bounce.co.uk drs

[jonno]

http://www.nominet.org.uk/digitalAssets/5012_bounce.pdf

a bit harsh on Michael Toths behalf don't you think?

it gets me how such a generic term such as this can result in a transfer... havings said that the respondent not responding wouldn't have helped...

 

[retired_member6]

Do you not think the evidence of supplied other TM's may have swung the expert's decision?

 

[domaingenius]

http://www.nominet.org.uk/digitalAssets/5012_bounce.pdf

a bit harsh on Michael Toths behalf don't you think?

it gets me how such a generic term such as this can result in a transfer... havings said that the respondent not responding wouldn't have helped...

Again this shows clearly and categorically how the DRS is an easy touch for companies to grab names. There is no way on this planet that a Court could/would have found any breach of TM unless it was being used to advertise a product similar to procter and gambles. They knew this and this is why they used DRS. It is grossly unfair to half a system (DRS) where on the one hand they accept a TM as being referable to by a complainant, but then in reverse they deny the respondent the rights to use established case law/TM law to refute such a claim.

DG

 

[Whois-Search]

What has "fabric care products" got to do with the "internet" ?

They won't even use the name have a look where this lot resolves:

http://tafkac.org/products/pg_domain_names.html

And they have the cheek to use the PRSS to look up Toth's names !

All the "expert" needed to do was look "bounce" up in the dictionary !

 

[netserve]

A classic example of where the expert goes beyond the call of duty to help the complainant.

"The evidence does not provide an address for the registrant and is not conclusive that it is the same person as the Respondent in this Complaint."

Fine, so accept the lack of evidence and that part of the case not proved, but no....

" Further investigation...."

Eh, who is paying you to investigate further?

"Thus, the Complainant has demonstrated that the Respondent is engaged in a pattern of registrations of domain names which correspond to well known marks"

NO, I think you indicated at the start a lack of evidence. It wasn't until you started doing your own Columbo impression that you decided yourself that there was a link. So the complainant didn't demonstrate anything!

 

[ratboy]

It's the lazy mans approach to blame someone immediately who holds a large amount of valuable domains. Yeah natually all of us have domains that are risky for whatever reason, doesn't mean you should lose them.

The man in the street might agree with this decision, but fundementally I think it's wrong.

Best of luck with the others Michael.

PS. on the ghd.co.uk decision, I walked past one of the directors in the pub the other weekend and said quietly - "scum". One up for us. Not sure if he heard though

 

[Whois-Search]

Maybe Nominet sent the DRS complaint to his "Tax Haven" Po Box address?

http://www.nationalcolonyrealty.com/tax.html

How often would he check that ? how long did they give him to reply ?

Alot of Top Domainers have these now look at the whois on nameadmininc.com , elequa.com or dnforum.com

 

[sneezycheese]

The Complainant is. They've paid for a decision and the money goes to the Independent Expert. The expert can choose whether to delve a bit further, and how far, or not bother too

I again quote:

The DRS Policy states under paragraph (2)(b) [“The Complainant is required to prove to the expert that both elements are present on the balance of probabilities”.

 

[netserve]

The major flaw was, quite clearly, the lack of response by the Respondent.

I agree with you that the lack of a response made the decision a foregone conclusion. My point was related to the fact that the experts seem to do more research to support the complainants case and offer no research to bolster the respondent.

If the complainant makes a weak point they seem to investigate further until it becomes a strong point.

 

[sneezycheese]

1. The Complainant made the link between bounce.co.uk and a selection of other domain names, all registered to the Respondent.

2. The Independent Expert WHOISed them (as you would expect him/her to do to verify the claims made by the Respondent). Although the Complainant had not listed the associated address, it's pretty moot that they didn't. If they had, the Independent Expert would still have needed to exercise his/her dilgience by verifying that the information presented by the Complainant was correct. If the Expert had not, and had been caught out then he/she wouldn't look "very expert" would they! How would the Expert verify the information? With the WHOIS of course. For arguements sake, if the Complainant was unable to view the addresses of the other domain names - perhaps because they were hidden by WHOIS opt-out - only a stupid Expert would fail to notice that the Registrant's Agent on all of the domain names was the very same person as the Registrant on all of the domain names. Are you suggesting the Expert should ignore that?

As I understand it the respondant did not make ANY representation!

I give up, towel is thrown in, and all hope is lost... Due process, Contract Law – forget about these 'SMALL' aspects why don't we

By the way - just because 'R' registered 'A' does not by default make it an 'abusive' or even 'unlawful' registration.

