By Steve Levy
A frequent defense made by domain name owners is that they’re not responsible for the pay-per-click (monetized advertising) links on their website since it’s the registrar or the hosting provider whose algorithms decide what links go on the page. Spoiler alert – they are responsible.
In a recent case involving the domain name painless.com, the Respondent pointed out a provision in the end-use license agreement of its Registrar that monetized links may be placed on its domain name’s webpage: “if such Domain Name is hosted on a Web.com Domain Name server and does not otherwise resolve to an active Web site…”
While this Respondent gets credit for actually reading its user agreement, this language in the agreement does not absolve it of responsibility for the content of its site. As noted in the above language, it has the option to set the DNS and resolve its domain name to an active website (or even to a blank page) and so it is ultimately in control of the domain name’s website content. The reality that a domain name registrant has ultimate control over the operation of its domain has been pointed out in many prior UDRP decisions. One of these noted that “it is possible that it is the Registrar (GoDaddy) and not the Respondent who may have placed the parked page linking the [studiocanalcollection.com] domain name to third party websites selling movies and DVDs. In that circumstance, whether the commercial gain from misled Internet users is gained by the Respondent or by the Registrar (or by another third party), it remains that the Respondent controls and cannot (absent some special circumstance) disclaim responsibility for, the content appearing on the website to which the disputed domain name resolves.”
In the end, the complaint against the painless.com domain was denied on other grounds but the point is made that if you own a domain name, you’re responsible for knowing and managing how that asset is used. You can’t just wash your hands of responsibility by simply saying “my registrar did it”.