By Steve Levy
It’s not uncommon to pull on a thread and end up with an entire ball of yarn. And so it occasionally happens with domain name enforcement. By doing some careful research, one can sometimes find other domain names that are related to each other and may be owned by the same person or entity. The key word here is may since it’s not always as easy as looking for the same registrant name.
Cybersquatters have long been cagey in how they operate and will frequently falsify the Whois ownership information when registering their infringing domain names. It then becomes a Sherlock Holmes pursuit to figure out how and if multiple domain names are really owned by the same person who uses different aliases in an effort to hide their identity. Tools such as reverse Whois searches (far less helpful after the implementation of the GDPR), running down the DNS, checking IP addresses, etc., can sometimes uncover enough data points allowing one to at least make a reasonable argument for common ownership.
In a recent case involving ten domain names, the Complainant argued that, despite different registrant names being used for these, all of them are owned by the same entity or mere alter egos of each other, or are otherwise under the common control of a single owner. The panel considered such facts as 1) all ten disputed domain names follow the same naming pattern by incorporating the Complainant’s trademark preceded or followed by a descriptive term relating to the cryptocurrencies; 2) all but one of the domains redirect to the same website advertising cryptocurrency; 3) all but one of the domains have the same addressing number and use the same name servers; 4) Additionally, the email address used when registering the disputed domains are the same. All of these elements are evidence of a common control of the disputed domain names.
I’ve used a similar strategy for consolidating multiple domain names into a single UDRP case and this has saved FairWinds clients thousands of dollars in legal and filing fees. For example, one case filed by AARP involved no less than ten different named respondents and 53 domain names such as myaarpmedicare.guide, myaarpmedicare.help, and myaarpmedicare.reviews. In approving consolidation, the panel noted that “the Domain Names in the current dispute all have identical naming patterns adding in the words ‘my’ and ‘medicare’, separated by Complainant’s AARP mark, all the domain names list Bangladesh and India, which are neighboring countries as Respondent’s location, they were registered in large clusters between two registrars, with a few using a third registrar. * * * Finally, a few of the Domain Names redirect users to the websites utilizing other domain names [that are] the subject of this Complaint.” It concluded by stating that “[h]aving examined the evidence the Panel accepts the evidence presented by the Complainant and finds that it is more likely than not that the Domain Names are commonly owned/controlled by a single Respondent who is using multiple aliases.”
Finally, while UDRP filing fees are usually a bit higher when multiple domain names are in dispute, the cost is merely incremental compared to that of filing separate complaints and paying the full fee each time (currently between USD $1,330 and $5,000). In the above-mentioned AARP case, the total filing fee charged by the dispute provider was $4,330. Had the Complainant filed separate complaints against each of the 53 domain names, the filing fees alone would have totaled a whopping $70,490. On top of that you would need to add the time and professional costs of drafting so many separate complaints!
So do some digging and see if there’s a way to learn if the owner of your targeted domain name owns others that might also be abusing your brand. If you find some, congratulations! You’ve just cracked the current privacy barrier and perhaps saved yourself a bunch of money in your enforcement budget.