[AfrICANN-discuss] Dell s'attaque au domain tasting -- Dell Takes Cybersquatters to Court

[Anne-Rachel Inné]

    *par Stéphane VAN GELDER*
stephane.vangelder at domainesinfo.fr

*Dell s'attaque au domain tasting*

*Le géant de l'informatique a porté plainte contre plusieurs registrars
qu'il accuse de s'adonner au domain tasting et, de ce fait, au
cybersquatting de sa propriété intellectuelle.*

    *POINTS ESSENTIELS*
•  *Dell accuse 3 registrars :*
Dell accuse *BelgiumDomains, CapitolDomains et DomainDoorman*, d'enregistrer
puis relâcher par cycles très réguliers des noms en passant par des sociétés
écrans. Entre 30 à 60 millions de noms seraient enregistrés par mois, avec
entre 50 000 et 200 000 noms conservés.

•  *A qui profite le crime ?*
La question du manque d'implication de l'ICANN est posée. Rappelons qu'une
taxe est perçues par l'ICANN sur chaque nom enregistré. Google, qui n'est
pas cité par Dell, gagnent par ailleurs des fortunes grâce au trafic généré
à partir de noms cybersquattés.


 La plainte déposée par Dell devant un tribunal de Floride en octobre n'a
été rendue publique que la semaine dernière. Depuis, elle provoque une
polémique intense parmi les experts du nommage sur Internet.

L'affaire en elle-même révèle des statistiques intéressantes sur la pratique
du domain tasting<http://www.domainesinfo.fr/definition/290/domain-tasting.php>telle
que la voit Dell.

Le journal américain Washington
Post<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112801679.html?hpid=moreheadlines>explique
ainsi que Dell accuse en fait trois registrars, BelgiumDomains,
CapitolDomains et DomainDoorman, de passer par un certain nombre de sociétés
écrans domiciliées dans les caraïbes pour enregistrer des noms et les
relâcher par cycles très réguliers.

*Jusqu'à 60 millions de noms "goûtés" chaque mois*

La plainte cite ainsi l'exemple du nom
typosquatté<http://www.domainesinfo.fr/definition/118/typosquatting.php>
*dellfinacncialservices.com*. Déposé le 25 mai par DomainDoorman, il aurait
été effacé le 30 mai pour être reprit quelques minutes plus tard par
BelgiumDomains, puis relâché le 4 juin, avant d'être à nouveau reprit par
CapitolDomains, puis relâché le 9 juin… pour repartir sur un nouveau cycle
avec le ré-enregistrement immédiat du nom par DomainDoorman.

D'après Dell, ces registrars enregistrent de 30 à 60 millions de noms par
mois et en gardent entre 50 000 et 200 000.

Pour Dell, c'est un abus de la procédure comptable du *domain tasting* mise
en place à l'origine pour permettre aux registrars de gérer les impayés,
puisque dans le cas présent, les registrars impliqués ont en fait trouvé le
moyen de garder des noms à vie sans jamais les payer.

Visiblement très irrité par ces agissements, Dell ne porte pas plainte pour
cybersquatting mais pour contrefaçon. Une nuance de taille puisque si le
cybersquatting permet d'espérer des dommages et intérêts de 1 000 à 100 000
USD par nom, la limite supérieure pour la contrefaçon est de USD 1 million
par infraction constatée (donc par nom "goûté") !

*A qui profite le crime ?*

Si l'ire de Dell peut paraître compréhensible à prime abord, certains se
posent quand même des questions sur les motivations réelles du spécialiste
de l'ordinateur discount.

Ainsi dans Circle
ID<http://www.circleid.com/posts/711308_domain_tasting_bad_actors/>,
un site spécialisé sur le nommage Internet, on se demande pourquoi Dell ne
cite pas des gens comme Google, qui gagnent des fortunes grâce au trafic
généré à partir de noms cybersquattés.

La question de l'implication, ou plutôt du manque d'implication, de l'ICANN
est aussi posée. Le régulateur n'a toujours pas décidé quoi que ce soit
vis-à-vis du domain tasting et certains se demandent si la raison de cette
immobilisme apparent n'est pas à chercher du côté des taxes que l'ICANN
perçoit sur chaque nom de domaine enregistré…

  Publié le lundi 3 décembre 2007
    Copyright (c) *DomainesInfo*. Tous droits réservés. Imprimé le 03/12/2007*
Dell Takes Cybersquatters to Court*
PC Maker Alleges Domain Registrars Profited on 'Confusingly Similar' Names

By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 28, 2007; 4:06 PM

Personal computer giant Dell Inc. is pursuing a major "cybersquatting"
lawsuit against several companies that buy and sell Web site addresses,
alleging that the entities earned millions of dollars from Internet traffic
intended for Dell and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies.

In a case quietly filed with the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in
October and unsealed last Wednesday, Dell took aim at a stable of registrars
-- companies that are licensed to register and sell new domain names to the
public -- allegding that they are responsible for registering and profiting
off of nearly 1,100 domains that were "confusingly similar" to Dell's
various trademarks.

