Domain Name Parasite

[Rollo]

Just wanted to check in and say hey.... I also wanted to mention that when I was surfing, it looks like Casinomeister has attracted one or more domain name parasites.

Try...

casinomesiter.com
casinomiester.com

These are the folks that make a living by registering mispellings of legitimate sites and then putting up ads hoping to siphon off enough traffic to make a living. Some people do it on a massive scale and make a very good, albiet rather dishonest, living. Anyway, I wanted to let you know as this is pretty dodgy behavior and I'd say needs to be discouraged.

I got one of these on my main website (not gambling related), theatened to turn my lawyer loose on him and he turned it over immediately.

Cheers!

[winbig]

Just wanted to check in and say hey.... I also wanted to mention that when I was surfing, it looks like Casinomeister has attracted one or more domain name parasites.

Try...

casinomesiter.com
casinomiester.com

These are the folks that make a living by registering mispellings of legitimate sites and then putting up ads hoping to siphon off enough traffic to make a living. Some people do it on a massive scale and make a very good, albiet rather dishonest, living. Anyway, I wanted to let you know as this is pretty dodgy behavior and I'd say needs to be discouraged.

I got one of these on my main website (not gambling related), theatened to turn my lawyer loose on him and he turned it over immediately.

Cheers!

What a$$es


BRYAN, you NEED to look into the domain cainomeister.com. It redirects to bonuses.com. I'm assuming that's not your website

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This Domain May Be For Sale

Automated process my a$$.

Nice catch!

[Rusty]

Kick 'em!

[Simmo!]

Misspellings are big business and always have been. There is one "company" in particular that specialises in buying mis-spells and dropped domains. They reg them, set up PPC (Pay Per Click) pages mainly, check traffic and if it achieves a certain threshold that outweighs the Registration renewal fee they kep them.

They avoid litigation by ensuring the domain content does not pretend to replicate or mislead people into thinking it's the "real" domain. The only way this will ever stop is if ICANN agree to much higher domain registration fees. I've always been a big fan of that personally to dissuade squatters, hoarders and domain speculators (of which I am one incidentally, although on quite a small scale) and most importantly those who act unethically or dishonestly in this way.

But there is opposition and some justification for keeping things as they are, most notably as it makes owning a site more elitist and discourages innovation of ideas. So its a rock and a hard place really. I remember putting forward the idea that domains should cost $500 but that wasn't popular, albeit admittedly it was on a domain speculators forum

I know this thread is aimed at the practice of registering "mis-spellings", but a price hike would prevent a large proportion of that.

Cheers

Simmo!

[TheGooner]

I know this thread is aimed at the practice of registering "mis-spellings", but a price hike would prevent a large proportion of that.

And obviously it would also create a gold rush bonanza for those who had already registered their domains eh Simmo ?!!


Quite an unintentional side-effect I'm sure ... you self confessed speculator ...

[Simmo!]

And obviously it would also create a gold rush bonanza for those who had already registered their domains eh Simmo ?!!


Quite an unintentional side-effect I'm sure ... you self confessed speculator ...

LOL. Yeah true. Actually I "speculated" on OGGS - i always thought that the popular MP3 format would be under threat from Ogg Vorbis and mp3.com would one day offer me millions. Never happened - so now I rely on you lot I pin my hopes on n.tl now

[Rollo]

Some registrys really encourage it becuase they let the parasites register hundreds, even thousands of domains for a trial period... long enough to see if it generates traffic, and then they are allowed to return all those that don't for a refund.

You can see that if done on a large enough scale it becomes VERY profitable. Imagine making on average $1 a day per domain on 1,000 domains. ($1 x 365 days x 1,000 domains) - 10,000 (approximate cost of registering a domain $10 x 1,000) = a LOT of lap dances.

These dudes fall into the same category as spammers and scraper sites and deserve a hard, dry reeming from the real sites lawyers for trademark infringement. That's the only way to make it unprofitable for them... lawsuits with heavy punative damages.

[winbig]

Some registrys really encourage it becuase they let the parasites register hundreds, even thousands of domains for a trial period... long enough to see if it generates traffic, and then they are allowed to return all those that don't for a refund.

You can see that if done on a large enough scale it becomes VERY profitable. Imagine making on average $1 a day per domain on 1,000 domains. ($1 x 365 days x 1,000 domains) - 10,000 (approximate cost of registering a domain $10 x 1,000) = a LOT of lap dances.

These dudes fall into the same category as spammers and scraper sites and deserve a hard, dry reeming from the real sites lawyers for trademark infringement. That's the only way to make it unprofitable for them... lawsuits with heavy punative damages.

But on the flipside, how is it trademark infringement? They're not offering goods nor services that are related to the company in question, so in reality, they're not breaking any laws.

Disclaimer: I in no way approve of what they're doing

[Rollo]

I think it's a pretty cut and dry actually... you can't use a confusingly similar mark of someone established trade name. People going to these sites are obviously looking for Casinomeister. I'm no expert with this area of law mind you but it strikes me that what they are doing is clearly in bad faith. I think any judge would be able to see they are trading off the Casinomeister brand.

Putting up links to other gambling sites on a mispelling of Casinomeisters name seems clear to me. A site like amzon.com with links to Barns and Nobel sure wouldn't last too long. A guy was forced offline for his site called fucknationalcitybank.com (my former bank so I know the sentiment well)... for using their trade name - and that seemed like a legit protest/public interest site to me.

Maybe if casinomiester.com, or whatever, had been, oh it's so far fetched I can't even think of a plausaible example, say a ongoing site about baking french bread, then I don't think there would be a bitch as the two areas are so far apart (I mean both the Bealtes and Steve Jobs share the Apple brand), but what these parasites are doing is a pretty clear violation of prevailing law I'd say. That is, Bryan could force them offline and they'd be liable if Bryan wanted to press it but they [the collective parasitic bastards] generally keep doing it becuase no one wants to bother with it. For the victim, the cost is hard to measure and going all the way to punish them is costly... so nothing ever gets done.

Anyway... I guess we'll see if it bothers Bryan. With all that's going on, it may be pretty low on the list... but I'd like to see 'em get a spanking 4 sure.