Google Loses Domain Name Dispute

Just heard from the National Arbitration Forum that my clients won a great domain name dispute over GROOVLE.COM. Google had complained that my clients were "cybersquatters". The unanimous three distinguished three member panel disagreed. You can read the decision here.

Congrats to Groovle.com! This was one of those rare UDRP cases where the Panel didn't even have to consider the second and third prongs of the three-part UDRP test (legitimate interest and good faith registration and use). The Panel deserves a lot of credit here for being decisive in its appreciation for the substantial difference between Google and Groovle. As a UDRP lawyer, I can say that this was a real groovy case, and only the second case that Google ever lost; the first one was Froogle.com...

Domain Name Conferences

Looking forward to going to Targeted Traffic in Vegas January 21 - 23, DomainFest Global 2010 January 26-29 in Santa Monica , and Traffic again in Vancouver - June 8 - 10, 2010.

Although I have been an active and somewhat accomplished domain name lawyer for 10 years, this will be my first outside-Canada domain conference. I have of course always attended Frank Michlick's DomainConvergence Conference, and will do so again in Montreal this fall.

Poker Site Calls Poker Pro's Bluff Over Alleged Cybersquatting

For those of you who follow professional poker tournaments on television, you may recall the name of Butch Boyd, a somewhat colorful poker pro. Well, he was recently the target of a domain name cease and desist letter over the domain name, twoplustwopoker.com. The claimant is Twoplustwo.com (i.e. without the "poker" suffix), which calls itself the world's largest poker strategy and resource web site.

As reported om gambling911.com:

"After additional back and forth emails between our lawyers and Boyd, Boyd continued to refuse our demands for a full accounting of the domain and website, and refused to enter into any sort of reasonable settlement. We sent a final demand letter to Boyd letting him know that we were out of options, and that if he didn't want to cooperate by providing the domain name data or entering into settlement negotiations, we'd have no choice but to sue him. Boyd responded to our attorneys with a two-word email: "F*** off." We filed our suit the next day.

I guess Dutch Boyd's bluff was called...Will be interesting to see how this one works out.