MasterCard files UDRP on “priceless” geo domains
MasterCard recently registered several “priceless” domain names including the names of major cities and has filed cybersquatting complaints on seven more belonging to third parties.
The credit card company has this week entered UDRP complaints on pricelessistanbul.com, pricelessamsterdam.com, pricelessnewyork.com, pricelessmexico.com, pricelesslosangeles.com, pricelessparis.com and pricelesslondon.com.
The domains were registered separately by four different registrants over the last couple of years and are all parked, mostly with Go Daddy’s default parking page.
Interestingly, MasterCard also hand-registered several “priceless+city” domains at the end of November, including pricelessberlin.com, pricelesssydney.com pricelessmoscow.com, pricelessshanghai.com, pricelessmadrid.com and pricelessbangkok.com.
The company has not filed UDRP complaints about domains such as pricelessrome.com or pricelesssanfrancisco.com, which appear to belong to some of the same registrants.
It has also left the names of other popular city-break destinations unregistered. Domains such as pricelessprague.com, pricelessathens.com and pricelessdublin.com are currently available.
Could the company be working on a marketing campaign targeted only to specific cities?
The company has form when it comes to enforcing its long-held “priceless” trademark. It notably won control of priceless.org in an uncontested UDRP in 2007.
If you find this post or this blog useful or interestjng, please support Domain Incite, the independent source of news, analysis and opinion for the domain name industry and ICANN community.
How priceless…
Mastercard hand regged 199 priceless + city on dec 11 , pricelesamsterdam.com, pricelesdubai.com etc etc
Thanks Theo. Good digging.
What a monumental waste of money… I hope they plan doing more than squatting and redirecting the domains.
Last summer Groupon registered many cityless domain names.. Why?