I think the main issue here is that the OP has not been notified that there is a legal challenge for his domain and should have been served a notice. I have one domain with a trademark and was notified that there was a legal issue, but found out it was one of those "trade mark bounty hunters" that will try to intimidate you to give up your domain in their favor and I simply ignored it and it went away. But that sucks and I will evaluate it as I wouldn't want to be in a similar situation...
You're right, but from personal experience, I can tell you, as soon as the hosting company gets a legal notice from a law firm, about trademark infringement, you can say goodbye to your account I was in dispute with the .com owners of the same domain I registered as .co.uk - I repeatedly had my site deleted without any warning or consultation of any kind - the site was just deleted by the hosting company - happened 3 times in a row, till I finally found a hosting company that told the law company to sort it out between ourselves and leave the hosting company out of it In my case, I won, as the US law firm had to bring a legal case against a UK individual or UK hosting company - and they didn't - but it wasn't worth the hassle
With all do respect but a domain name with a TM in it that clearly is named to make money from that name (online third party booking for Air France Tickets) is ASKING for trouble...
Sorry to zombie post, but this raises an interesting question. If I have a domain, let's say it's cougar.com, or applied.com. I own this domain for 10 years, then Applied Steel comes along and say "applied is a registered tm" or Mercury comes along and cries "trademark infringement". Are they now going to take my domain without me getting a fat paycheck? (yes, I know the airfrance was very specific)
Yes, I agree. evenif there was a trademark issue, the OP should have received some notification regarding the change. Removing the domain without any trace is unethical.
I have always used NameCheap for all my domains without issue but surely they can't just remove it without at least letting you know.
Namecheap did what it had to, as this had to do with Trademarks. But, I am not sure if reseller matters. Wouldn't this happen even if you had registered with ICANN accredited registrar?