Daily Domainer

In an unethical attempt at reverse domain hijacking, PRL USA Holdings, the company that owns the Ralph Lauren trademark, tried to wrestle control of RL.com from a licensed real estate broker who was going to use the domain to offer real estate loans.

There are numerous entities around the world that use the RL acronym and a quick trademark search reveals a plethora of RL trademarks owned by other companies. The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center acknowledged the wide popularity of the two letters RL and rejected Ralph Lauren's complaint:

It is not inconceivable that, in registering and using the disputed domain name, Respondent is attempting to take advantage of Complainant’s RL mark. However, the Panel is reluctant to conclude, absent more compelling evidence, that Internet users would draw such a strong association between Complainant’s two-letter mark and the Internet domain name <rl.com> that a heavy burden should be placed on Respondent to demonstrate fair use of two letters in fairly wide commercial usage, and which Respondent claims and supports to be using in a fair descriptive way.

Ralph Lauren's law firm Greenberg Traurig wins the award for the funniest and most ridiculous UDRP argument in quite some time:

Complainant indicates that [...] “Internet users can still search Respondent’s website for Complainant’s Products”, and submitted search results showing that a search for Complainant’s products using Respondent’s website search feature would, in fact, find sources for Complainant’s products (id., Exhibit 7.). And, if products of Complainant’s competitors were searched for, those too would be found (id., Exhibit 7).

In other words, if visitors use RL.com's built-in pay per click search engine to search for Ralph Lauren products they will actually find them. And if they search for competing products they will actually find them, too. Well guys, that's the whole point of search engines! If you don't like something, simply don't search for it, okay? Maybe you should try to obtain control of Google.com, eBay.com and Digg.com as well (click the links to show results for "Ralph Lauren").

Attempting to grab a valuable domain name without compensation is not a new practice. Probably the most famous reverse hijacking attempt took place in 2000 when German broadcasting company Deutsche Welle tried in vain to take the domain DW.com from software company Diamond Ware.