Someone registered an available domain hours after I searched for it when I received our trademark. The domain was immediately put up for sale. I spent almost a year getting my ducks in a row to sue and reclaim the domain (I even had screenshots of the availability. The scammer was watching registration queries) but they let the domain expire for lack of interest. I scooped it up after that.
Legit question: why didn’t you take the domain before trademark was issued?
If you already had the name registered (but not issued), couldn’t you essentially cybersquat yourself and then buy it from yourself after it’s been issued?
We burned a lot of midnight oil on that company. It was a early data analytics type venture that was fun, but had a lot of long nights. We had an ethical spin from the ground up which, in hindsight, is not really the direction the Internet wanted to take.
It was a great bunch of folks though. We keep in touch now and then.
It was a small startup in, gosh, 1999-2000 when the net was a new frontier. Lessons were learned. It’s since been acquired and folded into other businesses. The domain is still in my name with a very basic static page.
That’s kinda how cybersquatting laws work.
Someone registered an available domain hours after I searched for it when I received our trademark. The domain was immediately put up for sale. I spent almost a year getting my ducks in a row to sue and reclaim the domain (I even had screenshots of the availability. The scammer was watching registration queries) but they let the domain expire for lack of interest. I scooped it up after that.
Legit question: why didn’t you take the domain before trademark was issued?
If you already had the name registered (but not issued), couldn’t you essentially cybersquat yourself and then buy it from yourself after it’s been issued?
We had no intention of making/hosting a website with the trademark. The company was in agreement.
After we got it, the bossman comes to me and says “so we can make this email addresses now, right?”
Like, duuude… It’s not his expertise, I know, but he thought web pages and email was totally separate systems.
Anyway, that was almost 25 years ago. All water under the bridge.
Sounds like you fucked up, tbh, you should’ve bought the domain even if not intending to use it, just for brand safety
That’s why Research in Motion (the developer of the Blackberry) had to buy the domain “rim.jobs” when the .jobs tld was launched.
Ha, I had no idea!
I couldn’t agree more.
The cost in time and resources for all of that, vs just registering the domain in the first place. 🙄
We burned a lot of midnight oil on that company. It was a early data analytics type venture that was fun, but had a lot of long nights. We had an ethical spin from the ground up which, in hindsight, is not really the direction the Internet wanted to take.
It was a great bunch of folks though. We keep in touch now and then.
Haha! Yeah we sure did.
It was a small startup in, gosh, 1999-2000 when the net was a new frontier. Lessons were learned. It’s since been acquired and folded into other businesses. The domain is still in my name with a very basic static page.