Microsoft sues "cybersquatters"

[fischermx]

Are the guys mentioned there here in this forum ¡?
Please, rise your hand !

 

[Mr. Deleted]

Wow!
Thats lots of domains daily.

Where did you find those stats?

that is what M$ says.

 

[BidNo]

I count 7,942 coms containing "xbox" and another 4,046 containing "microsoft". Looks like a big legal bill to me.

 

[Andrew Shaw]

They cant possibly go after every person that infringes, they will most likely choose a few and make an example of them.

 

[denny007]

So lets suppose they find my name is Fridolin Kundolizek, registered address Prdelakov, Czech republic. US court decides I should pay them $10M in damages. Besides the fact I am not breaking any law neither of a country where I live nor a country where I am citizen of - how exactly they plan to collect the money ?

 

[labrocca]

So much for my xbox domains. Luckily I just moved a lot of my content to a different generic gaming domain. I am pretty much staying very clear of TM domain development. What's crazier is that it looks like you are more at risk if you park the domain over development. Yet it's those that develop domains that give MS it's fan base. Now I am simply skittish to do either.

 

[Ian]

MS has pulled the trigger now. Many companies have been sent a wake up call to pull down TM infringing typos. The domain industry will be cleaned with only the big players remaining. My prediction is that new domainers will find it hard to get off the ground in the near future without substantial personal funding.
just my 2 cents

 

[GeorgeK]

So lets suppose they find my name is Fridolin Kundolizek, registered address Prdelakov, Czech republic. US court decides I should pay them $10M in damages. Besides the fact I am not breaking any law neither of a country where I live nor a country where I am citizen of - how exactly they plan to collect the money ?

Seize your non-TM domains, for starters, and auction them off to the highest bidders.

 

[denny007]

Seize your non-TM domains, for starters, and auction them off to the highest bidders.

You must think I am a total idiot. I have all my domains in many many different accounts, every account with different name. Even TM domains I still have separated into many accounts, most "dangerous" typos are in one. So what they COULD seize is yahoo, myspace, MS and other unparkable typos. Thats all.

 

[StockDoctor]

Microsoft isn't going thru WIPO but instead thru the Courts. They easily identify the TM or TM typo names, and fire off a court order copy to the registrars obtaining the whois on record. They bring an action against all and send the court order to the owner on file whether fake or not, to have the names transferred, and with possible fines. They can also identify which ppc program etc is being used and get a court order from them for payment records on accounts. They then seize the financial accounts under the real names. They have the real names and they obtain a court order to shut down or send any and all future proceeds to them in settlement of court awards.

Others follow their lead (Disney, Myspace etc etc) and the end is near.

 

[GeorgeK]

You underestimate the potential resources Microsoft has at its disposal, especially with a subpoena power. Multiple accounts doesn't make things impossible to trace. Do you have 200 credit cards? 200 paypal accounts? Logging in with 200 separate IP addresses? 200 different browser referrer records. 200 different Google cookies? 200 different Flash cookies? 200 different bank accounts? 200 different IP addresses on DNforum? Do you think Microsoft doesn't read this forum? Those are just some of the trivial ways to perform correlation analysis, to track down groups controlled by 1 person.

 

[denny007]

You underestimate the potential resources Microsoft has at its disposal, especially with a subpoena power. Multiple accounts doesn't make things impossible to trace. Do you have 200 credit cards? 200 paypal accounts? Logging in with 200 separate IP addresses? 200 different browser referrer records. 200 different Google cookies? 200 different Flash cookies? 200 different bank accounts? 200 different IP addresses on DNforum? Do you think Microsoft doesn't read this forum? Those are just some of the trivial ways to perform correlation analysis, to track down groups controlled by 1 person.

You overestimate the resources MS is willing to give to this. There are thousands of persons owning typos. They will go after top 10 - Unasi, Laporte (aka Chesteron aka many other names), Domaindoorman and few more.

You doomsayers are predicting this to happen for 5 years. During this time typosquatters earned hundreds of millions dollars and are setting-up legitimate businesses.

 

[droplister]

Wow!
Thats lots of domains daily.

Where did you find those stats?

In the article

 

[SouthernTn]

His name was actually "Mike Rowe" and added the "soft" to make his domain sound cute. That kid was a little punk, too bad he didn't get sued into the ground.

I personally didn't see anything wrong with it. It was humorous, and wasn't that serious at all. He just registered the domain to have fun and it was a decent play off his legal name. Its not even close to what people register to make money off big corporation names.

 

[fischermx]

What do they do if the domain is totally under a fake name and adresss !?
Just wondering ....

 

[Domain Jedi]

Just out of curiosity, I performed the following searches on Sedo.com:

Xbox 360 = 663 matching domains
Xbox Live = 56 matching domains
Microsoft = 36 matching domains

Microsoft needn't look any further than Sedo for plenty of potential targets...

 

[Bob]

Thread cleaned.

Stay on subject guys and gals.

-Bob

 

[labrocca]

I think MS could easily find this guy just by his picture.

http://www.dnforum.com/image.php?u=11759

hehe....

Parking imho will be come very dangerous hence typosquatters such as the guy depicted in this post will have a harder time monetizing these domains. In the long run without money...what's the point of registering the domains?

And MS can and will go for your assets. Sedo is a German company and I am sure MS can sue you in Germany and seize your Sedo assets. They can pretty much do this in every country that has a decent parking service. Most are in the USA or EU so it wouldn't be hard at all.

 

[denny007]

I think MS could easily find this guy just by his picture.
http://www.dnforum.com/image.php?u=11759

There is bigger picture there:
http://www.dnforum.com/image.php?u=11759&type=profile&dateline=1138341002

In the long run without money...what's the point of registering the domains?

Any traffic is worth something. Might be worth less in the future. If I could get the primo typos for reg. fee I would just redirect them to suck pages - yahoo typo to yahoo sucks etc. Just for fun. Which I am doing now already with all my unparkable typos.

And MS can and will go for your assets. Sedo is a German company and I am sure MS can sue you in Germany and seize your Sedo assets. They can pretty much do this in every country that has a decent parking service. Most are in the USA or EU so it wouldn't be hard at all.

Parking companies pay on monthly basis so the only "assets" they can seize is 45 days revenue. They can not seize those billions which typogeniuses made in last 5 years, because this money are in safe destinations, I would say a lot of those money are already back in US market in legitimate (domain) bussinesses. Same as mafias money

 

[labrocca]

Yeah..I realize they will only get your current Sedo assets...but that could potentially shut you down for future income as well. Sedo and other parking services would most likely fold to the suits (pun intended) and assist them in blocking the domains. Signing up for new accounts wouldn't help you.

All it would take is the parking companies to begin filtering out TM domains from it's system and it would cripple any typosquatting income.

I just wonder Denny if you are planning to make any adjustments to your portfolio and how you pull income. I know you are a proud typosquatter. Does this news rile you at all?