Dell Takes 3 Domain Registrars to Court

[Dave Zan]

Just got this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112801679.html

Personal computer giant Dell Inc. is pursuing a major "cybersquatting" lawsuit against several companies that buy and sell Web site addresses, alleging that the entities earned millions of dollars from Internet traffic intended for Dell and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies.

In a case quietly filed with the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in October and unsealed last Wednesday, Dell took aim at a stable of registrars -- companies that are licensed to register and sell new domain names to the public -- allegding that they are responsible for registering and profiting off of nearly 1,100 domains that were "confusingly similar" to Dell's various trademarks.

 

[ivoy]

Interesting. Very curious to see the outcome, which I predict will be a quiet settlement.

This part is really funny:

According to one example cited in Dell's lawsuit, on May 25, 2007, DomainDoorman registered "dellfinacncialservices.com." On May 30, the registrar deleted the domain from its stable of Web site names. Minutes later, that same Web site name was snatched up by BelgiumDomains, which then dropped the name on June 4. That same day, dellfinacncialservices.com was grabbed by CapitolDomains, which in turn relinquished it on June 9, the same day that site was re-registered again by DomainDoorman.

 

[cyberlaw]

Interesting case that I've blogged about here:

http://www.cyberlawonline.com/cyberlawg/domain-names/dell-sues-cybersquatters.html

You'll also be able to see it on the homepage for a limited time:

http://www.cyberlawonline.com

 

[Brett Lewis]

Note who Dell's attorney is. David Steele. If I am not mistaken, David represented Nieman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman in a similar case against Dotster. Steele also brought another suit on behalf of Verizon.

 

[Focus]

dell sales must be slow..lol

Ok, now what about all the resulting sales and services sold or attained as a result of that traffic? Do they think they don't have to pay for it? lmao

sure...we will pay you back all the advertising dollars DELL, and you just undo all the sales, computer loans, & long term contracts that were attained as a result of all the ads on the said domains...which if just resolved to a search engine instead of a targetted results page might have went to one of your big competitors like HP, Lenovo, or Gateway, etc since people cannot type to save their life!

 

[JB7]

Dell just released their new cybersquatter slogan too.

"Dude, you got a lawsuit"

 

[Stian]

I'd like to see the list of domains that Dell are trying to claim:

bell.com
bells.com
deli.com
hell.com
sell.com
sellcomputers.com
mail.com

etc..

 

[Dave Zan]

Dell's going after the "blatantly obvious".

 

[Focus]

f*ck dell...their computers suck ass anyways..:cheesy:

 

[RTM.net]

As one of the biggest admirers of Dell... Michael Dell that is... I really am scratching my head lately. First, the corporation, yes Dell Corporation goes against it's core "Direct from Dell" way of doing business by partnering for etailing their goods in Walmart and BestBuy.. and now this chasing after domainers.....

Is Dell becoming the HP/Compaq/Digital/Tandem/Whatchamacallit of the 2000s and losing focus ?

We have affiliate partnerships with Dell on several client sites - with a sliding commision scale of 1-2.5% (gee thanks) and a 3 day cookie duration (errr, thanks again - enjoy the business I send your way).... but this somehow is removing the icing from the cake.

@ pcproffenno : LOL. It's obvious that sell.com and sellcomputers are confusingly similar!



Rob