Someone just filed a UDRP against the domain name Costa.com
Costa is Spanish for the English word Coast.
The domain name belongs to Electric Online, Inc.
The domain goes to a parking page where results are showing for Costa Cruise Lines.
Costa Cruise Lines official site is at costacruise.com and CostaCruise.co.uk
Costa Cruise Lines of course owned the Costa Concordia which sank earlier this year.
Coast Cruise Lines is owned by Carnival Cruise Lines.
The complainant of the UDRP is unknown and could have been brought many other companies including Costa Coffee, “which is the 2nd largest coffeehouse chain in the world (behind Starbucks) and the largest in the United Kingdom”
There is also the Costa Book Awards, which is “one of the UK’s most prestigious and popular literary prizes”
There is always Costa Rica as well.
Costa is a Spanish Last name as well. See this link or google it ; http://www.heraldicapellido.com/C12/Costa.htm
It doesn’t matter what it can *stand for*; what matters is what it is *used for*. That’s the gauge of a UDRP, however flawed it might be.
Sometimes when I am low I think the only ones who really make money with domains are the registrars and the parking companies.
Attorneys coud be the third ones if UDRP usage continue growing.
Acro, Indeed. I just mentioned it, as I think the domain costa.com is generic on its different meanings. Lets follow, what happens here, it will be interesting…
the bullshit continues
Too true Francois.
The question is: can domainers do anything to strengthen our position and act as a united front rather than getting picked off one by one in these UDRP cases? The cases are time-consuming and costly to defend and unfortunately they are too easy to file and Complainants have been successful. So there is no end in sight. Defendants are the ones who are exposed to losses, even if they receive a positive ruling.
It is of huge concern to domain owners so it is really best if we could all think of ways to fight back and then pursue them. Maybe someone can brainstorm a blog post on practical steps we can take in the domaining community and then try to start something from it – a petition, a letter-writing campaign, whatever anyone can think of that might be effective in defended against these frivolous cases. Is that too idealistic? Maybe. But the reality of not acting together is pretty grim. We’re all in a dicey position and are only weaker if we react on a case-by-case basis on our own.
Dude is right. And would beseiging ICANN be a place to start?
@bullshit —please, only I can say that as I have the trademark.
Yes,it is “BullS”
Do not impersonate “BullS”
Oftentimes the complaintant’s case is at least partially based on the domain being parked. One has to weigh the risks of parking being a claim in a UDRP filing against the parking income from a domain. However, without parking income a portfolio’s renewals only get paid by sales. With alt TLDs, there is little reason to park particularly if that increases the risk of a UDRP filing.
Costa is also a Greek first name…..
True, parking has been used against domain owners in UDRP cases. Yet, unless the site is showing ads that are in competition with the Complainant, why should that factor into the decision at all? As the domain owner, you have paid for the right to use the domain and as long as you are not acting in bad faith or otherwise using it illegally, you should be able to show ads on it to generate income. Why is it that by showing ads on your site, UDRP panel members can decide that you are not using the domain properly and therefore take it away from you? It is your asset that belongs to you and you are doing nothing wrong. That is so arbitrary and as domain owners we should not just sit down helplessly and accept that. Is there a bylaw that I haven’t read as to what is and what is not the proper way to use your domain assets? Only when it comes to domians are owners in such a precarious position subject to the arbitrary whims of bureaucratic panels.
CostaCruceros it’s a huge Mark, they cater to many spanish speaking countries as well as Italy I believe…
Maybe it’s not only the UDRP that is flawed. Maybe the UDRP is but a symptom of a flaw in ICANN’s DNS.
Fix the flaw, introduce a better DNS, and the UDRP goes away.
But… do not forget that many still do quite wel under the status quo. They make millions in spite of these flaws, and maybe in some cases because of them (exploiting a flaw). Complaints on a blog do not reflect this: that to many, these flaws are not that big a deal, in the big picture.
these domains were registered by MarkMonitor.com yesterday as well
costacruisesafrica.com
costacruisesarabia.com
costacruisesindia.com
costacruisesturkey.com
I predict a problem. Domaintools history shows consistency in the name back to 2001 but with changes from an individual to a corporation sometime in 2005/2006. The address is the same so perhaps he can show continuous ownership. The domain is a PPC page with cruise line info all over the page and quite targeted with the cruise line trademarks repeatedly displayed. It is a great example of destroying a good domain that could have been used or sold. The horrible use will paint the respondent in a bad light and most likely cause the panel to ignore the continuous registration.
This is not about whether the word means something. Descriptiveness/genericness is contextual. Apple is descriptive of the fruit but not computers,
Silly mistake by the respondent here. Anyone who knows him should tell him to get a good UDRP attorney and start documenting both his original registration, conti ied ownership of the corporation AND get examples of post registration use that are not problematic.
The defense: I was not in control of the ads being displayed on the page…aka the Google did it defense. Lololololo
Since PPC sucks anyway, why risk it? For generic term domains, just put up a page like we have done for silly.tv, then you don’t have to worry about UDRP’s.
Domo Sapiens: , Costa is coast in Both Italian and Spanish. Cruises are big in Italy.
You guys are jumping to conclusions…
(pavlovian response from other cases eg: vanity.com)
read what P. Keating wrote…
wait to see the details.
(my horse: Costa Crociere S.p.A. – Italy)
I making my guess based on the landing page results
The problem is that some parking providers will override the keywords you have specified when you park your domains and default to ads that may infringe on another company’s TM.
For instance, I received a cease and desist from an insurance company on a generic domain I owned – as generic as they come. I had the domain parked under the keywords “future trends” and “marketing” so as to avoid any problems with anyone. However, when I later went to look at the website, insurance ads were appearing all over it even though I in no way specified “insurance” or “insurance quotes” or anything like that as keywords.
The bottom line is that if you are parking a large number of domains, even if your keywords are generic, the parking company may unbeknownst to you be putting you in jeopardy of trademark infringement. Since UDRP cases often rely on whether the domain is parked and if so whether it is showing ads that compete with the Complainant’s business, this is a huge issue/problem for those who park their domains.
This was already brougth out by J Berryhill , sadly results are shown on the person’s surfing history = cookies.
I have a 3 letter .com that symbolizes a major currency and the system (Sedo/Google) is not able to show forex/currency conversion ads (which I have a set as a keyword for over a year)
Parking has become like playing Russian Roulette for domainers
Thinking about the other side of the equation “advertisers” the question is:
are they getting what are they paying for?
EMO this type of behavior it’s jeopardizing the entire Parking Industry.
It will be very easy for Google to give it the boot…
edit 1st line.: sadly results are shown “based”on the person’s surfing history = cookies.
We just received the Notice of Decision. Stay tuned.
Ari
Best of luck