Conceptualist.com, By Sahar Sarid

Domainers always knew NetIdentity, CentralNic, and the old Mail.com folks (Jerry Gorman and friends) got it right in the first place. Now MS is getting in the custom email game. The difference? They are using creative domains instead of attractive domains.

Via TechTree.com:

Microsoft has unveiled over 250 custom domains as part of its plan to offer every kind of Indian a distinct personalized email id powered by Windows Live Hotmail.

The first custom domain, ‘Lokhandwalarocks.com‘ was introduced by the company in May this year.
And now, different categories on www.coolhotmail.com will list a number of custom domains describing users’ personalities, indicating where they live, personifying their tastes and likes, and so on.

For instance, users can choose email ids (for free) such as: yourname@goaisbliss.com or yourname@goarocks.com depending on what truly reflects their identity.

Should be interesting to see how the Indian crowd will respond to this.

Following on yesterday’s post, seems that Facebook was awarded the domain Face-Book.com.

On ” Identical or Confusingly Similar” the arbitrator writes:

The disputed domain name was registered on October 3, 2004, i.e. quite possibly before the Complainant acquired any trademark rights in the FACEBOOK Marks (it is unclear from the provided material when exactly the Complainant first acquired rights in the European Community Trademark for FACEBOOK, which as noted previously has a registration date of June 13, 2003). However, Paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy does not require that the trademark be registered prior to the domain name. See AB Svenska Spel v. Andrey Zacharov, WIPO Case No. D2003-0527; MADRID 2012, S.A. v. Scott Martin-MadridMan Websites, WIPO Case No. D2003-0598. The fact that the disputed domain name predates the Complainant’s trademark registration is only relevant to the assessment of bad faith pursuant to Paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy, which is considered below.

On “Rights or Legitimate Interests”

The Respondent in this case did not file a response in this proceeding. Therefore, the Complainant’s assertions that the Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests stand unrebutted. Based on the evidence before the Panel, the Respondent apparently did not make any bona fide offering of goods or services in connection with the domain name and is neither commonly known by the domain name nor contends to make a legitimate non-commercial or fair use of the domain name. Accordingly, the Panel finds that the Complainant has proven that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests under Paragraphs 4(a)(ii) and 4(c) of the Policy.

Note: Half a second to look at Archive.org will tell you there was PPC listings on the domain for a long time. Monetizing generic terms (and “face book” is a generic term) is a bona fide offering. I know arbitration bodies don’t like to hear about it, but truth be told here, monetizing domains through Pay Per Click model (PPC listings) is a legitimate business, a billion dollar industry.

And on “Registered and Used in Bad Faith”, among other ridiculous findings, the arbitrator writes:

Firstly, it is important that the name FACEBOOK (consisting of “face”? and “book”?) is made up of two common terms in an imaginative manner and can generally not be found in dictionaries. It must therefore be considered as inherently distinctive (this is confirmed by the numerous trademark registrations in English-speaking countries worldwide which do not rely on secondary meaning). The Respondent therefore did not register just any generic domain name.

Note: “Imaginative manner”? It’s a natural word combination, been used many years before the site was born.

And..

Secondly, taking into account all circumstances of this case, it is difficult to imagine that - eight months after the Complainant’s services were first offered online - the registration of an almost identical domain name that is not generic by a third party is a mere coincidence. The Complainant’s services, by their very nature, became known to the public through the Internet and thus worldwide. Domicile is irrelevant in this regard.

Note: The original registration was 2001. I guess whoever registered it there (Sephora) just knew Facebook gonna be there later?

This case was handled by Brigitte Joppich (PDF), the same panelist who apparently mishandled the case for the domain BritishMuseum.org.

Why would WIPO and other arbitration bodies be biased towards Corporate America? Few reasons:

1. They are the ones filing those cases, generating arbitration revenues.
2. Since Corporate America usually file many cases, signaling one company that arbitration “loves” them means more cases coming their way.
3. If arbitration hands down a flawed decision, as in this case (imo of course), it creates hope for those who know they have no rights, to file as well.

For Corporate America, the reward is the transfer of the domain, not the more logical solution of fixing the confusion. Since arbitration bodies treat a 100$ domain or a 10 millions domain the same, for 1,500$, it’s the cheapest bet in town.

