domain name for client took - possible to get back? - HTML Forums

Sedativechunk · 10-08-2008, 09:26 PM

I am soon maybe going to be making a site for a local car dealer, and their legal name in the state of Pennsylvania is Rock Bottom Auto Sales.
They want to get a website going and wanted the domain name rockbottomautosales.com, however it was took, so I did a lookup on whois and was able to contact the owners/registrar of the domain name.

After waiting three days, they tell me the domain is not for sale, as I made a proposal that the dealership was interested in buying it.
If you actually check out the website, you can see that they are using it for no good:
http://rockbottomautosales.com

It's just got a handful of advertisements and is more of one of those parked domain name pages than an actual website.

Does anyone know how legally far we could go to get the domain name from these people? I'm not sure of the extremes the dealership wants to go to or if they will just pick another domain, but in the event that they tell me they want this one and no other, what would they be able to do?
I am very familiar with the domain name situation with Nissan Motors unsuccessfully trying to sue the owner of www.nissan.com and www.nissan.net along with the one for www.mikerowesoft.com, but in this case, the a mid size car dealership owns the name Rock Bottom Auto Sales and the domain is took... is it possible for the party who owns the domain name to legally have to give it up or is there nothing they can really do?

tgc · 10-22-2008, 11:49 PM

Not much you can do here. Essentially, the law on domains seems to be first come first serve. The cases where the suing parties have been successful are all based on confusion. Here, if the person who registered the domain did so in a way to confuse the public as to the nature of the domain (i.e. it's a Microsoft related site, when indeed it is not), then it's more likely that the complaining party can actually prove some type of wrongdoing and get some type of relief (similar to basic intellectual property rights). Also, for domain issues, the standards for legitimate use are pretty low. Another issue is so called "cybersquatting." Here, if Nissan can show that the person who registered the Nissan domain did so only to charge the company a huge fee to buy the domain, then Nissan may have a case.

Your best approach here may be to make a better offer.

By the way, I am not lawyer. This is not legal advice and you should consult a lawyer if you want to get the best possible advice on an issue like this.

Sedativechunk · 10-23-2008, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tgc

Not much you can do here. Essentially, the law on domains seems to be first come first serve. The cases where the suing parties have been successful are all based on confusion. Here, if the person who registered the domain did so in a way to confuse the public as to the nature of the domain (i.e. it's a Microsoft related site, when indeed it is not), then it's more likely that the complaining party can actually prove some type of wrongdoing and get some type of relief (similar to basic intellectual property rights). Also, for domain issues, the standards for legitimate use are pretty low. Another issue is so called "cybersquatting." Here, if Nissan can show that the person who registered the Nissan domain did so only to charge the company a huge fee to buy the domain, then Nissan may have a case.

Your best approach here may be to make a better offer.

By the way, I am not lawyer. This is not legal advice and you should consult a lawyer if you want to get the best possible advice on an issue like this.

Thanks for that. I did contact the people who have a hold of it and they do not want to sell it, I will be recommending the dealership buy a different domain next time I talk to them.