
Startup Sues a Domain Name Owner to Grab a 16-Year-Old URL - jlark777
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/03/startup-sues-a-domain-name-owner-to-grab-a-16-year-old-url/
======
jebblue
It doesn't look like he was CyberSquatting to me. I hope it resolves in his
favor. If the person bringing the suit should win it would set a bad precedent
for all Internet business.

~~~
sfeather
The key take away is the part of the plaintiff's filing that seems to want to
redefine 'register' to include 'renew'.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Which is going to look ridiculous as soon as it hits court, because there's
clear precedent for the standard meaning - sixteen years of it.

Team Harsh are probably hoping for an internet-ignorant judge. I wouldn't want
to bet on their likely success with that gambit.

~~~
spitfire
That's going to be an interesting conversation.

"Mr.Mehta when was your business started?"

"2003".

"And when was the domain in question registered."

".... uh, 1999".

"Are you sure you want to proceed?".

------
tptacek
_The unfortunate thing about the case is that both parties are Internet
natives and, Mehta especially, part of the startup ecosystem._

What the fuck does this mean?

~~~
rubiquity
They were born in Internet and have since relocated elsewhere but still
journey back to Internet from time to time.

~~~
yellowapple
Internet is also home to a thriving ecosystem where mystical creatures called
"startups" frolic freely in the forests.

------
swang
The guy's name is Harsh, what other actions would you expect from him?

But seriously, looking at the doc and not mentioned in the article. Harsh
apparently tried to negotiate, failed, then tried to "transfer" the domain.
When Kneen called him out on this, Harsh suggested it was someone else, and
that he wouldn't have done this since he found a suitable alternative.

So I'm pretty sure Harsh was being purposely manipulative in that situation.
None of this makes any sense and is a waste of resources so I hope Harsh loses
badly.

~~~
afarrell
Isn't Harsh just a mildly-common Indian name like Richard?

~~~
S4M
Probably Harshil is. Harsh must be the shortened version.

------
keithpeter
Won't Web searches about WorkBetter always point to news about this case now?
Sort of bad PR even before the new company gets started.

An 'out of court' settlement would be better perhaps for both parties.

~~~
jlgaddis
Since WorkBetter is a co-working space, I'm guessing that their target market
is, largely, folks like many of us on HN: those in the tech industry who work
remotely. These are the same people who are going to Google the company to
gather as much info about it as possible and then be turned off or put off by
the fact that they'd sue someone over a domain name dispute. Some people
wouldn't care, obviously, but I wouldn't want to be a customer of an
organization that filed such frivolous lawsuits just because they didn't get
their way.

A dismissal of the suit, initiated by the Plaintiff, would be in the best
interest of both parties, in my opinion.

~~~
keithpeter
Such an outcome would be much cheaper as well.

Not quite a co-working space but the place below has sprung up in Birmingham
as part of a much larger organisation (or franchise)

[http://birmingham.impacthub.net/what-is-impact-
hub/](http://birmingham.impacthub.net/what-is-impact-hub/)

------
pmontra
I think many of us have been looking for an available domain for a site and
found all of them registered years before and parked since then.

The normal way to proceed is look for another name and try again. Mehta is
doing it wrong.

However I don't like the general idea of squatting, also on domains. I'd be
happy if there was an easy way to prevent it. Somebody suggested incremental
renewal fees for unused domains, but how to tell if a domain is unused? It
won't be difficult to automate some "working" site for parked domains (think
of those blogs that are populated with content automatically scraped from real
sites.) Other ideas?

~~~
larrys
Why does it need to be prevented exactly? Why is the internet different than
anything other situation where people see an opportunity to make money and
take advantage of that opportunity? Like buying real estate or wine, or art
and so on?

It is trivial anyway to "use" a domain name. Are you further suggesting that
someone who is legitimately "using" a domain name (and who is going to decide
what use is anyway) then can't sell that domain name? And does that mean they
can't sell the business that is attached to that domain name? Or you are going
to have some tribunal that looks into the facts of every single case and
decides 'ok this is a "real" business the domain can be sold, "no this isn't
sorry"'?

~~~
nnain
Because, it favours those who have more money. People who can afford a few
dollars/pounds, mostly from the western countries, can keep domains booked for
years. Others in the developing or under-developed world don't have that
luxury... but the internet is a more global/democratic place... or should be.

~~~
larrys
You haven't really said why that should matter though. There are other
alternatives and essentially many things in the world favor "those who have
more money", right?

------
darkstar999
This article isn't very good. The first twitter embed is out of context. Had
me quite confused.

Anyway, the $500 offer is pretty insulting for this "premium" domain name. No
wonder it didn't get sold.

