Hypothetical DRS Situation

[retired_member34]

A *friend* has noticed the following. He owns a geo EMD of a town name, let's call it townname.co.uk. A well known free local newspaper owned by a large newspaper group operates a website on townname-genericword.co.uk. This does not correspond to the name of the newspaper and there is no registered trademark, nor do the words actually appear on the website, which is branded using the newspaper name.

However, they had not registered townnamegenericword.co.uk (no hyphen).

The friend proposes registering this and redirecting type in traffic to a relevant page on his geodomain (there is a very relevant page).

Asking for trouble? Could you resist?

 

[bensd]

Agreed, not worth the hassle.

 

[retired_member34]

You're all but admitting yourself that this would be an abusive registration so personally I'd save myself a whole heap of trouble and not bother.

Agreed, not worth the hassle.

Thanks. Your are both correct I know, but it is sooo tempting, in a mischievous sort of way.

 

[bensd]

As with all of these mystery domain name questions, it depends what the generic word is. If it were "news" or "property", for example, I cannot realistically see a problem. Both of those suffixing a town name could be of legitimate interest to multiple parties.

Even if it was registered specifically to benefit from lost traffic of the competitors domain?

 

[aZooZa]

My view: if it's an exact EMD of the town, then your friend can do what he likes with it.

 

[retired_member34]

As with all of these mystery domain name questions, it depends what the generic word is. If it were "news" or "property", for example, I cannot realistically see a problem. Both of those suffixing a town name could be of legitimate interest to multiple parties.

The generic word is "today".

They use townname-today.co.uk, but this is not the name of the newspaper.

 

[namealot]

If they don’t own a trademark, not trading as the hyphenated name etc then they have no more right than anyone else,,, There are dozens that I can think of straight away that are using “town today” the combination comes up a lot, Doesn’t stop them trying for DRS though but certainly doesn’t mean they’d win ? I’d register away if it will bring in revenue etc

 

[bensd]

Even if the phrase is generic wouldn't the registration be seen as abusive because it has been solely registred to be used as a "typo" of the competitor?

 

[inbound]

You are asking for problems as today is not generic enough (I would say townnamenews would be fine); I know the newspaper group in question and you should note that they have enough resources to make your choice simple - hand over the name or risk a rather large legal bill (if they choose to go to court instead of DRS).

They have many sites that end in today, and they claim TM (unregistered) on them. Just need to look at propertytoday, jobstoday, motorstoday and localpagestoday.

You have also stated it's "tempting" - that's a clear indicator of bad faith; if the domain was generic enough you would be buying for the sake of the domain.

Move one, or even get in touch with them and tell them it's available so they register it and save you from yourself.

 

[retired_member34]

the newspaper group in question and you should note that they have enough resources to make your choice simple - hand over the name or risk a rather large legal bill (if they choose to go to court instead of DRS).

They have many sites that end in today, and they claim TM (unregistered) on them. Just need to look at propertytoday, jobstoday, motorstoday and localpagestoday.

Thanks for this, this is very interesting. On first read you are absolutely correct, with many and varied sites ending in today then they clearly have established a TM, even if unregistered (I realise the fact it is unregistered makes next to no difference).

However, on further examination it turns out the newspaper group you describe is not the same group, in fact they are their direct competition.

So we have two newspaper groups using the same form of web address, townname-today.co.uk, or townnametoday.co.uk, but so far I cannot find a single example where any url resolves to a newspaper of the same name. They all show a website for townnameherald, or townnameexpress, townnamepost etc. I have yet to check them all but will do so.

I know I am skirting the issue that Bensd is referring to, that essentially it could be seen as abusive in intent, even if not abusive by Nominet rules. I also am not trying to troll, it is just interesting that's all. Thanks for all the replies.

 

[inbound]

There have been a lot of newspaper aquisitions/mergers/disposals so it could be that some newspapers (and associated sites) are in different hands.

If you want to see a ....today example then fifetoday is a JP site (that is their Fife Free Press site).

You can use the Newspaper Society to search for the owners:

http://www.nsdatabase.co.uk/

 

[Pred]

reg it in Barry's name and park it :mrgreen:

 

[Ashton]

If its JP then you have no standing, if it is someone else then perhaps you do.

 

[retired_member34]

If its JP then you have no standing, if it is someone else then perhaps you do.

No, it's not JP. They are one of 3 large regional newspaper groups that use the same format (townnametoday.co.uk) that I have found so far, and there are lots of independents.

I am amazed, these are newspapers that have decades of trust built up into the local brands (the local heralds, gazettes, expresses etc) and yet they choose to not use them in the urls for the newspaper website. Nor do they use an EMD, instead they come up with a new marginal name, often with a hyphen and sometimes ignore the unhyphenated version. Just who is advising them?

As I said it is only tempting as a piece of mischief, as much as anything just to point out how crap their internet strategy is. As Bensd said, the very fact of a redirect would suggest an abusive registration, not that my friend would ever do anything but hand it over if asked. :grin:

 

[Ashton]

JP use Chichester.co.uk for Chichester so that's a pretty good domain!

I think with Today it is an ok word to use for your branding, but in this case someone else is already using it and holds a claim to it - your registration would be in bad faith.

 

[retired_member34]

JP use Chichester.co.uk for Chichester so that's a pretty good domain!

They also use Portsmouth.co.uk, but in each case the site in question is branded with the name of the newspaper, The Chichester Observer and The News respectively.

I think with Today it is an ok word to use for your branding, but in this case someone else is already using it and holds a claim to it - your registration would be in bad faith.

I've no intention of using it for branding, I am on the EMD and my branding is the same as my URL - the term townname.co.uk appears in the title, logo, headings and all through the content.

I've never looked at it this closely really, but in all the newspaper cases they are using a URL that does not match the (unregistered) trademark they are using on the website - that's the point I was trying to make in my last post. The word "Today" appears in the title of the page of the newspaper in question, but absolutely nowhere else. The use of a URL alone does not establish a mark or rights, or does it?

In your example above if I registered the domain chichesterobserver.co.uk (registered but not by JP) or chichester-observer.co.uk (FTR) then I would clearly be taking advantage of a name or mark in which JP has long established rights. If I used chichester.org.uk though? The website at chichester.co.uk is branded as Chichester Observer, have they established rights on the single word Chichester, or just the pair Chichester Observer? If they established rights it on the single word just by use of the URL, could they then use it to DRS other domains using the word, such as chichester.org.uk, or even chichesternews.co.uk, chichesterproperty.co.uk, chichesterjobs.co.uk etc?


In my hypothetical case then would their use of the word today establish rights for them, when it is used only on the title of the page? The page itself and entire website is branded quite differently, as newspapername.

I should just email them to inform them and move on (though I doubt they would care), but it has raised questions on how to protect and brand my town EMDs. Cheers again.

 

[Ashton]

The EMD is secure (like chichester.org.uk is secure) from it, but the fact they have a newspaper with 'Location Today' and you proposed (initially) to reg 'locationtoday.co.uk' and redirect to your site, shows that its bad faith.

Its pretty stupid of them to be honest but not worth the hassle! Good find though, a squatter would definately reg that one.