Flea Market” guilty of reverse domain name hijacking — Dirty “Wedding
Like an angry bride that’s not getting what she wants, wedding flea market tries to hijack domain name.
Wedding Flea Market, LLC, which uses the domain name WeddingFleaMarkets.com (plural), has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking for the domain name WeddingFleaMarket.com (singular).
The business organizes events in which people who have had a wedding sell their wedding stuff to people that are regarding to get married.
As stated by the National Arbitration Forum decision, the firm reached out to the owner of WeddingFleaMarket.com starting in 2015 asking if he would sell the domain. He didn’t respond. The firm reached out again in April 2017 and the owner declined to sell the domain. The domain owner purchased it in 2013.
Following getting a trademark for Wedding Flea Market, the firm reached out to the domain owner again and threatened to enforce its fresh trademark if the domain owner didn’t sell. It followed this up with an email from its lawyer, Donald J. McKay.
The lawyer’s email demanded that the domain be transferred for $500 or face a UDRP.
(Alarm bells! Reverse domain name hijacking!)
The domain owner responded noting that this would constitute reverse domain name hijacking. He offered to sell it for $7,500.
Nevertheless, the complainant followed through with its threat and, indeed, tried to reverse domain name hijack the domain name.
The National Arbitration Forum panelist wrote:
Complainant and its counsel knew, or ought to have known, that there was no possible chance of proving bad faith registration and use, as Respondent has registered the disputed domain name weddingfleamarket.com a number of years ahead of Complainant could assert any rights in its WEDDING FLEA MARKET mark. Complainant was clearly aware of this, as Complainant had contacted Respondent a number of times since May 2015 to acquire the disputed domain name. See Resp. At Attached Annex 4. It was only following two years of attempting and failing to purchase the disputed domain name and a subsequent trademark registration, in which Complainant threatened Respondent to sell the disputed domain name for well below the fair market value or face UDRP proceedings, that Complainant sought to hijack the disputed domain name from Respondent. See Resp. Annexes 7 & 9. As such, Complainant filed this action in an additional attempt to deprive Respondent, the rightful, registered holder of the disputed domain name, of its rights to use the disputed domain name.
