I think it's a threat , there is no difference for such a big company to pay 150$ or 1500$ , if they gonna sue you they'll do it and such small amounts make no difference . Offer them 900$-1500$ for that name . I can't understand one thing , if they wanna to sue you that will cost them much higher amount of $$ . Wish you luck I think I'm from that country - Armenia
I once had a similar experience and was threatened with legal action i refused to sell but only because they were so arrogant anyway they just waited for the domain in question to expire then snapped it up.
Some parties have no problem suing in court if they can almost easily make all that money back through other means. Especially if their cause is legitimate, there's nothing necessarily wrong with going that route.
Hmm I guess I would take the cash, just to avoid the lawsuit and all the fees which would result from it
True, but domain names do not fall under common law which is why its such a grey area. A judge in a county court cannot make a ruling to force anyone to handover their domain. A court can only force you to stop using the trademarked phrase. Only WIPO can force a domain handover. In addition, a trademark made in Australia does not have any weight in say, Spain or Russia so if the domain owner lives outside Australia and there are no trademarks outside of Australia, then Telstra cannot do much becasue if they file a trademark in the domain owners country they will be accused of trademarking the phrase just to get the domain, and thats unfair. If the domain is so valuable, this guy should make a private whois on the domain and wait for the WIPO notice to come through.
If the complainant hands the registrant a C&D, the registrant then uses their registrar's WHOIS privacy service, and the complainant files a UDRP, then the registrar will still provide the actual registration info and the complainant can use that as further ammo of bad faith.
Partly correct. If no UDRP has yet been filed, only a court issued summons, not a C&D, can be issued to the registrar for the registrar to disclose the whois information to the complainants, however the fact that the respondent is using a whois privacy service cannot be used as ammunition against the respondent as the right to privacy is not illegal so therefore has nothing to do with registering the domain in bad faith. Also, a court issued summons from the UK is not valid if the registrar is in the US and vice versa. The problem with domain law, is the international borders and the barriers they bring which is why the big multi million/billion dollar companies can afford to cover all their bases. In a way, yes, the law can favour the little man, only if you are very smart, but when you are coming up against the behemouths like say google, coca cola and the such, better to run off with your tail between your legs becasue if they wake up one morning wanting to make an example of you, you are screwed!