Former employee wins UDRP complaint at NAF for a criticism website at SelectQuoteReview.com

This was the second UDRP complaint for a criticism website that was denied today at the National Arbitration Forum after a website build by a law firm survived a UDRP complaint at NAF. It seems that both domains contained accusations about unpaid wages among other things.

A Complaint for the domain name selectquotereview.com was submitted to the National Arbitration Forum on July 24, 2012.

Complainant was SelectQuote Insurance Services from Idaho, USA. The Complainant is a company offering price comparisons of insurance quotes since 1985. Complainant owns the selectquote mark for which it has obtained federal trade mark registrations in the USA. It has a website at selectquote.com.

Respondent was Tom Dunham, from California, USA, used to work for  SelectQuote. The Respondent registered the Disputed Domain Name selectquotereview.com on the 27th of January 2012. The domain was used to post content critical of the Complainant and has this pretty clear heading:

SelectQuote Review – Hurting Children Rewarded
Buy term life insurance elsewhere!

Children are at risk due to SelectQuote Insurance executives covering-up threats to children. Customer data can be accessed by the employees involved.

The Panel found that the Disputed Domain Name registered by the Respondent was confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant had rights and the first limb of the UDRP Policy was satisfied.

The Panel found from the evidence that the Disputed Domain Name is being used as a noncommercial criticism site. The Panel agreed with the Respondent that the addition of the term “review” implied a lack of association with the Complainant as a review is customarily written by someone unassociated with the subject being reviewed. In any event the site was very obviously critical of the Complainant and there was no evidence of commercial gain or any motive for use of the site except as a forum to criticize the Complainant. There was no hint in the evidence that the criticism site was an excuse to cover bad faith. As such the Panel found that the Respondent had rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name.

Finally the Panel found that the Respondent had not engaged in any content that would constitute bad faith registration and use pursuant to Policy 4 (a)(iii) of the UDRP.

So, having not established all three elements required under the ICANN Policy, the Panel concluded that relief shall be DENIED and it was ordered that the selectquotereview.com domain name REMAIN WITH Respondent.