Recent Posts
- New rules could stop registries ripping off big brands
- MMX vows to refocus under new boss after crappy 2020
- Failed .org buyer Ethos Capital buys Donuts
- Crackdown looms for new gTLD auction gaming
- Would-be new country wants to share another country’s ccTLD
- 153 registrars fingered for ICANN security probe
- ICANN axes Cancun again. Apparently there’s a pandemic
- Gun nut site crashes at Epik after GoDaddy shoots it down
- It’s pandemic continuity versus gender diversity in ICANN’s board wish-list
- Free domains for .in registrants
- Here’s why two ICANN directors opposed extending Marby’s CEO contract
- Rules for the next new gTLD round near the final straight
- Island demands return of its “naked” ccTLD
- Donuts punter welcomes our new alien overlords in December premium sale
- Net 4 India gets unwelcome Christmas gift from ICANN
- Fuji Xerox kills off gTLD after rebrand
- EURid suspends 80,000 domains as Brexit transition ends
- GoDaddy’s female geeks make a bit more than men
- Donuts acquisition of Afilias closes, integration work begins
- GoDaddy pranks employees with “insensitive” phishing test
- US sneaks public Whois demands into pandemic relief bill
- Verisign drops half a mill on pandemic relief
- Mixed messages from ICANN on pandemic travel in 2021
- ICANN predicts rosy post-pandemic domain industry — time to start panicking?
- DI World Global International Headquarters is relocating
- ICANN throws the book at Net4 over dodgy transfer claims
- Fraud checks coming to .ch as SWITCH renews contract
- South African registry to be merged with film censor, broadband regulator
- There’s one obvious pick for next year’s ICANN Community Excellence Award
- ICANN could block Donuts from buying Afilias
- Westerdal offloads two more gTLDs to Donuts
- Whois privacy group finds its new chair
- Three more new gTLDs blink out of existence
- NamesCon Europe founder Dietmar Stefitz reportedly dies
- Credit union gTLD changes hands to perhaps surprising buyer
- After 20 years, DomainTools takes its first VC dough
- Gay charities get first taste of domain cash
- CIRA hits major .ca milestone on 20th anniversary
- .org made $97 million last year
- XYZ launches its beauty-themed gTLDs with slashed prices
- “Criminal” domain suspensions drop again in .uk but thousands of pandemic domains frozen
- NameSilo in profit as sales rise 11%
- CentralNic more than doubles revenue as parking business thrives
- WIPO handles 50,000th UDRP case as coronavirus drives complaints
- Brits get small reprieve in Brexit domain crackdown
- Vaccine agency to get more domain takedown powers next year
- Domain growth dropped off in Q3, says Verisign
- Donuts boss discusses shock Afilias deal
- GoDaddy has a secret weapon in its push into corporate domains
- Donuts acquires Afilias to create registry giant
- ICANN finally addresses Net 4 India meltdown, but mysteries remain
- Masochistic mug urgently wanted for thankless, pay-free ICANN leadership role
- ICANN made over $500k in secret lawyer payments over [REDACTED] legal dispute
- .spa registry relocates to .xyz
- .forum sunrise period will cost less than half the regular reg fee
- .trust finds a new home with UNR
- Web.com acquires Kiwi registrar Freeparking
- GoDaddy set to pay millions to settle robocalling class action
- Tributes as “great mentor” Marilyn Cade dies
- GoDaddy sees 12% growth in domains revenue
- One-letter .lu domains could be bought for peanuts
- Another domain firm going private as Endurance announces $3 billion deal
- Verisign increases focus on .com after flogging public DNS to Neustar
- Blood on the boardroom floor after MMX admits revenue screwup
- Angry investor sues for 30% of new .spa gTLD
- Amazon sold rights to .box gTLD for $3 million
- Big pharma firm dumps its gTLD
- Facebook to enter the retail registrar business?
