Another high value LLL.com domain name has become the subject of a UDRP proceeding. A UDRP was filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization for the ALO.com domain name. This is WIPO Case D2017-0650. Earlier this week, a UDRP was filed against another three letter .com domain name, ATC.com.
ALO.com is registered under Whois privacy. As a result, I am unable to see who owns the domain name. ALO.com was created in October of 1995, making the domain name more than 20 years old.
The complainant in the UDRP is listed as Color Image Apparel, Inc. I had to do a Google search to see why the company believes it should be given the rights to the ALO.com domain name. According to a news article I read, it looks like the complainant owns a company called Alo Yoga, which uses the exact match AloYoga.com domain name for its website. Obviously getting ALO.com via UDRP would be far less expensive than buying the domain name, considering the high value (DomainIQ says the name is worth $120,000).
One thing I noticed on the ALO.com landing page is that the pay per click links cover a variety of topics. I see a couple of links that mention “Alo Yoga” and “Alo Clothing.” I didn’t click them so I don’t know if it was in reference to the brand or if there is an alternative meaning. When it comes to parking, the PPC links are usually generated automatically, so this may be unintentional. I do not see a domain for sale link on the top of the landing page as many Uniregistry-parked domain names have.
This is going to be an interesting UDRP decision. On one hand, you have a high value domain name that is over 20 years old. There are also a ton of companies and organizations that use “ALO” as an acronym or brand name. On the other hand, there are a couple of questionable links on the landing page. I will keep an eye on this UDRP and update the article when the decision is rendered and published.
Update: According to WIPO, the complaint has been denied by this three member panel, and the panel found that Reverse Domain Name Hijacking occured. I published an article with details about the decision.
That is one nice name. What a shame if it is lost because of PPC links that often are beyond your control.
I am surprised the lesson hasn’t been learned on this from past precedence.
The moral of the story is, if you are in possession of highly desirable domains, don’t give anyone a REASON to go after you. Even if you win, think of the headache and expense for the sake of a feeble attempt of monetization.
One of my domains blew up this past year to the tune of $1 BILLION and counting. No, I didn’t make that billion. But some entity/company did. Now, I am sitting pretty.
Happy domaining!
What was stopping the complainant initiating an internal campaign to visit the site and do a search for ‘alo clothing’. Too bad the ppc companies will not supply a list of ip numbers that did a search in the past 90 days.
I hope the domain owner will use one of the IP lawyers Eliot list on the resource page.
IP / Domain Lawyers
Greenberg & Lieberman
Stevan Lieberman
Howard Neu
John Berryhill
Lewis & Lin
Marco Randazza
Paul Keating
Zac Muscovitch
Why bother making $0.01 a day with parking to put yourself at risk!
That’s why I don’t place ads on my domains. Not worth the headache and udrp stress.
Crazy risk.
Id ask why but the answer can only be ignorance or stupidity.