Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the reported mistress of former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, has filed a $10 million lawsuit against MRA Holdings, producers of the popular Girls Gone Wild videos. Among the many allegations, the filing cites violations of the Lanham Act including cybersquatting domain names. Other Lanham violations include profiting from trademark infringement, false designation of origin, false represenation and false description of goods. Dupre’s attorneys claim that the company and/or agents are cybersquatting by owning and using several domain names which contain Dupre’s name such as AshleyDupre.net GirlsGoneWildAshleyDupre.com, and AshleyDupreCallGirl.com.

MRA Holdings and Mantra have experience with domain name law, at least in the arbitration process. The company has gone after domain name owners through arbitration at NAF on a number of domains such as girlsgonewildusa.com and girlsgonwild.com. MRA have also been sued plenty of times, Duprey’s attorneys may have a hard time proving some of these allegations.

As reported by Tech Crunch, Citizen Hawk, a “digital brand management” company is now funded with $3 million courtesy of Maveron LLC.

“CitizenHawk helps companies protect their online brands by targeting cybersquatters.”

The interesting angle that goes unmentioned at Tech Crunch is that Maveron already has a history of investmenting in the domain space with their funding of Internet REIT (iREIT). iREIT has come under fire in the past for owning a vast amount of the same trademark/typo infringing domains that Citizen Hawk seeks to “manage” for their clients.

About a year ago, some of the specifics of iREIT’s holdings were detailed by WSJ writer David Kesmodel. Since then, the company has been among several defendants named in high profile legal battles in the domain space, including the Vulcan Golf and Verizon lawsuits. Domain Name News has covered some of Citizen Hawk’s tactics previously in this post.

Thanks to ‘Office Naughty’ for the story tip!

Following the reported sale of Pizza.com, mainstream media is once again picking up on domain buzz. Boo and Huffy, the animated commentators at Minyanville.com, do their take on domain names and naming trends. Check out the video on the right side of the article.

WOW ! I just woke up to an earthquake in my home town of Springfield, Illinois, 1 day before I leave for the earthquake capital of America (San Francisco, CA) to attend Domain Roundtable. According to the USGS the earthquake was a 5.4 magnitude centered at 38.501°N, 87.898°W which appears to be 173 miles from Springfield. I have a domainer friend in the Indianapolis area who also is reporting feeling the quake . AMAZING !! an earthquake in Illinois. It probably means nothing to some of you southern California people, but this is definitely odd for the midwest. There’s been a few quakes in Illinois but none I can remember feeling like this.

Sorry, anyway this isn’ t really domain name news but it’s not on popping on Google so it sure does make for good up to the minute stuff.

The Vulcan Golf vs Google et al (including IREIT, Dotster, Sedo and Oversee) case has been green-lighted by the court to move forward. However the court has ruled in favor of the defendants to dismiss some of the other charges including the conspiracy, consumer fraud and RICO charges

The court has made a ruling that will potentially have a great impact on all domain name owners, parking companies and search engines. According to the judges ruling :

It is plausible that the [plaintiffs’] allegations fall under the ACPA prohibition of “trafficking in,” which is defined by the ACPA as engaging in ‘transactions that include, but are not limited to, sales, purchases, loans, pledges, licenses, exchanges of currency, and any other transfer for consideration or receipt in exchange for consideration.” 15 USC(d)(1)(E)

This means that the Anit-Cybersquatting Protection Act is being interpreted to apply not only to those who own the domain names and engage in cybersquatting but also anyone that would be profiting (trafficking) from the domains. The case is proceeding because the court was not compelled by the defense arguments that their processes were automated and that their involvement in the alleged cybersquatting was minimal.

“Google pays registrants for its use of the purportedly deceptive domain names, provides domain performance reporting, participates in the tasting of domain names, uses semantics technology to analyze the meaning of domain names and select revenue maximizing advertisements and controls and maintains that advertising.”

Sarah Bird has written a great analysis of the case at SEOMoz and discusses what’s next and what the case could mean to domainers and the domain monetization business.It’s well worth the read.