 

[sneezycheese]

I agree with you that the lack of a response made the decision a foregone conclusion. My point was related to the fact that the experts seem to do more research to support the complainants case and offer no research to bolster the respondent.

If the complainant makes a weak point they seem to investigate further until it becomes a strong point.

Thus 'maybe' not a 'balanced', 'equal' and 'unbiased' approach by the 'expert'.

 

[michaeltoth]

my reply to nomsteer

Hi all,

I am going to appeal this if anyone wants to help?
Yes I am in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
My local phone number is 001 649 243 6343

Proctor Gamble sent a letter to me addressed to the country TC So of course it was sent back to them, hence I was not able to rely to them.
Nominet however did send the DRS to the Turks and Caicos Islands but only by snail mail.
IT DID NOT REACH ME UNTIL AFTER THE DEAD LINE, so how could I have replied to it. I tried to but was told it was to late.

Nominet sent it by email, so they say, I do have to believe them, but I did not get it. I am on my normal email everyday, maybe the local server bounced it (I LIKED THE USE OF THE GENERIC WORD BOUNCE THERE), because of the large attachments that were included. Not every country allows attachments, HAVE YOU THOUGHT OF THAT NOMINET. Needless to say I did not get it.

Would you believe it if I told you that they said, well we sent it by post and email so you must have got it. They also said I should have set up a better procedure to collect my mail, hark, listen to them. People do live in the third world you know, and maybe they do not have an alternative address in London SW1. By the way I have copied this email and sent it by carrier pigeon and jungle drums. These methods are known to work in the right place but are I think it will not get through. Maybe Nominet should have a horses for course policy. I hope you get it, well I sent it so you should have.

I have even asked Nominet to send me letters in the Turks and Caicos Islands only by FedEx as normal post only gets there about 50 percent of the time, and always takes several weeks. The letter was ripped and falling apart, it was a miracle that it even got there and Nominet only used a normal easily damaged envelope. NOMINET WHAT IS YOUR INTERNATIONAL POSTING POLICY, BECAUSE IT THINK IT STINKS. Post is not delivered to your door here, one has to go to the post office just to check your mail. I check mine about twice a week, it is a 14 mile round trip from my house if anyone cares about that info.


There are a large amounts of domain name holders who like me live around the world, if Nominet insists that they send letters to other countries like it does in the UK then this is going to happen. Nominet also insists that its procedures are unbiased, yet I feel that because of their procedures, I have been biased against, even if unintentionally.

I now have 2 DRS's against me and if I get a third in the same manner as this one I will have to, under Nominet rules, prove my innocence, or loose the name. How can this be fair or unbiased, I do on this occasion feel a little mad about this decision.

Do me have a lawyer in the house who feels the same way and would like to take this decision to task.

By the way many of those domain names in the DRS had no trade marks on them. Even Garfield.co.uk was funny because it is the name of my house in the UK, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales and was called Garfield long before I bought the house. And all but one pointed to a generic site that was in no way misleading. Stansteadairport.co.uk points to a PPC information site. I didn't know that you could trade mark a place.

I feel that the reply of the expert was biased towards this big company as Proctor and Gamble did not prove anything, there is absolutely no evidence in this apart from the university of London and a list of domains they have quoted.
I also have another 2700 names that obviously are not contentious to them as they did not use them. Yes I have a few contentious names like bounce but I do not mislead anyone of try to sell the name to these companies.

I am flying to Washington DC on Friday on a busy business schedule so needless to say I may even miss the appeal. I hope I do not because I know Nominet will not bend its rules.


Regards Michael Toth
001 649 243 6343
[email protected]

 

[Whois-Search]

Nice to hear from you Michael

With that many failings I think the DRS case should be thrown out.

Why should you have to pay £3000 to appeal ?

http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes/drs/appeals/

Totally outrageous !

 

[Whois-Search]

So by Nominet rules:

As the date on the bottom of the DRS decision is 20th March 2006:

http://www.nominet.org.uk/digitalAssets/5012_bounce.pdf

Michael has until tomorrow 30th March 2006 to give Nominet an appeal email and £300 + VAT:

http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes/drs/appeals/

Then a further 15 days to give them £3000 + VAT and 1000 words explaining why he never even recieved the DRS notice !

I think we should club together and personally take the £300 down there.

 

[retired_member6]

Nominet sent it by email, so they say, I do have to believe them, but I did not get it. I am on my normal email everyday, maybe the local server bounced it (I LIKED THE USE OF THE GENERIC WORD BOUNCE THERE), because of the large attachments that were included. Not every country allows attachments, HAVE YOU THOUGHT OF THAT NOMINET. Needless to say I did not get it.

