The good news is this is America. The bad news is America bullied and stole the original north Amercans lands, through military force and bullying.

Until the powers that be, own all .com extensions the powers that be will provide little or no protection for domain lease holder rights.

You thought the wild wild West days were over. Where if you had a gun and a mean spirit you were the law. Sadly our governments laws do not favor the middle class that can least afford a slick attorney.

These are some realities that repulse me as well as a growing number of US citizens. You want laws to support the middle class? Get active with the grass roots organizations that defend our constitutional rights.

Or just move elsewhere, we all have choices, but I do know we need to UNITE. Right now we are surely divided and vulnerable under our current legal system, that has shown that if you have enough money you can literally get away with murder.

On a less serious note: Stephen would you please contact me. I have abusiness proposition I would like to run by you. Thanks for being who you are. Jeff

XXXXXX Stephen Douglas Responds:

Yo Jeff. Are you leading the Revolution? I’m there!

You can contact me by emailing me at successclick (at) g m a i l . com

They all do this: GD, Snapnames, Pool, and probably NameJet too.

They are immune from prosecution.

It is sickening that these companies don’t warn potential buyers of possible TM infringements.

But then it’s not in their financial interests to do so.

XXXXXX Stephen Douglas Responds:

I think the registrars are not immune to prosecution, maybe Snap and Pool might, but that could change. It’s like a store selling “known stolen items”. If Pawn shops have to follow these rules, you think anyone selling a TM would be somewhat liable.

A registrar that recovers an expiring domain after it drops in order to auction it off would know that they have TM’s in their list. Registrars closely review what domains it “claims” after the drop so they know what their premium moneymakers are. And I found the clearly TM infringing domains after a simple search for Microsoft’s name on TDNAM. Some companies are building scripts (databases) that hold thousands of TM names to scrub their lists. In this case, doesn’t look like Godaddy did this if they in fact are scrubbing their lists for TMers.

I wrote a post about this on my blog a while back (http://domaingameblog.com/?p=42). It seems to me that registrars should have to take more responsibility for registering these types of TM domains. As it stands now, the person who registers the name will wind up with a lawsuit on their hands (as they should) and Go Daddy will be laughing all the way to the bank.

XXXXXX Stephen Douglas Responds:

Hi Lou,

I read your blog post. You make some points about registrar’s doing more to at least advise their customers. I don’t think the focus here is on OOTB’s by the customer, although I wonder how many registrars have posted TOS regarding their customers purchasing Trademarked domains, and if by doing so, the customer releases the registrar of all liability. Anyone want to take the time to research this? I’ll post the info.

In my article above, I’m focusing more on domains that have dropped that I know the registrar has reviewed before claiming them and submitting them to auction.