~~~
sharemywin
The legal fees will be way more than that. They probably figured since he was
out of the country they would get a default judgement. There's a new business
model for you. go around filing lawsuits in different jurisdictions and get
default judgements. Then go to the domain provider and get it swithced.

------
rbosinger
I thought that when this happens that you just go register workbetter.ly or
something. Isn't that the way of the web?

~~~
kennywinker
Exactly. And then when your company starts to do better, you throw $xx,xxx at
the owner of the .com version and getdropbox.com becomes dropbox.com.

~~~
chaosfox
sometimes money is not enough, see steam.com

~~~
redblacktree
How odd. I'm sure they could get a small fortune for that name.

------
limeyy
I've also been sitting on a bunch of domainnames; all with the interest of
"maybe some day" projects. One can hardly call that cybersquatting. It is,
however very frustrating these days, .com is still king and for example I had
whole dictionaries running for my keyword*.com -- and surprisingly enough,
even the most insane combinations were taken. Ofcourse, selling a premium
domain once in a while for 15k, makes it possible to hog 100's of other
domains. Regardless of this frustrating setup, as it is now, I still prefer it
over some kind of regulated way where people can just steal away your side-
project's old domainname, just because they trademarked it. It's the wild
west, yes for sure, but often, still it's better then an over-regulated state.

~~~
larrys
Don't be so down on what you do. It's not hogging and it's not cybersquatting.
This whole concept of it being wrong to register domains was back in the mid
90's when there was no cost and people would register names with clear
trademark rights (like panavision.com) with the sole idea of selling it to
only one person. The trademark owner. Not the same as what you and many others
are doing.

Let's say a name that you would one day sell for $15k was registered by a
flower shop that used it for business. In that case if someone else came along
and wanted that name they would very well have to pay more than 15k for it and
might not be able to purchase it at all.

~~~
limeyy
right but also, one thing to remember is, an old domainname; depends on the
extension, but some of them were not cheap as in these days. maybe it was my
inexperience, but I have some domains I paid 50$ for back in the days/year.
so, in 10 years time you get to the point of: should I let it go, or am I
already too deep in? But letting it go for $100, well, just would be a big
loss. In that regard, letting it go for say 100-200, for an old domain, is
just breaking even or even making a loss. though it's likely not to be
perceived like that. some of us are just too deep in, and just would like to
break even..

~~~
larrys
Whether you should keep or let go totally depends on the domain name and what
your money situation is, not what you paid in the past that money is gone. If
you care to disclose the domain I can render an opinion on what I would do
based on my knowledge and experience.

------
moonpoint
This is same argument that real estate sharks use to use eminent domain and
alleged blight to bully property owners.

~~~
darkstar999
Can you elaborate? I'm having trouble making the connection from domain names
to real estate.

~~~
lsaferite
He has a domain (land) that the startup (property developer) wants but refuses
to sell. He's trying to use domain squatting laws (eminent domain laws) to
force an ownership transfer.

~~~
darkstar999
But isn't eminent domain only available to the government?

~~~
lsaferite
Yes, but local governments are regularly in bed with big money interests which
would include land developers. So, the land developer gets the local
government in his pocket and convinces them to use eminent domain to make a
project happen that will bring lots of tax revenue to the government.

------
lazyant
I remember here some nasty comments about the previous owner of the
dropbox.com domain (similar situation of an old unused domain), calling him
squatter etc when Dropbox finally acquired it.

~~~
rgbrenner
OK.. let's check that. here's the HN post for it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=880522](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=880522)

Let's look at some of the comments:

\- _Finally, I don 't think this owner, nor Justintv.com, are cybersquatters
since they owned their domains since the 90's._

\- _I agree with you, but in this case the original owner wasn 't a squatter._

\- _note that I don 't like squatters either, but who can tell that he wasn't
legitimate when he registered it first?_

\- _Not to mention that he registered it in the 90 's! How does that possibly
count as squatting?_

Nope.. not really seeing any "nasty comments"

------
shkkmo
I have sympathy for Kneen, but do we really, as a society, benefit from people
that buy useful domains and then sit on them for 16 years while doing nothing
with them?

~~~
sp332
The bigger question is whether anyone has the authority to take it away from
him.

~~~
solve
Trademark law probably says yes.

~~~
jpgvm
Except in this case the domain was registered 16 years ago.

You can't just see a domain you like, go register a trademark for it and
demand they give it to you. Atleast not for .com.

~~~
solve
That is actually how trademark already works, if you have enough money. E.g.
well funded brands like Coke, Google, Facebook, can easily use trademark to
retroactively remove rights to a name from anyone who wasn't actively using it
for some non-squatting purpose - within certain trademark and legal scopes.

Doesn't matter if someone simply owned property with that name prior to the
trademark. The test is more complex than that.