- .web ruling might not come this year
- Verisign sells a million more domains than it did last year
- Free speech, or bad faith? UDRP panels split on Everything.sucks domains
- The internet just got its first proper new gTLD of the year, and the timing couldn’t be worse
- ICANN may not meet again for a looong time
- ICANN denies Whois policy “failure” as Marby issues EU warning
- These eight companies account for more than half of ICANN’s revenue
- Lockdown bump was worth $600,000 to ICANN, but end of Club Med saves 10x as much
- That .sucks weirdness? Worse than I thought
- Something weird’s going on at .sucks
- Are 25x price increases on the cards as XYZ corners the cars market?
- .gay and Star Trek star troll the right to promote new gTLD
- Forty weddings and a funeral? .wed is dead but may come up for auction
- Holy Scheisse! Did you know ICANN 69 starts TOMORROW?
- MMX probing accounting of mystery contract
- NamesCon will be back to in-person events next July
- .eu registry contract up for grabs
- EURid suspends and delays thousands of coronavirus domains
- .jobs plans to raise millions from premium names after dumping its sponsor
- Peaceful transfer of power? GNSO’s next chair is a shoo-in
- Two American women appointed to ICANN board
- Europe’s top dogs could decide the future of Whois
- ICANN playing ping-pong on closed generics controversy
- Has ICANN cut off its regulatory hands?
- Will you shut up, man? Trump takedown domain on sale for ridiculous fee
- MMX revenue down even as sales rise during pandemic
- This ICANN comment period is a Kafkaesque nightmare
- Could .cpa be the most successful new gTLD sunrise yet?
- ICANN 69 returning to YouTube
- Three-letter .blog domains priced up to $100k
- Whois plan approved, but it may be a waste of money
- Should YOU have to pay when lawyers access your private Whois info?
- Nominet shuts down “hostile” discussion forum
- Donuts to launch .contact next week
- GoDaddy denies weird front-running claim
- Is India’s largest registrar about to go titsup? And where the hell is ICANN?
- Webcentral rejects Web.com buyout bid for LOWER offer from Aussie telco
- Portugal reports lockdown boom continued through the summer
- No ICANN meetings until 2021
- ZADNA hikes up the price of .za domains
- Floodgates, open! Trademark Clearinghouse now supports .com
- Radix premium renewals approach $1 million
- GoDaddy could lose control of .co this week
- ICANN ordered to freeze .hotel after “serious questions” about trade secrets “theft”
- CentralNic parking boosts revenue even as its registrars suffer
- ICANN will spend $51,000 on your broadband
- Verisign measures the industry’s lockdown bump
- ICANN apologizes to “arms dealer” claim security firm after email goes missing
- Amazon waves off demand for more government blocks
- Told us so? Nominet ditches auctions plan, will charge drop-catchers higher fees instead
- Schreiber really did sue you all, sorry
- Fight over closed generics ends in stalemate
- New gTLD prices could be kept artificially high
- Here’s what’s in the NamesCon Online schwag bag
- New back-end approval program could reduce the cost of a new gTLD
- Single/plural gTLD combos to be BANNED
- ICANN might pay for your lockdown broadband
Facebook files 21 domain name complaints
Kevin Murphy,
March 23, 2011, 14:42:31 (UTC),
Domain Policy
Facebook has filed a UDRP complaint covering 21 domain names that include its trademark.
All seem to belong to the same domainer: Mike Mann. His company, Domain Asset Holdings, which has over 162,000 domains to its name, is listed in the Whois for each.
It’s the largest single UDRP filing by Facebook to date, and only its second to include brand+keyword domains.
The contested domains include: aboutfacebook.com, facebookbabes.com, facebookcheats.com, facebookclub.com, facebookdevelopment.com, killfacebook.com and many more.
All 21 covered by the UDRP are currently available for sale at Mann’s DomainMarket.com, with list prices between $350 and $8,000 and above.
