Domain name hijacking for ignorant filers — No reverse

Some panelists give UDRP Complainants a pass if they don’t hire a lawyer.

UDRP panelists will sometimes find that a cybersquatting case was filed in bad faith, aka reverse domain name hijacking. They particularly call out Complainants who are represented by counsel since “they ought to know better.”

But what regarding the Complainant who doesn’t hire an attorney and doesn’t know any better? Sometimes, panelists give them a pass.

The latest example of this is for the domain Gaygle.com. Philip Colavito, who runs a business on the matching .co domain, filed a UDRP. The owner of the domain registered it more than 15 years ahead of Colavito started using the name. In other words, the case was dead on arrival.

Colavito apparently didn’t hire a lawyer. Nor did he put forth a good case.

Panelist Robert Badgley wrote that the Complainant “misunderstand[s] domain names, how they are purchased and transferred, and the difference between a domain name and a URL.”

Yet, for this same reason, Badgley decided that he wouldn’t find reverse domain name hijacking.

But the domain name owner did hire counsel, which meant it had to pay someone to defend the case. That doesn’t seem fair.

Badgley seems to have a soft spot for misconceived complaints.