Breaking: The Lawsuit On The $1.4 M Ad.com TRAFFIC Auction Purchase Is Over: AOL.com Is The New Owner

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The long running dispute over the domain name Ad.com is over and AOL.com has possession of the domain.

It was back in April 2009 when the domain name ad.com was bought at the Moniker.com TRAFFIC domain auction for $1.4 Million dollars by Directi.

However in August 2009, the then owner of the domain name, Marcos Guillen filed a lawsuit against Directi and Skenzo for refusing to close on the purchase of the domain name.

AOL.com sent Directi a claim that it held a trademark on the term advertising.com and that they believed ad.com infringed on their trademark and threatened to sue if Directi followed through with the purchase.

Later counter suits and third party suits were added including Moniker.com suing for its commission and AOL added as a defendant for cause the whole mess and interfering with the sales contract arising from the TRAFFIC auction.

Today for the 1st time the servers of Ad.com where changed to AOL.com servers and the domain name now goes to AOL Advertising.

Interestingly AOL did not redirect this domain to Advertising.com, although Advertising.com is one of the products listed under Ad.com

Although I do not know the terms of what appears to be a settlement of the parties, its clear with AOL owning the domain name, that they probably had to pay  the original seller of the domain from the TRAFFIC auction.  Still it is uncertain whether Directi contributed or received funds to the settlement or whether Moniker.com got its commission from the sale.

You might also remember that AOL claimed trademark rights to the domain name Advertise.com shortly after the lawsuit over Ad.com was filed, but AOL lost that one.

AOL also tried to trademark Ad.com and most recently in 2011 their application was rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

 

 

 

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. BrianWick says

    You only get as much justice as you can afford – and AOL got a lot of justice – but they are right up there with “Overstock”.

  3. Michael Berkens says

    Brian not sure AOL Won this.

    If they wanted to buy the domain name at the auction they would have bought it.

    Instead they stopped the sale by threatening to sue Directi if they followed through with the suit

    They got it now but someone had to pay the guy who sold it at auction which we can only assume is AOL.

    There were also a ton of legal fees incurred on all side, remember this one started in 2009

  4. BrianWick says

    Ad and Advertising are not the same – their bullies and thugs litigated them into submission.
    That is what you call buying as much justice as you can afford

  5. Francois Carrillo says

    So sorry Div did not succeed to get this premium domain for his Media.net service.

    This summer I secured a catchy domain that I plan to use next year for an advertising service I have in mind for years.
    I didn’t have the money to buy it, but I requested a loan where I put one of my best premium domain in pawn to get the financing to acquire:

    ADO.com for “advertise online”

    If I talk about this here is simply due to the logo of ADO.com:
    http://ado.com

    PS: Creativity is not only needed to acquire great names but also to design logos … LOL

  8. DoktorThomas says

    Advertisement floods life. Who would purposely surf to a site called “ad.com”? If offered, I’d pass on any price over $2USD. Remind me to block that address on my domains…

  9. BrianWick says

    DoktorThomas-
    All the hype with the lastest round of shorter / intuitive TLDs and domains – (not like it is the first round) – many of them new ones like .HOME – I guess .SALE is uo for sale …

    I am with you on blocking .AD or {Email}.AD.com

  10. John Berryhill says

    “AOL added as a defendant for cause the whole mess and interfering with the sales contract arising from the TRAFFIC auction”

    When was AOL added as a defendant?

  12. John Berryhill says

    “Wasn’t AOL brought into the suit by one of the parties?”

    As far as I know, no. There were a number of blog commentators who believed that AOL should have been brought in as party, but I never understood the point of that. The domain sold at the auction was where-is, as-is.

    AOL never had a valid claim in the first place. It was facially absurd. So, even if we ignore that the terms of the auction did not provide Directi with a valid reason for breach, AOL’s invalid claim still would not have been a reason for Directi to breach.

    Put simply, AOL was not the cause of Directi’s breach. It was an invalid excuse for non-performance, no matter how you slice it. That doesn’t make AOL “responsible” for Directi to have made a wrong decision. In other word, you can’t hold AOL liable for Directi’s own decision not to consummate the sale.

    Let’s say there is an auction for a dairy cow, and the auction is held on an as-is, where-is basis. After the auction, some third party says, “That cow doesn’t give good milk.” Is that a reason for the buyer to breach the contract of sale? No. But if the buyer does breach, it doesn’t give the seller or the buyer a cause of action for making disparaging claims about the cow. Whether the cow gives good milk was not a condition of the sale in the first place.

    If you believe otherwise, then what you have is a recipe for all kinds of shenanigans with the TRAFFIC auctions. Were you up late, hung-over, and bid higher than you want in a TRAFFIC auction? No problem. Just dig up someone who will send a threat letter about a bogus claim to the buyer and seller, and it’s all good, you don’t have to pay.

    Is that an environment, Mike, in which you or anyone else wants to do business? By hanging a sign outside the auction saying, “This auction is for entertainment purposes only”?