A huge victory for MySpace.com has been overturned as the social networking giant is being forced to hand back control of MySpace.co.uk to the previous owner, Total Web Solutions (TWS).

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Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP, a law firm in Los Angeles, California, has filed a lawsuit claiming that Google is deceiving its customers into paying for advertisements they don’t want.

Google, the law firm contends, is cheating advertisers by charging for ads that are placed on third party websites without the Adwords user being informed.

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ACE Limited, an insurance company, made an attempt to take the domain name Ace.com away from WebMagic Ventures, citing trademark infringement as it’s primary reason. The issue was taken to the National Arbitration Forum and denied due to several shortcomings in ACE Limited’s dispute.

This case not only unique because of the value of the domain, but also due to atrocious claims made by ACE Limited.

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Gambling911.com is reporting escalated tension between Bodog and 1st Technology in regards to a lawsuit over a coveted domain name, Bodog.com.

Bodog founder, Calvin Ayre, insists that he was improperly served when 1^st Technologies originally filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against his company, which led to the eventual loss of the important domain name.

On his personal blog, Ayre explains: “The Costa Rican company in that [patent dispute] action is not Bodog and never ever was Antiguan based Bodog.”

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As seen in this Washington Post article, and PC World, Microsoft is suing the domain name registrar Red Register for trademark violation. Microsoft has made similar suits over the years against registrants. This marks the second recent suit for cybersquatting against an ICANN accredited registrar, as Belgium Domains, DomainDoorman.com and Capital Domains were recently accused of trademark infringment by Yahoo, Alienware and Dell.

Domain Name News has received an email from domain registrar Belgium Domains informing their clients and customers that the registrar has been locked out of the registry at Verisign. The lockout was spurred by the ongoing legal battles between the registrar and plaintiffs claiming trademark infringement. Plaintiffs, including Dell and Yahoo, received a court order to lock all of the domains at the registry and Belgium Domains is unable to administer any of the domains.

The email leaves customers in the dark on issues such as renewing or transferring domains and it remains unclear from the email what customers can do about their domains and who is currently in charge of administering them. This case will likely set a precedent in what happens when a registrar gets into legal trouble. If customers who are uninvolved in the case are prevented from managing their domain names, as seems to be the case, this action may need to be re-evaluated and measures put in to place to insure that there isn’t another “registerfly” sort of fiasco again.

Dear Registrant:

We have the unhappy duty of informing you that on October 10, 2007, Dell, Inc., Alienware, Inc., and Yahoo! Inc., filed lawsuits against BelgiumDomains and two other registrars. The plaintiffs allege that a small percentage of the domain names we have registered for our clients have names confusingly similar to their trademarks. However, instead of bringing their complaints in open court, the plaintiffs proceeded in secrecy, inflicting tremendous damage on BelgiumDomains and the other defendants.

The worst of those injuries also affects our customers. VeriSign advised us that the plaintiffs obtained a court order forcing VeriSign, our registry, to lock most of the domain names we have registered on behalf of our registrants. Currently, BelgiumDomains is unable to administer those locked accounts. We cannot provide you further details as the order locking all of these domains is still sealed.

We have retained Newman Dichter , one of the leading firms in domain-related legal disputes and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail. However, at this early stage, we cannot predict how long the court orders affecting your domain names will remain in place. As we learn more, we will keep you informed as to the status of the domain names you have registered with us.

Please accept BelgiumDomains’ sincere apology for this completely unpredictable turn of events. Rest assured that we take our responsibilities to you and your account seriously and are working aggressively to remedy this unfortunate and unfair situation as soon as possible. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us or our attorneys.

Legal Team
BelgiumDomains, LLC

A legal battle between Verizon and domain portfolio owner Internet REIT has ended with a settlement between the two parties.. 

According to a report on  Fox Business :

The settlement between the parties includes a monetary payment to Verizon and the issuance of a permanent injunction prohibiting Internet REIT from registering, trafficking in, or using, as a registrant, any domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to the Verizon trademarks. Additional details regarding the resolution of the case are confidential.

The case between iREIT and Verizon has been going on for some time and has drawn a fair amount of negative mainstream media attention to the domain space.  The mounting legal troubles and combined legal troubles likely contributed to iREIT graciously bowing out of their involvement with the Internet Commerce Association.  Meanwhile, no word yet on whether Verizon plans to continue doing essentially the same thing they sued iREIT over.

In a push against automated trademark infringing domainers, Dell filed a lawsuit against three Florida Registrars on November 16, 2007, based on complaints of cybersquatting, trademark infringement, counterfeiting, dilution, and unfair competition.

