I have not read the whole thread, but here is one example that happened to one of my online business partner. herbalife sued (h) e r b a l l i f e w e i g h t l o s s p r o d u c t (.) c o m as it sounds similar to their products. End of the story? the domain name has automatically transfered by the registrar to them. Their claims of sending a postal papers and stuff was false as he never received such documents otherwise he would have contacted them to clarify that he no way related to herbalife or tried to have a copy cat website. He used to sell the products via joebucks and was quite happy with 2 sales every day. cheers
I'm pretty sure the story is now over since the OP transfered the domain over... So whether or not he was in the right, or in the wrong is rather moot at this point... though maybe others can look at this thread and learn something.
I would have NEVER transferred the domain. I would have offered to sell them back to them at 50K, and if they couldn't afford it, ask them never to call back again or I will be the one suing them back for disturbing my business
Then you might be surprised to know there have been cases where an email C&D also wanted the domain name transferred to them...or else. Some were frivolous, others were...legitimate. Heck, a C&D doesn't even have to be sent to begin with. Microsoft and Dell have done those recently. I guess that tip has its place. Of course, threats without follow-up action mean nothing, especially if you and the other party are on opposite sides of the globe. Qryztufre gave an important food for thought. Readers here would be wise to consider it.
If it was me, I would just buy another domain that doesn't infrige any copyright and redirect all the traffic from your old to the now domain or just park it, so you do not offer the same service as them.
100% spam, becuz : their domain is proxify.org not proxify.com. so you dont have to worry about anything, just report this email as spam.
100% wrong. The same company owns both names, and more importantly, they own the trademark. Why do you people who are clueless about this issue keep insist on posting?
Too bad it's 100% wrong as browntwn replied. If you accepted that as truth, only to find out it's not by losing your domain name in a dispute or worse, are you going to hold that person liable for it while he's laughing at you? Hopefully none of you folks will have to learn things the hard way. But if any of you do, I hope you'll post about it so others can learn from your mistakes.
I can't be bothered reading this whole ordeal, but if you're ever in doubt if the email has really come from the real persons involved, simply goto the actual site that they are or are claiming to be and contact them directly and ask them if they are involved and have emailed you etc. So in this case the OP would have just gone to Proxify.org and contacted them through links on their page.
They can't just take the domain. Just take a look at google. There are all those sites named moogle googol etc and none of the owners need to transfer the domain to google. Or on the other hand, take a look at this copyright example You could see yourself as 'Google' and them as "Daniel Giersch"
This person is taking you for a fool. They see your shitting yourself and continues too humiliate you. I would have told him too fuck himself by now. He wouldn't have done anything. Believe me i've had a few threats in my past. And i just ignore them. Replying gives them the satisfaction.
Brilliant marketing IMHO, and this thread, now that it's resolved (The OP gave in) could get moved to Marketing someplace. The fact that people are giving in, gives them free domains, which they could use at their leisure. The fact that people are afraid, and/or curious, they are making threads (just like this one) which is providing them linkbacks to both their main site & their would be conquered sites. The fact that we all are posting in this thread shows that controversy is good for discussion, and is furthering the branding of their product. Yeah, yeah, many of us are like "screw them" but we forget quickly, and soon will see them and go "yeah, I remember them from someplace". The list is a bit longer, but I'm sure you all see where I am getting at with this. The site, in it's greed and vanity is strong arming it's way into SEO... Personally, I remembered what they did to other sites (see the links to other threads I posted too earlier) and would never use the site because they are meanies (LOL)... So if you are here, make a mental note who is the bad guy in all this, and don't fall for this type of marketing... EDIT: Whoever gave me red rep for this, thanks for reading my previous posts within this thread. That goes a long way for showing what I know, and what you know... lol
Man I didn't know people were so vulnerable. All I have to do is send emails like this to everyone in my niche and I will own everything. Myspace tired to take my domain a few years back and I told them okay I will see you in court. I still have the letter they sent to me it's quite funny. Anyways they stopped sending me emails and letters after that because almost no one is going to spend 1000's of dollars over a 9 dollar domain. It just doesn't make sense from a business point of view.
That was kind of my point above. The OP was not doing anything wrong/illegal, but then, seemingly neither was the site asking for the domain. The difference is that the site sounded legal enough to scare the OP in to giving in. While it can often be bad business to do such thing, doing such things can help in SERP/SEO type things, as bots thus far can't tell when someone is doing such underhanded things. Again, I do hope that others learn from this thread, in that giving in is not always the best course of action. If someone gets a letter like the OP, then look into the legalities of it before simply pushing the domain...
Yeah, the funny thing is everyone in this thread said that legally he isn't doing anything wrong and he still pushed the domain over anyways. P.S. Who ever gave me red rep for this post is an idiot. Do some research on the topic before you go around giving bad rep