I just saw a press release from a Minnesota Hosting company announcing its new program, an incentive for companies to replace their old servers with new dedicated servers.
“””Playing off the government’s Cash for Clunkers program, VISI’s “Cash For Servers” promotion offers a rebate up to $500 to anyone who purchases a new dedicated or virtual dedicated server and turns in their old server to VISI. Companies can receive up to a total of $3,000 in rebates with this program.””
Sounds like a great campaign.
Unfortunately, the company failed to secure the best logical domain name for the program, CashForServers.com, before issuing the press release, and blasting it all over the net.
Now the domain is gone.
haha, funny, you regged it!
🙂
Note to CM that do not understand the Before part.. start picking domain names that I Own to launch your product and or services 🙂
Domainers still ahead of the Corporate America curve.
Cash4Servers.com
for the person who like to register dashes….Cash-For-Servers.com is available!
Sheee please be quiet..
Let them make mistakes and then watch them cry over spilled milk.
something similar might be happening here too (in Mauritius.)
😉
I’m not saying anything more.. :p
we will know for sure in a week’s time.
And that is what would be called a “Bad Faith Registration” ladies and gents. We need to take a hard stance for what is right if we are to move our industry forward, Don’t you think? (FYI-I have some questionable regs myself so I am not above this same behavior and just as guilty). Just a thought. Maybe you offer it to them as a form of introduction for business purposes. Just a thought.
Chip
What makes this a “bad faith” registration?
Under your logic any company can announce any new product or service and by the mere announcement get some sort of right in and to the new product or service?
The service they announced is a play off the cash for clunkers program which they had no right in or to , and this company simply screwed up by not registering their promotion before advertising it .
They left themselves opened and someone took advantage.
This is business isn’t it.
Let’s not give rights to those who didn’t secure there’s
By definition a Bad Faith Registration is: (I am only posting the relevant section under UDRP guidlines)
[i](iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant’s mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.[/i]
If we assume that the reason the name was registered was to take advantage of the promotion this company was running (Seems to be the tone) The key words I believe you are relying on are “complaintant’s mark” in the definition. “They do not have a trademark on “Cash For Servers” so it is fair game.” Even without the official mark, they do have a first-used-in-commerce date prior to the registration, combine that with the purposeful siphoning of traffic/revenue to take advantage of their promotion and they would likely be able to prove a bad faith registration. A legal argument can be made that the registration does not technically meet the standards of a bad faith registration (becuase they would have to prove “intent” and very tough to do) and you might win but it seems that the “intent” was to make money off the promo and that would not only likely lead to a loss (as you know the panelists don’t always follow the letter of the regulation) but it smells an awful like a squatting even if you do win. Don’t you think?
If the idea behind the registration was “Hey, what a great idea. This should be something every server company should be doing to take advantage of the momentum of the Cash for Clunkers program.” And you work a way to sell this program/idea to another or several other server companies, you might have better legs to stand on as long as you think you would not be infringing on any companies TM. Would be tricky and interesting to see if they would push back and have the ability to secure the TM.
Forget the rules/regulation for a second, what was your honest intent when you registered the name?
Chip
Here is the problem with your theory:
“””likelihood of confusion with the complainant’s mark””””
What mark?
There is no indication that this company has a mark or history using this term whatsoever.
They simply announced a promotion without securing any legal protection for it or the domain.
Under your theory any phrase or saying, word or term used by someone else automatically gets “legal protection” only to be able to be used by that company or person the second they announce it.
This is not the way the system works. The domain was registered for the exact reason stated in the post, to demonstrate that corporate America doesn’t get domains, there importance or how valuable they are.
If it makes you feel any better I leased the domain cashforappliances.com a month before this program was released.