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by fapjacks 3636 days ago
Even though this sucks, I want to remind you of the story of nissan.com, which is at least one point of data showing that the name oversight organization (I forget their acronym just now) will not bow to pressure, even from enormous, multinational, moneyed corporations with huge brand recognition. I also want to reiterate what the other commenter said about suing. You can't let them operate under your brand name, or that can be used as granting a kind of defacto permission to use the name. I hope things work out for you.

Also, even if you remember the story, visit nissan.com for possibly some useful information for your situation. Good luck!
1 comments
under_siege 3636 days ago
I did not know about this. Frankly, it's terrifying. It almost makes me want to cry. The prospect of walking into a situation where I have to chose between utter financial ruin and just handing over something I've owned for nearly thirty years is unsettling.

Is there any financial help for these kinds of cases? I can't possibly spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending this.

I mean, the only way to even begin to approach it is to sell everything we own and have my wife and three kids live out of a van. And that might not even be enough.

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charlesdm 3636 days ago
Have you considered just selling it? Sometimes the hassle isn't worth the effort required to win. Even if you could.

You stated in a previous post it'd have to be a 7 figure amount. It's unlikely you'll get that amount. I'm not saying you have to sell if for cheap, but be reasonable if you're serious about selling. A good deal is one where both parties are somewhat unhappy at the end (i.e. one feels they significantly "overpaid", and the other feels they sold something too cheaply).

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fapjacks 3636 days ago
Sorry, IANAL, so maybe this advice is useless. I just spent a little bit doing some research and discovered that EasyDNS has a history of defending their customers from similar sorts of thuggery[0]. It may be worth your while to research an option like this, i.e. switching your DNS service (and domain registration, if they offer it) to EasyDNS or someone that would be willing to help you defend against sociopaths bent on stealing your domain and brand. It seems like now would be the time to research a more defense-oriented domain registrar and DNS provider that won't simply hand your domain over to the person with the most pull, as No-ip.com learned when Microsoft stole their domain. I can't really help you in this regard, but you will definitely want to transfer your domain to a registrar that doesn't have a history of caving to the first lawyer letter they get, which is probably most of them. Perhaps you may find both a name registrar and a DNS provider that will help you. Good luck!

[0] http://blog.easydns.org/2014/08/22/we-are-being-sued-for-ref...

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under_siege 3636 days ago
That's interesting. I'll research. Thanks.
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