California Toyota dealer guilty of reverse domain name hijacking

April 17th, 2012 by admin | Posted in domain names |

Hooman Toyota of Long Beach chastised by National Arbitration Forum.

A California Toyota dealer has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking by a National Arbitration Forum panel.

Hooman Toyota of Long Beach, also known as HTL Automotive, Inc, filed a dispute against the owner of Hooman.com.

Not only is the domain name registered to a guy named Hooman, but he also registered the domain four years prior to HTL using the name in commerce, according to the arbitration panel.

Just one of those facts is grounds for a panel finding reverse domain name hijacking. Add them together and it should be a sure thing.

Panelist Paul M DeCicco noted that HTL Automotive should have known that “the Complaint could not succeed on its merit, even if Respondent did not respond.”

Despite being represented by counsel, HTL didn’t cite a single UDRP complaint to back up its conclusions. Instead if “offers little but sparsely supported conclusions.”

DeCicco opines that, since Hooman Toyota should have known it had no chance with the UDRP, its only purpose could have been to harass or otherwise inconvenience the domain owner.

There are, of course, two other possibilities: incompetent counselor playing UDRP roulette.

Further Reading:

1. California ISP Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking
2. Mirabella Beauty Products Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking
3. Minnesota Company Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking

Article source: http://domainnamewire.com/2012/04/17/hooman-toyota-rdnh/

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