A UDRP has been filed over the Domain Name STARS.com before National Arbitraion Forum (NAF Case No 1913317). The Complainant is unknown but maybe some one has perfect plans for the next Valentine – I love you to the stars and beyond!
The owner of the Domain Name Stars.com is THE STARS FOUNDATION, 66 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, -x- WC2A 3LH, UK. That is, it seems the Domain Registrant is known by the Domain Name and hence protected under clause 4(a)(ii) of the UDRP Policy.
On a serious note, this is again a matter for Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) after the recent UDRP matter of Picture.com before WIPO, as any amount of due diligence would have shown to the Complainant that he could not succeed in proving all the UDRP conditions for transfer of the Domain Name. Given the fact that Domain Name was registered is April 1998 and currently has a Domain Name for Sale page at a brokering website Categorydefining.com but no PPC link.
A simple google search for STARS does not reveal anything relevant as to any Trademark Holder, though USPTO has over ten thousands Trademarks similar to word ‘STARS’, while numerous Trademarks globally as well. NAF is preferred platform for US Companies, therefore Complainant could be a US Company.
In any given scenario, neither Trademark Holder would be able to prove lack of Legitimate Interests or any kind of Bad Faith. Rather, it seems given the pandemic of COVID-19, the Complainant tried to take a wild shot in an attempt to hijack the domain name, thinking the Respondent may not be able to respond. It is obvious that the Complaint has been brought primarily to harass the domain name holder and constitutes an abuse of the Administrative Proceeding and hence RDNH should be upheld in terms of UDRP Rule 15(e).
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