Another person who didn't receive the initial email as it might bounce due to the attachments, so I did have a working account but perhaps Nominet's attachments ensured I didn't know about the case until the hard copy arrived. Another flaw in their system.

If it's such a vital part of their 15 day rule, send the initial email with no attachments. Members, please see this changed if you agree. I knew damn well I had a working email account.

Good luck in the appeal, many wouldn't be able to contemplate that, failing that, go to court and see if you can't get the decision to transfer over turned on the basis of 'no time to reply' and then do the DRS again and claim costs against Nominet so in effect it costs you nothing - of course you've got to win that as well

Cheers
Lee

 

[olebean]

The major flaw was, quite clearly, the lack of response by the Respondent.

I cannot agree,the major flaw was the lack of knowledge of a DRS..

It appears from what Michael suggests, nominet are or were in full knowledge that Michael had not had the DRS communicated to him, and wouldnt be in a position to have time to prepared and submit a defence. Its not rocket science to know the respondant is unlikely to be able to respond (perhaps less digging that looking at whois). The question remains, why knowing that Michael lives in TC didnt they spend 5 mins to check if he had received the documents and secondly, why doesnt nominet second two emails, one small one to suggest a DRS has been registered and a second containing the documents and thirdly, why does it need an appeals process in cases such as this.

I would also like know is why nominet have not so far seen fit, to allow a michael / others reasonable time to prepare a defence.... I understand the need for a process that is quick, but who in the processes is being placed under pressure?

Even in a county court, you have 28 days to reply stating you are going to prepare a defence and then a further period to put your defence together..... Where there are similarities is that should you not reply, you lose the case, at least in court your able to set the judgement to one side, without cost if you didnt receive the paperwork....(its also alot cheaper)

In some areas I do agree with invincible, it would be hard not to agree with the DRS decision with the information the expert had.... In the end Michael I do think you will lose....

 

[retired_member6]

Attachments in emails are nothing new. Any half decent mail server shouldn't have a problem with them. :-D Perhaps you should consider getting a more reliable email provider that operates a service that is both reliable and capable of accepting ordinary emails (I consider attachments to be "ordinary"). Try sending yourself an email with three .doc files attached. That'll give you an idea as to whether your email provider might have been at fault. :mrgreen:

I use an online everyone.net email address for domains, (which I have since changed) which I provide one of my website users also, it enables me to receive email when on the move as opposed to a domain account - although I could use their webmail.

I never thought about attachments bouncing if indeed that was the reason at all. As I don't know what I was sent initialy - I may ask for that first email as it goes, then I might be able to test.

When I signed up to get a domain seven years ago I wasn't told, oh be sure to have an email address just in case we serve a DRS on you, er what's a DRS? oh we should put in big letters that when you buy a domain name you might not be allowed to keep a hold of it.

The first I learned of a DRS is when I read this forum, for the past seven years I'd never heard of it. Yes yes read the terms and conditions...

 

[Edwin]

To be fair to everyone, Nominet should offer the same level of communication to every Respondent and they do. They send the complaint by email, by fax and by snail mail. In fairness, what more could they be expected to do?

To be fair to everyone, they should realise that outside the UK it can takes days to weeks to get post, and it takes the same amount of time to return the mail. That's a FACT affecting all businesses in the UK mailing stuff overseas, but Nominet is currently ignoring it. And that's why companies such as Fedex and UPS have been able to build such massive businesses - if you want to be assured that it will get there quickly, you have to use a courier service.

When you look at the total volume of registrations, the relatively tiny number of DRS challenges and the even smaller number of such challenges addressed to overseas residents, you'd think they could spring for an upgraded delivery service for those challenges! Say there were 100 such cases a year, that might cost them a couple of grand tops.

A truly fair policy would be based around the maximum time it is plausible that it would take for a letter to reach a respondent, a few days to think about it and respond, and the time required for it to get back to Nominet.

 

[retired_member16]

Change of mind. :-D

 

[texidriver]

.... We've yet to see a DRS like this where a Respondent has responded and stated that The Domain Name is not part of a pattern of abuse because...

Complainant; "We also believe that the domain name has been used abusively, as this is one of a series of registrations that the Respondent has made, which because of their number, type and pattern prove that the Respondent is in the habit of making registrations of domain names which correspond to trade marks or other well known names in which the Respondent has no apparent interest".

http://www.nic.uk/digitalAssets/3396_retail.pdf

Is this not responding?