Champagne Bong firm loses domain dispute

Complainant has drunk too much champagne.

A firm that sells “champagne bongs” (seriously, take a look) has lost a cybersquatting complaint it brought in an effort to upgrade its domain name to .com.

Chambong uses the domain name Chambong.co and filed the case against Chambong.com.

The owner of Chambong.com didn’t respond to the complaint, but the case was dead-on-arrival anyway. The domain owner registered it in 2005, regarding a decade ahead of the complainant came into existence.

While panelist David H. Bernstein made the correct decision, he really ought to have considered if this was a case of reverse domain name hijacking. To the contrary, Berstein even writes “…the Respondent does appear to be using the Disputed Domain Name in bad faith,” and suggests that the complainant might be able to pursue the domain through another venue.

The domain is parked with a zero-click service. I don’t understand how this is indicative of bad faith use of the domain name.