Dell Inc., along with Alienware Corporation, a subsidiary of Dell, brought this action against BelgiumDomains, CapitolDomains, and DomainDoorman.com. Netrian Ventures and iHoldings.com were also named in the filing, as they are also controlled by the man that is behind it all, Juan Pablo Vazquez (known as “JP” Vazquez). According to the allegations, JP Vazquez was in charge of conducting the day-to-day operations of all five companies, which have often worked together as a single entity for the purpose of unlawful activity.

The defendants have collectively registered and are monetizing over 64 million unique domain names, thousands of them beginning with “Dell”, and are believed to be using an automated process to obtain the majority of them. They are also accused of making successful attempts at concealing their identity using shell-entities, fictitious business and personal names, as well as restricting the publicly viewable WHOIS databases of BelgiumDomains, CapitolDomains, and DomainDoorman.

This is definitely a case to keep an eye on and Domain Name News will try to keep on top of developments.  The Washington Post has a piece on this story with a general overview.

The pdf documents from this case can be downloaded (right mouse click and save as) or viewed through the links below.

Document 1 : This is the original federal case filing. 66 pages

Document 2: This document contains many of the Exhibits 1-5. Special mention to note the list of companies in Exhibit 4 . 109 pages

Document 3: Exhibits 6-10, mainly whois information for specific domains and screen grabs of parking pages. 111 pages

New details in the Vulcan Golf vs Google case have emerged. Several new plaintiffs have been added to the case against Google, Oversee, Sedo, IReit and other “John Does”. Most notable of the new plaintiffs is a famous sports star, Vincent E. Jackson, aka “Bo” Jackson.

Bo Jackson is a recognized name within American professional sports. Jackson is best known as an All Star player in two major league sports, the NFL and the MLB. His name became famous in the late 80s and early 90s when Nike began the famous “Bo Knows” ad campaign.

Jackson’s portion of the claim states that:

Bo Jackson has suffered and continues to suffer injury to his person, business and property as a direct and proximate result of the Deceptive Domain Scheme and violations set forth herein. The injury and damage suffered is economic and non-economic in nature, and includes but is not limited to: diversion of business; confusion, damage to reputation; dilution of distinctive and valuable famous name; loss of revenue; and other such related injury and damage

Two specific domains were mentioned in Jackson’s portion of the claim : aintnobojackson.com and nobojackson.com. Both domains are registered with Whois privacy protection and currently appear to redirect to Sedo, but are not resolving or being monetized. Sedo and Google were named as the defendants.

The Vulcan case continues to have interesting twists and turns and I’m sure will add more plaintiffs and maybe even new defendants as the case plays out. To see the documents and history of the case in there entirety, check the Justia website.

Special thanks to George Kirikos for the tip

Following the footsteps of New York state, Pennsylvania apparently also sees a need for a state wide cybersquatting legislation. The March move from a Schuylkill County controller candidate to imbibe website addresses of his rival has inspired state legislator Neal P. Goodman to propose a bill – prohibition of so-called cybersquatting, declaring it a crime. The proposal is inspired by candidate, Republican Jason Gherghel’s decision to register various combinations domain names of his opponent, Melinda Kantner, according to Neal P. Goodman, D-Schuylkill.

Users trying to enter the URLs such as melindakantner.com were deflected to Gherghel’s website. According to a report in The Morning Call, Goodman, a cousin of county District Attorney James P. Goodman, led his proposal after learning that authorities had no legal grounds to act against Gherghel, 33, of West Brunswick Township. He feels that the issue needs to be addressed immediately, since internet is an important source of information for younger voters.

Goodman announced the bill, the Pennsylvania Political Cyberfraud Abatement Act, or House Bill 1900, supported by 71 bipartisan legislators, with Kantner, D-Carbon, state Rep. Tim Seip, D-Schuylkill/Berks and House Majority Whip Keith McCall. He further added, ”The proposed legislation would amend the election code to make cybersquatting a first-degree misdemeanor”.

Commenting on the move in a telephonic interview, Gherghel stated “just another desperate attempt by my opponent to hide the fact that she has absolutely no credentials. This was resolved back in April.”

However, Kantner, 44, of North Manheim Township expects the proposed law would ”put an end to the deceitful tactics my opponent chose to use early in this political campaign. In taking my Internet identity, and then attempting to cover up his involvement, my opponent deliberately misleads the voters of this county.”

[via: DomainNews.com]