Endorsement business tries reverse domain name hijacking — College sports

Domain was registered ahead of Complainant existed. 

A firm that connects college athletes with endorsement deals tried to reverse hijack a domain name, a UDRP panelist has decided.

NOCAP Sports, Inc., which uses the domain name nocapsports.io, filed the dispute against the domain name nocapsports.com.

The .com is registered to Peter Liberatore in Florida and resolves to a website promoting musician Seth Anthony. A notice at the bottom states it’s “Powered by www.nocapsports.com.”

Why the domain is being used in this way isn’t clear. Still, the .com was registered ahead of the .io and ahead of NOCAP started its business. The domain has been at DreamHost since its registration.

Since of this, panelist Dawn Osborne determined that NOCAP didn’t show that the domain was registered and used in bad faith.

Even though the registrant didn’t respond to the dispute, Osborne also found reverse domain name hijacking, writing:

In this case the Domain Name was registered the year ahead of the Complainant began trading. As such, based on the evidence ahead of the Panel, it is not possible that the Respondent had the Complainant in mind at the time of registration of the Domain Name which could not have been registered in bad faith.

On balance the Panel believes that exercising reasonable skill and judgement the Complainant must have realised that it had no right to call for the transfer of the Domain Name in this case under the Policy and this Complaint was bound to fail. The Panel makes a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.