Cybersquatting dispute against D0W .com — Dow wins

Firm states domain was used in phishing attack.

Dow Chemical Firm has won a cybersquatting dispute it brought against the domain name D0W .com. That’s a zero in the middle, so it’s d0w .com.

Registering a three-letter domain like d0w .com that includes numbers and letters isn’t cybersquatting in and of itself. These short domains can be bought and sold as investments.

Still, it appears the owner of the domain has used it in an infringing way. As stated by the complaint, the domain was parked with ads links for “Dow Chemicals”, “Plastic Products”, “Chemical Manufacturers”.

When I visited the domain today, it forwarded to a scammy Chrome extension download page.

And Dow states that the domain was used to send a bogus email to one of Dow’s clients to get it to make a payment to a bank unaffiliated with Dow. (Emails can be spoofed. The domain owner didn’t respond to the allegations.)

This made the case an easy decision for World Intellectual Property Organization panelist Robert Badgley.