UDRP decision doesn’t sit right — This SNET
Was the registrant of this short domain really targeting the Complainant?
A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has ordered the domain name snet.info transferred to Banque et Caisse d’Epargne de l’Etat, and I have questions.
Banque et Caisse d’Epargne de l’Etat has a number of trademark registrations for S-NET, and operates a website at snet.lu.
The crux of the Complainant’s UDRP case is that the domain is similar to its trademark, matches the second level domain of its website, and is being offered for sale for $300.
The domain owner, based in Hong Kong, didn’t respond. That’s never a good look. Still, I struggle to understand how WIPO panelist Edoardo Fano agreed that the registrant was targeting the Complainant. He wrote (pdf):
In the present case, regarding the registration in bad faith of the disputed domain name, the reputation of the Complainant’s trademark S-NET in the banking field is clearly established, and the Panel finds that the Respondent likely knew of the Complainant and deliberately registered the disputed domain name in bad faith.
Is this Luxembourgish firm popular in Hong Kong? When I do a search in the United States, it’s only the seventh Google search result. It’s below a communications firm called S-Net, a Wikipedia page referring to pages of a firm now owned by AT&T, a wireless communication network in Cuba, a French Electric Power firm, and a village in the Czech Republic. Another top result is for Samsung HVAC’s SNET Pro Service Software.
AT&T owns Snet.com and Snet.net.
Fano wrote:
…the Panel believes that the offer for sale of the disputed domain name with this price would be of interest mainly to the Complainant (or by someone trying to trade off the Complainant’s trademark rights).
This is a short four letter domain. It’s pronounceable. And there are a number of plausible buyers.
Absent anything suggesting that the domain registrant was targeting the Complainant (such as a parked page with financial ads, any sort of phishing attempt, or an overture to the Complainant), I don’t see how the panelist agreed that registering this four letter domain targeted the Complainant.