~~~
jpgvm
I am not sure if UK or US law will apply but in Commonwealth countries there
is a clause in trademark law called Prior Use.

Basically if you are using an unregistered-trademark which is then later
registered you are not considered to be infriging if you have been using this
trademark before the trademark was registered.

Cyber squatting laws specifically call out that you need to have obtained the
name with ill intent (i.e with intent to ransom it to an already registed
trademark holder).

So no, that is not how trademark works, atleast in the codes of law I am
familiar with.

~~~
solve
Really helpful. Best comment of the year.

------
Simulacra
My company has 41 telecommuting employees out of NYC. I've sent the article to
everyone in management, and I'll make sure we never use their services. If you
disagree with the tactics of this company, tell everyone not to use their
service. Email the company.

------
liquidcool
Oddly, I can't determine what location this is for. The workbetter.us domain
redirects to a Squarespace landing page that has no real info (who, where,
etc.). It seems they are mostly doing business as OfficeLinks (NYC and
Chicago) and own the .com for that domain outright, so why do they have to go
after this guy?

------
fleitz
I doubt Kneen will lose, my old startup PAID for a domain that was the legal
name of another company held by a reseller, we didn't even file a counterclaim
and they lost the dispute resolution process essentially because they were the
low bidder.

(We both had trademarks in respective countries)

------
onion2k
Why go to court? Why not use the fees you'd pay for a trial to either put in a
much higher offer for the domain, or to pay a marketing company to rebrand
your company as something where the domain name is available?

Regardless of the outcome, the only winner will be the lawyers.

------
ziles88
Looks EXACTLY like cybersquatting to me. You have to learn to read behind the
lines here. I've had to deal with these people before, they are infuriating.
Heres the facts that suck

\- Has the domain for 16 years, doing nothing with it. \- Strings a long a
deal for purchase because it doesn't meet his demands. \- Continues to fight
extremely hard to do nothing with said domain.

I find it convenient the author never mention why the guy backed out of the
deal, probably because his demand was $50k+ and completely unreasonable.

~~~
jlgaddis
I haven't checked to see if there's an MX (or other) RRs for that zone, but
just because there isn't a web page (or something more than a "parking" page)
doesn't mean he's "doing nothing with it".

------
physcab
Purchasing domain names is the most frustrating experience. Why there is no
transparent market is beyond me. Mehta's tactics are clearly abusive, but if
someone was holding onto a domain name for 16 years and not doing anything
with it is more infuriating to me. There really needs to be a use it or lose
it policy.

~~~
nedwin
What other property rights should be under your "use it or lose it proposal"?
Land? Housing?

~~~
hga
We indeed do that with land and housing, aka real estate:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession)

But the Internet landscape is very different and less finite in nature.

~~~
lordcorusa
(Keeping in mind that laws vary in different nations/states...) Adverse
possession laws usually only apply if a squatter takes possession of a
property without official title and uses that property for a length of time
without being challenged. The principle of adverse possession might apply if
Mehta had somehow hijacked the domain records and used the domain for a number
of years without Kneen noticing and acting to retake control. Even then,
adverse possession does not apply if the squatter used illegal means to obtain
or keep control of the property (i.e., a domain hijacking).

But adverse possession does not simply allow one entity to come in, declare
the owning entity to not be using a property, and assume legal control. As a
land-owning entity, I am not required to "use" my land, and as long as I kick
squatters out in a reasonable amount of time, adverse possession does not
affect me.

------
solve
Forcing squatters to have to file a trademark to retain their squatted domains
would improve the squatting situation 10000x.

Clearly the current Workbetter.com owner is squatting the name.

~~~
mbreese
It's only squatting if someone already owned the trademark. That clearly was't
the case 16 years ago.

A startup tried to buy a domain and failed. So instead of moving on, they
decided to sue. Sounds like a winning plan to me.

~~~
solve
It's squatting because:

Workbetter.com

Try going to the domain.

------
nnain
The article sets a slight bias in favour of Kneen already. So, many people
might sympathise with him more. But who knows what negotiation talks actually
happened?! The tone, the mood..

The coming generations should have a better chance at finding domain names I
feel. So I personally would side with the one trying to acquire the domain
name for his/her registered company.

~~~
mattmanser
Uh, no, it doesn't.

Just because you happen to wish the world and the law worked differently
doesn't make the article biased.

~~~
nnain
I'm not wishing that the law works differently. I'm presenting an opinion. The
court will decide based on the law. May the right one win.

~~~
uptodate
Just read the latest news on domainnamewire.com that the workbetter.com
lawsuit has been dismissed.

