

Ask HN: How to go about domain hogging? - fizz_and_buzz

I know this topic has been discussed to death, but there is so much contradicting information on the internet.<p>Here is the situation:
My dad owns a business since '95 here in Germany and owns a worldwide trademark of its name. The name is a made up word that is very unlikely that somebody else actually uses (nothing else shows up on google). We do own the ".de" domain. But we have more and more international customers so it would be nice to also own the ".com" domain. Unfortunately the registrant of the".com" domain is one of those shady domain protection services. They are based in the US. They registered the domain in 2000 and it will expire at the beginning of 2013. The DNS doesn't resolve the domain. As far as I can see the domain has never really been used.<p>I was thinking about writing a little script and trying to snatch it back next months, but I am not sure if that is the best option. How expensive would it be to take legal actions (just a rough idea $100 or $10,000) and how likely is it to be successful?
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stfu
Did you try contacting the owner of the domain? The "shady domain protection
service" will usually forward emails to the owner.

Probably contacting them without disclosing your existing affiliations and
without coming across as aggressive you might end up with the domain for a few
hundred $ instead of spending month/years feeding lawyers across the globe.

Also: Just because the domain is set to expire at a certain date doesn't mean
that it is really going to expire. Self written scripts usually loose out to
professional drop services (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_drop_catching> ).

~~~
fizz_and_buzz
I would rather not disclose to the owner that I have any interest in the
domain. I feel that then they will definitely extend the domain. I assume only
somebody who wants to use the domain or sell it to me would use a professional
domain drop service. I doubt anybody will have an interest in using this
random name. And as long as nobody knows which name I am interested in, I
wonder what the chances are that someone would try to snatch it away to sell
it to me.

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cyphersanctus
Its called a UDRP, costing around 1 or 2 thousand dollars and takes some time
to get. Its also dependant on various factors like whether theyre using the
domain in bad faith. If you happen to own the trademark of the exact name that
their domain uses, excluding the .com of course, you have a very strong chance
of winning the domain. Here's the general info on a UDRP
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-
Res...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-
Resolution_Policy)

And here is a domain name attorney which I highly recommend and who can solve
all of your domain related inquiries:
[http://www.wileyrein.com/professionals.cfm?sp=bio&id=111...](http://www.wileyrein.com/professionals.cfm?sp=bio&id=1113)

~~~
fizz_and_buzz
Thanks a lot, this is very useful information. As far as I can see they have
never actually used the domain in any way.

------
hellweaver666
If you have a trademark on the domain, you can file a complaint with the
Domain Resolution Service. They'll look at the trademarks and if they deem you
to be the valid owner for the domain, will transfer the domain to you.

~~~
fizz_and_buzz
Thanks for the answer. Just to clarify, we do not have a trademark on the
domain, but only on the company name i.e. on "our_company_name" and not
"our_company_name.com". I assume we need a lawyer to file a proper complaint.
Do you have any experience in how much the whole process costs?

