Attorney Marc J. Randazza Files UDRP on Three Domains Which Are A Variation Of His Name

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Marc J. Randazza an attorney who practices in the first amendment and domain/trademark space has just filed a UDRP against the holder of what appears to be three domains which are variations of his name.

The domain in question are:

marcjohnrandazza.com
marcjrandazza.com
marcrandazza.com
The ownership of the domains appear on the direct whois link to be an Eliot Bernstein of Boca Raton but according to Godaddy whois they are owned by:
Reverend Crystal Cox
PO Box 505
Eureka, Montana 59917
United States
All three domains are going to a Godaddy.com placeholder.
Mr. Randazza offical site is at Randazza.com.
It may not be the best idea in the world to register variations of well known attorneys, especially those who practice in the intellectual property space.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  1. Domainer Extraordinaire says

    Hard to determine who is the bigger idiot, Randaza (available) or the respondent.

  2. BrianWick says

    Sounds about right.
    Marc Randazza believes and makes his living defending constitutional speech yet udrp and acpa have made it perfectly clear (believe me) that constitutional speech is not a bonafida use of a tm or common law tm domain.

    So the domains end up in a godaddy placeholder waiting to be plucked.

    Somewhere in there is hypocrisy 101 – and i dont touch that stuff for years

  3. Danny Pryor says

    Seriously? I own several variations and misspellings of my name, so why doesn’t this attorney know enough to buy variations his own name?

    I know it can get expensive if you get carried away with it, but when do we come into the argument that a person has the responsibility to protect their brand, first, that when failure to do so constitutes an abdication of trademark or property rights?

    Now, as a trademark holder, myself, I understand the need for a process whereby someone can use an administrative or legal procedure to protect themselves; however, it so often seems UDRP continues to get abused as a remedy of first choice rather than a last-stage action to resolve a dispute.

  5. Acro says

    Made a post that’s pending due to the inclusion of a URL about what the real story is all about. Mike? 😉

    Danny, I bet you don’t own your “f**kFullName dot com” though. The Respondent in this case does; Marc’s name, that is. And Marc’s underage daughter’s name. And his wife’s.

  6. Danny Pryor says

    @Acro: Theo, the article didn’t mention any of that, and I didn’t respond outside the scope of the names listed. But you’re right; I do not own F***danielthomaspryor.com or anything of that sort. That was not within the scope of my response, only the variations of the actual name, not the incendiary expletives that could potentially be applied.

  7. Acro says

    Danny – I thought it’d be great to expand on the story, because simply quoting “UDRP+Attorney” does not paint the real picture. There is a certain amount of venomous intent behind these registrations, they are not your casual land grabs.

    Also, should every man, woman and child on earth grab a dozen registrations of their name? Registrars would love that.

    This is a case of abusive, malicious intent.

  8. Danny Pryor says

    Well, to respond requires addressing two parts: the malicious intent, then public person versus the private person. First, the real-world dispute someone may have against another can frequently result in some type of poor behavior or retaliatory conduct. In the case of maliciously registering domain names with expletives appended to the names of one’s object of enmity, and including the whole fan-damily, as it were, is very below the belt. It’s low class.

    The second revolves around whether a person lives their life in public or relative privacy. My opinion is that someone living with a public persona may want to give serious consideration to registering variants of their name, only to protect the most common variety of misspellings. That doesn’t mean 50 or 100 different possibilities, including expletives and various spellings of expletives or the like.

    If a person is living their life in relative privacy, and most people do so outside the realm of Facebook and Twitter, there’s probably not quite the urgency to protect one’s identity or personal brand.

    I live a fairly public existence, as my willingness to comment on these blogs and write for other blogs would suggest. If I was “joe the plumber”, well that would be an entirely different life situation.

    Movie stars, politicians, certain well-known attorneys – and individuals with a much bigger public presence than most of us – would be wise to snatch variations of their names to protect their personal brand and online identity.

    It’s nuance and context, to be sure, that dictates how one may wish to proceed. In the case of Mr. Randazza, I hardly believe the man is an unknown.

    However, it will be interesting to follow these actions through to learn whether the UDRP is – rather than my previous commentary may suggest – being used as a first-stage assault in a larger and longer-term legal strategy. If that’s the case, it could be brilliant.

    Yet, the concerns I have about the misuse of UDRP remain intact. Precedent may be a wanting facet of administrative procedure, though more common today than, say, three or four years ago, but it is still a dangerous thing when improperly applied.

  9. Acro says

    Danny – I agree on the subject of protecting one’s brand, any maybe name – if it’s unique enough – however not even Bill Gates owns that .com. A UDRP is a perfectly legal means to reclaim one’s full name, particularly when it’s evident (middle initial inclusive) that the person is targeted. This is not a case of John Smiths fighting over their common name.

    Cybersquatting, on the other hand, is punishable. At the same time, registering the .com of an underage child of someone else’s, falls in the “sick in the head” category.

  10. unknowndomainer says

    “UDRP is a perfectly legal means to reclaim one’s full name”

    No it’s not. Nowhere does the UDRP say that it has purpose to allow someone to recover their name UNLESS their name is a TM – i.e. used for a secondary business.

    “This is a case of abusive, malicious intent.”

    It is, but again, that’s not really an issue for the UDRP panel to discuss or consider as far as I can tell.

  11. Dave Zan says

    No it’s not. Nowhere does the UDRP say that it has purpose to allow someone to recover their name UNLESS their name is a TM – i.e. used for a secondary business.

    That’s somewhat easy enough, though. All Mr. Randazza has to do is demonstrate TM rights to his name.

    No need to argue on whether Mr. Randazza has TM rights or not because we’ll see soon enough if he’s able to do so in that UDRP dispute.