T-Error

Consulting firm sues Wolfgang Puck and his wife over failed .food deal.

As if the new top level domain craze couldn’t get any weirder, new TLD consulting firm Minds+Machines is suing Wolfgang Puck and his wife. The lawsuit was filed by Minds+Machines, Top Level Domain Holdings, LTD., a British Virgin Islands registered company, and Federick R. Krueger.

The lawsuit claims that Wolfgang Puck and his wife tried to interject themselves into all new TLDs Minds+Machines is working on and that Puck ceased to jointly promote .food as agreed.

The contents of the lawsuit summarize what Minds+Machines alleges:

A. Minds+Machines Offers Top-Level Domain Registration and Operation Services.
B. Wolfgang Puck and Minds+Machines Agreed to Jointly Promote and Apply for .FOOD
C. Wolfgang Puck’s Wife, Gelila Puck, Interjected Herself in the Relationship Between Minds+Machines and Wolfgang Puck
D. Gelila Puck Unsuccessfully Sought to Become Involved in the Top-Level Domain Business
E. Gelila Puck Interfered with Minds+Machines’ Existing Business Relationships.
F. The Parties Negotiated, But Did Not Enter Into, a Broader Agreement
G. Gelila Puck Became Hostile Towards Plaintiffs
H. The Pucks Falsely Claim the Short-Form Agreement Is in Effect and have
Threatened to Sue Minds+Machines, TLDH, and Krueger.

The lawsuit claims Minds+Machines has already spent $100,000 promoting the TLD. The lawsuit alleges Gelila Puck, who has no technical background, “became personally and emotionally invested in the top-level domain business and came to dominate the parties’ relationship.” She “began to tell her acquaintances that she was creating the “new Internet.” She also frequently told friends, acquaintances, and business people that she was the “next Bill Gates.”

The Pucks sent a demand letter to Top Level Domain Holdings, saying that it owned 50% of .FOOD, 50% of any TLD business that was the result of an introduction made by the Pucks, and the right to co-invest in any new TLD that TLDH works on. These demands are based on a a draft agreement between the Pucks and TLDH that TLDH argues was never signed.

It gets better. The lawsuit file is here.

(Hat tip George Kirikos)

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

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Casinos.org owner can keep domain but panel fails to find RDNH.

As a follow up to an article on Domain Name Wire back in June, the owner of Casinos.org has successfully defended his domain name in a UDRP case.

Cedric Rimbault of Rungis, France, registered a French trademark for Casinos.org and registered the c-a-s-i-n-o-s.org domain name. He then tried to buy the domain name Casinos.org for as much as $9,000. When the owner asked for $115,000, Rimbault filed a claim against him, claiming the domain name infringed his trademark rights.

Unsurprisingly, the panelist found in favor of the respondent. With an argument like this, it’s no wonder:

The Complainant maintains that the disputed domain name is identical and confusingly similar to his CASINOS.ORG mark, and that the Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name compounds the confusion, since the Complainant uses his mark to advertise casinos over the Internet. According to the Complainant, the Respondent has made no effort since acquiring the disputed domain name “to develop a real Website”, does not own a corresponding trademark, and thus has no right to and no reasonable interest in the disputed domain name.

But here’s the amazing part. Panelist William R. Towns basically punted on the question of reverse domain name hijacking, writing:

While the Panel has determined based on the facts and circumstances before it that the Complainant has failed to meet its burden of proof with respect to the third element of the Policy, the Panel is not persuaded that the Complainant acted in bad faith in invoking the Policy in this case.

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

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Transamerica’s lawyers get a quick education in how the domain name ecosystem works.

Life insurance company Transamerica has amended its lawsuit against Moniker, Oversee.net, and many John Does for trademark infringement.

The original lawsuit claimed that Moniker used fictitious entities to register trademark-infringing domain names on its own behalf. It frequently used quotes to refer to Moniker’s “clientele” and “customers”, as Transamerica alleged they were really just Moniker in disguise. But the lawsuit had many obvious holes, such as suggesting that Ultimate Search was one of Moniker’s non-existent registrants. (Ultimate Search was sold to Marchex earlier this decade.)

The amended complaint instead alleges Moniker enables customers to hide their identity and to continue to violate the cybersquatting act. It alleges Moniker works in “collaboration with a group of fictitious entities and anonymous individuals in the registration and use of Internet domain names incorporating and imitating registered trademarks and services marks”.

Among the changes in the amended complaint:

-Adds John Doe defendants Jan Stroh, Jayme Young, Omgi Media, Ron Oron, and Swallowlane Holdings Ltd

-Changes parties from saying “‘Moniker Privacy Services, Inc’ is a fictitious entity employed by Defendants as a so-called “proxy” to conceal the ownership of Internet domain names and web sites owned in whole or part and used by Moniker” to

“On information and belief, “Moniker Privacy Services, LLC.” is a Delaware limited liability company formed in June 2008.”

-Drops claims that “Net41 Media is a shell company set up by Moniker independently or in collaboration with one or more Doe defendants”

-Drops claim that “each Defendant was the proxy, alter ego, alias, agent, servant, employee, partner, parent, subsidiary, or joint venturer, of Moniker in respect to some or all of the unlawful conduct alleged in this Complaint”

-Changes from alleging Moniker owns and uses domains to say it is “enabling a class of customers comprised of fictitious entities and anonymous individuals to “monetize” counterfeit domain names…”

A copy of the amended complaint is available here (large pdf document).

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

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Scam moves to a new domain.

I’m getting tired of writing these stories (again), but I consider them a public service announcement.

A long running domain name appraisal scam has moved to a new domain name, Macez.com. That the scammers keep moving shows that the scam is working well by getting unsuspecting people to pay for an appraisal at Macez.com.

If you receive this email, hit “report spam” on your email client. Do not buy a domain appraisal from macez.com.

from Mark Allen markallen38@gmail.com
date Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 5:42 AM
subject Offer for your domain (domainname.com)

We are interested to buy your domain name (domainname.com) and offer to buy it from you for 70% of the appraised market value.

As of now we accept appraisals from either one of the following leading appraisal companies:

macez.com
sedo.com

If you already have an appraisal please forward it to us.

As soon as we have received your appraisal we will send you our payment (we use paypal for amounts less than $2,000 and escrow.com for amounts above $2,000) as well as further instructions on how to complete the transfer of the domain name.

We appreciate your business,

Yours truly,

Mark Allen

© DomainNameWire.com 2009.

Review and rate domain name parking companies at Parking Judge.

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In August 2008, Fabulous.com announced they were partnering with NameJet to sell all the company owned expiring domain names. Now, a year later, this service is open to the public.

“You may remember that in 2008 Fabulous.com partnered with NameJet to sell our expiring domains,” a Fabulous representative said in an email. “After thorough testing on our own portfolio we are pleased to announce that this program is now available to you.

As an additional revenue opportunity, the Fabulous.com Expiring Domains Service has delivered fantastic results for our own portfolio and those customers that were selected for our beta testing program. With the minimum sale price being US$69, it is a great way to squeeze out some final revenue before letting your domains expire.”

Domainers will receive 60% of the final sales prices (minus the renewal fee) for all domains sold through this service. After agreeing to the Expiring Domain Sales Agreement and Domain Inventory Management Agreement, all expiring domains in your account that are not listed as “never sell” will be automatically listed for sale at NameJet.

Domains can still be renewed for the first 30 days after the expiry date, however after this date it may not be possible to retain ownership of your domain names if you’re using this service.

[via Fabulous]

(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com

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