The bottom line: You don’t have to own or register the domain to have potential liability for cybersquatting under ACPA. As far as I know, this is the first case to make such a ruling. In every other ACPA case that I know of, the defendant owned or registered the domain, usually in addition to trafficking in it.

Sarah’s most important point is that the plaintiffs in this case have “an uphill battle” and a “long way to go” in proving that Google and the parking companies acted in bad faith and knowingly were infringing on the trademarks. This case will surely change the strategies and monetization of domain names at search engines, especially when pertaining to potentially infringing domains, but it will also radically redefine what the scope of cybersquatting.

Back in 2006, Wall Street Journal reporter David Kesmodel began work on a book about the domain space. Kesmodel also released his own blog publishing news and insight into companies and players in the space.  Kesmodel announced he was shuttering the blog and heading back to  a reporting gig in Chicago.  So, what happened to the book ?  Domain Name News talked to Kesmodel about his book after seeing recent updates on his site about a spring release.

As it turns out, the original publisher threw a serious curve ball in 2007 by canceling the release of the already finished work.  Kesmodel decided to run with the book himself and has been editing and making revisions. The book will be published through xlibris.com within the coming months. Check out the description of the book on Kesmodel’s site.

The domain space has already seen rocker Joe Higgins and his band The Likes of You competing on reality-TV, and now we can root for another domain guy who’ll be appearing on a popular TV game show. Christian Higgins, Account Manager at Parked.com (no relation to Joe) will be appearing with his fiancée on the show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” during “Wedding Week” . According to the shows publicist:

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If you are a DomainSponsor.com publisher partner, you might know Joe Higgins (far right of pic). He’s an account rep for the domain monetization company. Joe also is the drummer for a band, The Likes of You. The Los Angeles-based band made it through the Fox reality show “The Next Great American Band”. The show debuted on Fox this evening with a variety of bands competing in a competition modeled after the popular Fox show American Idol. The show featured a short clip of the band making it through to the next round of the competition. Congrats guys! I hope to hear more of the music in future episodes. I learned about Joe and his shot at stardom at TRAFFIC last week. Joe is my account rep at DomainSponsor and a very cool guy. Best of luck Joe and The Likes of You. You guys have the my vote.

Photo courtesy Next Great American Band

Rumors are circulating that the sale for the domain name Cowboys.com will not be moving forward. The domain name brought in a $275,000 bid from a phone-in bidder at the recent TRAFFIC domain live auction in Hollywood, Florida. The bidder had been earlier identified to be a representative from the Dallas Cowboys NFL team. An inside source confirmed with DomainNameNews that the deal began to fall apart over a misunderstanding with the bidder on what the bid of “275″ actually meant. It appears the bidder thought they were buying the domain for $275.00 rather than $275,000.

The domain was formerly used a site which sold western apparel and other items, as can be seen in the archive.org cache of the site. Although the Dallas Cowboys football team owns a trademark for the use of the word Cowboys, there are also several other companies and businesses operating under the “Cowboys” name. The domain is a generic word and it’s past usage shows that it can be used without infringement on any trademarks.

The Dallas Cowboys NFL football team currently uses the domain name DallasCowboys.com, but is likely losing a great deal of traffic to the shorter and more iconic Cowboys.com domain. The football team owners have also been working on building a new multi-million dollar stadium and the purchase was referred to by domainers as a very logical decision for the team. The shorter domain would be much easier to emblazon on uniforms, tickets, apparel, stadium graphics, tv ads, etc. The loss of this sale seems to be a major fumble by a potential “end-user” buyer to secure a “no brainer” asset for their business.

In this writers opinion, this buy seems to be a simple “hand-off” play that got botched big time. How much “yardage” will it cost the Dallas Cowboys in misdirected traffic when someone else buys it ?

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The Wall Street Journal covers the “scourge” of the domain business, domain theft. Check the article out here.

DomainNameNews contributor and “domain consultant” Richard Lau encourages domain owners and businesses to layer on the security when protecting your valuable domains:

“The more valuable your domain name, the more you need to sacrifice convenience for security”

Other notable figures in the domain space are quoted as well including : Bob Parsons, Monte Cahn, and John Berryhill. This is nice coverage on a very serious topic.