At issue are Web addresses made up of slight misspellings of well-known
trademarks, a form of cybersquatting called "typosquatting." Typosquatters
typically register domains that surfers are likely to hit if they misspell a
Web site name. Users are then taken to sites filled with advertising that
generates pay-per-click commissions for the domain holders.

According to Dell's attorneys, the defendants' portfolio of some 1.8 million
domain names is not limited to Dell's marks, but rather "reads like a who's
who of corporate America."

The complaint names three registrars as defendants -- BelgiumDomains,
CapitolDomains, and DomainDoorman -- as well as what Dell claims are nearly
a dozen Caribbean shell companies that allegedly served as the entities
registering the domains. The suit also names Juan Pablo "JP" Vazquez, a
Miami resident who is alleged to be connected to those companies.

Dell's suit charges that the registrar companies named in its suit
constructed an elaborate chain of front businesses to profit from "domain
tasting" -- the practice of snatching up large numbers of Web addresses,
testing their value and returning any domains that fail to drive traffic.

Domain tasting is made possible by a policy established by the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers <http://www.icann.org/> (ICANN)
-- the nonprofit organization that oversees the global domain name system.
Under the rules, registrars have up to five days to sample domains before
committing to purchase them, typically at a cost of $6 apiece annually.

In effect, the ICANN policy gives prospective domain buyers the right to a
free trial. In its lawsuit, Dell alleges the defendants took domain tasting
to the next level, setting up a network that cycled infringing domain names
from one registrar to the next in order to hold onto the domains
indefinitely without ever paying for them, all the while profiting from
pay-per-click ads on the sites that often served visitors with ads for
Dell's competitors.

According to one example cited in Dell's lawsuit, on May 25, 2007,
DomainDoorman registered "dellfinacncialservices.com." On May 30, the
registrar deleted the domain from its stable of Web site names. Minutes
later, that same Web site name was snatched up by BelgiumDomains, which then
dropped the name on June 4. That same day, dellfinacncialservices.com was
grabbed by CapitolDomains, which in turn relinquished it on June 9, the same
day that site was re-registered again by DomainDoorman.

The complaint further charges that the registrars created and controlled a
series of shell corporations in the Bahamas to act as the entities
registering the domains, including Caribbean Online International, Domain
Drop S.A., Domibot, Highlands International Investment, Keyword Marketing
Inc., Maison Tropicale, Marketing Total S.A, Click Cons Ltd., Wan-Fu China
Ltd. and Web Advertising Corp.

David Steele, an attorney representing Dell in the case, said the defendants
tasted on average between 30 million and 60 million domains each month. In
any given month, Steele said, the registrars collectively purchased between
50,000 and 200,000 of the domains they tasted.

"The only thing better than registering a domain for five days, deleting it
and getting a refund is to never having to purchase it at all," Steele said.

Vazquez's lawyer, Richard Baron, described his client as little more than a
"gopher" for the principals of the registrar operation, whom he said reside
in Argentina. Baron, who has acted as attorney of record for the registrars
named in the complaint in previous legal disputes, said he had no plans to
represent them in the Dell complaint. But he said Steele and Dell's
attorneys are going to find it tough to prove that the registrars and
registrants were one and the same business.

"In my opinion, they have a huge hurdle to tie the names of the registrants
to the registrar, and that's the linchpin of the case," Baron said. "Without
evidence of that kind of collusion, they have next to nothing."

In addition to the cybersquatting claims, Dell has filed counterfeiting
charges against the registrars, a novel legal claim in a domain registration
dispute, said Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami
who has written widely on the Internet's domain
system<http://www.icannwatch.org/>.


"I am not aware of a single case which argues as this one does that
typosquatting is effectively a counterfeit" of the trademark holder's
product, Froomkin said. "I suspect they're pushing the law here, maybe
because counterfeit claims allow far greater statutory damages."

Under federal cybersquatting laws, the minimum a court could award Dell
would be $1,000 per infringed domain name, up to a maximum of $100,000 per
domain. Froomkin said that those same domains, if considered a violation of
federal counterfeiting law, could bring damages up to one million dollars
per violation.

It's not yet clear whether the court will buy Dell's counterfeiting claims.
But those claims were apparently heady enough to convince a federal judge to
seal the case records while federal marshals seized hard drives and other
computer equipment from Vazquez's home in Miami last month. The judge also
issued a temporary restraining order that bars the defendants from domain
tasting, making money off of or deleting any domains that may infringe upon
Dell's trademarks.

"We'll do whatever it takes to protect the trust that customer put in our
brand and our Web site," said Colleen Ryan, Dell's spokesperson. "We're
encouraged that others in our industry, the courts and policymakers also are
taking steps to defeat these bad actors and showing no tolerance for their
maneuvering."

Warren Adelman, president and chief operating officer for registrar
GoDaddy.com, a company whose principals have been highly critical of the
domain tasting business, said the practice confuses consumers.

"We've heard from so many consumers who found a name they were looking for
was available only to come back a few hours later to buy it and find it was
registered by some company with a weird name in a weird location," Adelman
said.

Adelman said 55 million domains were registered in October by registrars
involved in tasting, and all but roughly 2 million of them were dropped
after the five-day grace period.

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