I have owned a domain, a misspelled, for almost 10 years. The misspelled trademark has an affiliate program that I am or was a part of until they stopped my account asked for my marketing strategies and demand that the misspelled domain be transferred to them at cost to continue on the program. They have suspended pending payments as well. Please note that I have forwarded the traffic from this domain to them with my affiliate ID for as long as I have owned that domain. What to do? Anybody has experience on such a field. Cheers
If the domain name is "confusingly similar" to their trademark, they can wrestle the domain name from you using what's called UDRP. They've probably got something in their terms and conditions which will allow them to suspend any payments to an affiliate they feel has broken their rules. However, if you had the domain name before the trademark was registered and you've used it for a different purpose, you would still legally have rights over the domain name. It's a difficult one ... I would probably recommend giving them the domain name and asking if your payments could be paid. Or maybe strike a deal for future income, 10% of any income from that domain directly?