A quick search on that site for other well-known social media brands returned dozens of results.
Mann is known as co-founder of BuyDomains, and more recently as one of the former owners of sex.com, which sold for $13 million last year.
Received a similar complaint from Facebook, about my domain name likethisonfacebook.com
Bummer but if anyone knows how to handle it from here its him.
Good, I find this embarrassing for us all. I hope they win big. Go Facebook.
Hello,
If I were Facebook, I would worry more about correcting some of their internal Marketing Strategies, that were mentioned in the USA Today paper.
Headlines : “Social Media Cant Block Poisoned Links.” If you read the article it brings up what we have been saying about them for some time now. They have so many Security breach problems in their Business Model that they are losing Trust with their base rapidly.
We have designed our future sites Business Model to provide a safe and secure Walled Garden of Trust, that sidesteps these issues and builds trust with the Online Business Community.
We have been saying all along that our Business Model will replace their weaknesses with our strengths. We will not ever let our BRAND be tarnished like theirs.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
He should know better.
I wish the big players would leave these types of names alone. Mann should man up and try to fix his portfolio, lol.
Good to see our domain industry leaders are finally leading by setting a good example.
NOT!
Wasn’t this the same guy that tried to unload a lot
of 6 figure .co’s in the Sedo auction last month?
I believe it is. He sold a few five-figure .co domains.
http://domainincite.com/dotmusic-buys-music-co/
http://www.elliotsblog.com/mike-mann-on-sedo-co-auction-1923
Thing is, if you look at the domains there’s no squatting there. They’re all about things related to facebook, such as FacebookDevelopment.com I can see how this domain would be good for someone who wanted to make a site about app creation for Facebook. Such a domain is not useful for creating a copycat of Facebook. So I dont think there is very much malicious intent there, if at all. On the other hand Facebook is a trademarked term and they are a corporate giant now so I’m guessing this gets resolved quickly. Im not saying its right but I remember last year I wanted to create a minisite about the heath effects of “Coke” or “Coca-cola” both of which are trademarked terms, and if you want to rank for the related terms it certainly helps to have the keyword in the domain. But the keyword I wanted was a trademarked term so I ended having to scrap the project.
That’s debatable. Why exactly were those domains registered to begin with anyway, considering that users are likely looking for Facebook instead of, say, Domain Asset Holdings?
I agree that the redirect to DomainMarket.com shows intent to possibly capitalize on the Facebook keyword. I’m just saying a domain like FacebookDevelopment.com could be used for something like giving app developers resources, with zero intent to harm Facebook in any way. Im sure though Facebook will use screenshots of the forward as their evidence of how the domain was used.
“The domain names are all currently owned by a company called Domain Asset Holdings, a known domain squatter based in Potomac, Maryland. ”
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/24/facebook-tries-to-squash-21-squatted-domain-names/
This whole thing is a mistake, we have fewer tm names in our collection than anyone and have lost almost no cases. These were registered by an automated system, not by hand, in any case we are trying to give them to FB for free eventhough they are rich and rude if they would merely stfu and contact us.
“in any case we are trying to give them to FB for free eventhough they are rich and rude if they would merely stfu and contact us.”
Whatever happened to Bell, Bain, Tomlinson and Cooper’s inventions? Or did the pigeons hibernate?
Aren’t you friends in Facebook? Lol.
Really, lots of trouble could have been saved, if people were only willing to say, “please,” “sorry,” or…”Hello!” Not all cases are settled in court.
There are 13 domains on sedo for sale at cheap prices that summarize the letters that match the facebook, I’ve noticed that more young people mention and write facebook = facbk
@Mike Mann
Yeah I just received an email to an inquiry for one of these thousands of domain names you’re squatting on.
You want to charge thousands of dollars for something that’s worth maybe 20 bucks a year.
I really hope a billion dollar company like facebook is planning on raking you through the coals in court.
You souless weasel