Actor John Stamos just won rights to his matching .com domain name JohnStamos.com in a UDRP.
David E. Sorkin as the sole Panelist wasted little time awarding the domain name to the actor from Ryan Foo who has lost over 100 UDRP’s and has been recoginzed by many UDRP panels as a serial cybersquatter
However Mr. Sorkin went even farther finding that the “proxy service”, “Whois Privacy Corp” which operates under whoisprivacycorp.com, was “a co-conspirator with Mr. Foo and is also a recognized serial cybersquatter.”
Saying that” Whois Privacy Corp is not a typical, legitimately operated identity masking service.
Rather, it provides a straw man/proxy service used to hide the identity of the website operator, with Whois Privacy Corp as the actual and legal registrant pursuant to ICANN registrant rules and policies.
As a result, Respondent’s co-conspirator and/or its alias is also a recognized serial cybersquatter.”
BobSaget.com was getting Stamos traffic.
Setting aside the apparent fame of John Stamos for a second, there are 188 professionals by the same name on LinkedIn alone.
What gives the actor exclusive rights to the domain among all of those that share the same name?
IMO the lack of response and the alleged infamy of the Respondent played a major role in this decision. After all, the domain wasn’t used to promote anything related to the famous actor, per Screenshots.com. The domain’s monetization occurred via ‘zero click’ ads, however, that might have displayed certain content related to John Stamos in the past.
i wondered how would one have rights over a domain name when there are hundreds of people with the same name, yet they all had the same opportunity to acquire the same name @reg fee. This is something that needs to be looked at because dot coms were first come first served unless you infringed on someones trademarked name.
I am not a lawyer, but my thoughts are:
The 188 other people named John Stamos probably would not have any trademark rights to the domain. Just because they are in the business world does not give them trademark rights to their name, unless maybe they are a consultant and use their own name or have a company that is named after them.
Also, if the famous John Stamos was trying to take the domain away from a non-famous John Stamos, then he would have a much harder time. The non-famous John Stamos would have at least some legitimate reason for registering it. It appears Mr. Foo had no other reason to own the domain other to benefit from the traffic generated from the famous John Stamos.
Eric, there is no trademark for “John Stamos”, at least not in the USPTO. Not to mention, that full names are rarely trademarkable, they need to be associated with a product or service. For example “JOHN STAMOS VENTURES” would be one, for acting classes provided by the Hollywood actor/celebrity.
I’m not saying the Respondent used the domain in a manner that separates it from the actor’s name, but since there was no response, the Complainant was allowed to do as they please in their statements, including the association of WHOIS privacy with something “unlawful.”
Ask Keith Urban who his least favorite person is, he’ll tell u it’s Keith Urban.
I got a solicitation from webhostingcan.com because I was on an email list that a friend has that was hacked. The email promised that Microsoft was paying people to do some testing on Outlook. I didn’t believe it (of course) and searched and found out they used WhoIs Privacy Corp to register, based in the Bahamas, it appears. Then found your site through Yahoo search. They’re scammers. Plus, they’re using stolen email lists. Bad, bad, bad.