Extends Winning Streak to 40-0 — Floyd Mayweather

Welterweight champ extends undefeated record with domain name win.

Former welterweight champion boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., a.k.a. “Money Mayweather”, has won a domain name dispute for MoneyMayweather.com. Mayweather was 39-0 in the ring during his career, and carried his winning ways to arbitration.

The panel found that Mayweather had common law rights to the “Money Mayweather” name, even though he doesn’t have a filed trademark. This is common in cases of celebrities. It also found that it was irrelevant that the paid links on MoneyMayweather.com were unrelated to the celebrity and his sport.

A quick look at the domain shows that the owner wasn’t profiting from domain parking; it was merely a domain he registered at GoDaddy and was being parked by the registrar. The page shows ads for money-related terms such as mutual funds and money market accounts.

The panel wrote:

Respondent is using the domain name for a pay-per-click site. Respondent likely profits from each Internet user who clicks on one of the advertised links. The fact that these links are unrelated to Complainant is immaterial; Respondent is attempting to profit off Complainant’s goodwill.

Although this is a fairly clear case of cybersquatting, it does bring up the question of a registrant’s responsibility when his or her registrar adds pay-per-click ads to a domain name.

The domain owner didn’t respond to the UDRP complaint. Mayweather apparently owns the .net version of the domain, although the email address of record is ‘[email protected]’.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.