OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Mike Mann has filed a lawsuit to appeal the UDRP decision regarding the LakesGas.com domain name.
The UDRP complaint was filed at the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center in April and the decision came in June.
The Complainant was Lakes Gas Co., a US company.
The Sole Panelist, Brian J. Winterfeldt, ordered that the disputed domain name lakesgas.com was to be transferred to the Complainant.
This was clearly a bad decision as the panelist ordered the transfer based on the domain name’s price:
“Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name is to offer it for sale at an exorbitantly high price of USD 94,888. This Panel takes notice that the estimated fair market value for this disputed domain name ranges from about USD 650 to about 2,300. This supports an inference of bad faith under paragraph 4(b)(i) and/or 4(b)(iv) of the Policy.”
A rightful owner can ask any price he/she wants as long as he/she does not infringe on any third party rights.
Mike Mann’s company, DomainMarket, LLC d/b/a DomainMarket.com, filed a lawsuit to stop the domain transfer on July 15, 2019 at the US District Court for the Western District of Washington.
A domain owner that loses a UDRP can file a lawsuit in a court in Mutual Jurisdiction and stop the domain name transfer until the court decides on the case.
Mike Mann said on Twitter: “Ill informed jackasses always stealing other people’s assets and profiting.“.
(Thanks to George Kirikos of Leap.com for the tip.)
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I always enjoy seeing someone stand up to the large corporate giants, when I first started buying domains, I bought 1800realtor.com, and Realtor.com sent me a nasty letter, and being new and dumb I transferred the domain to them. I can tell you I have only made that mistake once. Good Luck!
Good luck Mike Mann with the effort to recover the domain name. The ability to render such a horrible decision against a legitimate owner (Mike) makes me shiver with fear because it causes stress and costs money to defend and should not have got this far. Any one of us can become the next victim and easy targets when a valuable domain can be had for a just a few thousand dollars and a lucky roll of the dice.
Why didn’t they just get lakesgas.co ? It’s available on GoDaddy for $1.99! lol
The lawsuit appears to have settled.
https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/29087740/DomainMarket,_LLC_dba_DomainMarketcom_v_Lakes_Gas_Co
The domain appears to still be in Mike Mann’s ownership.
Does anyone have more details about this?