was an attempt trap you by getting you to put a price the domain?
September 20th, 2006 at 8:31 am
This is absolute rubbish! You rightly pointed out that it’s a generic name. - Therefore cannot be trademarked, and my guess is they know this and are just testing you to see if you sell for peanuts. Good on you for naming and shaming. They make themselves out to be big players but they’re not. £9 Million turnover isn’t that much compared to many of their competitors.. I’ve heard of them doing similar bully tactics with their other brand; gadgets.co.uk.
September 22nd, 2006 at 12:03 am
If they have been trading on the web for 10 years and are that concerned about customers getting confused, why didn’t they register mobiles.org.uk before you did?
September 24th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Like the above poster stated, they should’ve registered the domain before you did if they wanted it badly enough. They’re seeing what an impact you’re having on their business and it’s beginning to worry them a bit.
Keep it up.
September 24th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Thanks for the headsup.
I find this kind of bullying completely objectionable and will steer clear of promoting mobiles.co.uk’s affiliate programme.
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:06 am
The email is a trap but dont do what the old itunes.co.uk owner did etc
http://itvibe.com/news/3668/
As soon as you give them a for sale price they got you.
November 2nd, 2006 at 6:07 pm
send them an email back in a few weeks time, saying you have realised there domain : mobiles.co.uk is similar to yours.
Say it will confuse people, and that it might be determined that mobiles.co.uk is trying to pass off your website.
etc etc. Just flip there letter!
November 15th, 2006 at 8:54 pm
So did you ever hear anything else from them?
May 28th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
mobiles.co.uk is obviously trying it on and it doesn’t surprise me, the conversions on their affiliate programme on Affiliate Window are terrible, or should I say non existent! I will keep away from them from now on, it’s not like there’s no other mobile merchants to choose from, in fact most offer more commission than mobiles.co.uk and pay for sales on ALL networks!
December 18th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
I registered my domain name in feb 2003. In January 2007 Channel 4 (freeform productions) were granted a trade mark for ‘A Place in the Sun’. (although not for domain names and company names.
I also own A Place in the Sun Limited.
The term A Place in the Sun was used in myindustry long before channel 4 started broadcasting their programme A Place in the Sun.
When I registered my domain name they had only made very few programmes.
They are now threatening me with legal action. How do I stand ?