To sum it up, even though respondent could have replied they chose not to, for whatever reason. In my opinion, as in many arbitration cases, the decision to hand over the domain to Facebook was made before the complaint was read, and the decision itself is to satisfy the public that thought was given to the case, as odd as it may sound like.

Via Forbes:

“Rosenblatt has acquired 50 narrowly targeted sites such as GolfLink.com, Airliners.net and Trails.com as well as general-interest how-to sites Ehow.com and ExpertVillage.com. The network draws 40 million unique visitors per month, according to Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) Analytics. (ComScore (nasdaq: SCOR - news - people ) Media Metrix, which is known for its conservative definition of traffic, puts his monthly visitors at 13.2 million.)

Demand also owns Enom, the world’s second-largest domain registrar after GoDaddy.com, with an inventory of 9.5 million Web addresses. Demand’s domain portfolio brings in another 25 million visitors a month, says Rosenblatt. Enom provided Demand with thousands of “parked domains,” generic destinations such as translation.com, gardening.com and maps.com. Most of them have nothing but ads and come up only when people enter the site names in a browser’s address bar. Rosenblatt plans to ship them relevant articles and videos from his hobby sites to give visitors a reason to stick around and view more ads.

The money that Demand has raised from such firms as Oak Investment Partners and Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ) puts it in the Internet big leagues. Rosenblatt’s last financing round–$100 million in mid-September–valued the company at $1 billion, twice its value in the round prior. He expects to gross more than $100 million this year, half of it from ads and half from subscriptions and domain rentals. Earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation could reach $30 million.”

This of course is part of their PR machine before going public. I would say they will go public either end of this year or early 2008.

The other interesting part from the article (there are quite a few) for me was reading Richard’s words in regard to his identity, the underdog:
People think I’m all show, no go,” he says.

“Throughout my career no one ever believed that what I was working on was going to be big. I have to re-prove myself every time

Now that is the definite approach you want from your CEO. Believe he is the underdog, nothing is given nor taken for granted, and it is a matter of doing, not waiting. Great stuff.

The WSJ covers the growing problem of domain theft, also known as “domain name hijacking”:

Experts say the theft of Internet domain names occurs every day. The thieves — taking advantage of companies that have either let down their guard or failed to take adequate precautions — are often after financial gain, since short or memorable domains can be sold for millions of dollars and generate Web traffic and online-advertising revenue. Some domain hijackers are former employees or others looking to extract payments or take revenge.

“It’s a complete rampage in our industry,” says Monte Cahn, founder and chief executive of Moniker Online Services LLC in Pompano Beach, Fla., which handles domain services such as registrations and auctions.

The problem with domain theft is demand. There are many buyers who are very aware that something just isn’t right about a purchase, however they would rather not ask any questions. This allows buyers to avoid the “internal conflict”? of knowing that they’re buying a stolen domain, yet at the same time, ensuring their defense should there ever be a challenge to the purchase. This “plausible deniability”? has been an issue for many years now, and in my opinion is the main factor driving these hijackings.

Occasionally, buyers are truly victims, as they buy these domains from auction houses or after domains have changed hands many times over. But then again, the auction houses could and should do a better job authenticating ownerships, while buyers should make sure that they know the exact trail of a domain beginning with its original registration thus making sure it is not actually stolen.

The only group losing out in this scenario is those whose domains are being stolen while they remain completely unaware of it, or those who are highly fragmented (as a group that is), so who is left to stand up for them?

In my opinion, a possible solution to this problem lies in stopping demand and increasing authentication. Buyers need to take responsibility, auction houses need to authenticate ownership more accurately, and monetization services must also do their part in verifying if there are stolen domains in their system and if they discover that there are, they need to flush the offenders.

The question is why should anyone care? Auction houses make commission on sales, stolen or not. Monetization services make money on traffic, stolen domains or not, and buyers are calculating their risk of losing the property, stolen or not. Possibly companies like Moniker, which has some sort of gain (services) might stand up for domainers, but then again, if domains are on other registrars, the problem still exists.

The Solution? I really don’t know.