Yahoo.is for sale

Seems to have been taken down.

 

Yes, at last. Ebay took action.

 

WHat if he was trying to sell something like join-yahoo.com ?

Do you think ebay would take that down?

 

Possibly ebay will still take action.

 

Ok, thanks. I see join-yahoo.com is available and I was surprised. I guess if I bought it there's no profit to be made eh?

 

I can't say whether it was mentioned hundreds of year back, the truth is that this word was used in a Hindi film in India. The actor was Shammi Kapoor and the film was probably 'Kashmir Ki Kali'. And the film was released around 40 years back.

The film was quite successful then and was one of his most successful films. He used to shout Yahoo a lot in the film, and somehow it caught the fancy of millions of people.

Anil Pandey
www.utkalbandhu.com

 

In fact, yahoo had been in used before that film.

 

do not go 4 it de will be lots of legal issues later

 

it is not more value than who.is

 

I could not get it. What do you mean?

 

Completely wrong. International trademarks are protected by the Madrid Protocol (btw, it includes Iceland). This domain is worthless and couldn't be kept (and it doesn't matter if you don't claim to be owned by "yahoo"). A simple WIPO claim would take the domain and turn it over to the "Yahoo" corporation. You can certainly trademark common words, i.e. Apple. Trademarks are granted by classification, and there are companies that have broad protection.

The "Apple" corporation can and does claim ownership of the use of the word "Apple" for many different classifications. What they couldn't do is claim ownership of the mark for the name of a fruit.

 

mjewel, can you tell me why Adsense.com didn't belong to Google for a very long time? And why did Google eventually bought the website? By reading your post, Google should have just filed a WIPO claim, and they'd got the domain.

It is not easy! You have to go to court. And you have to fight in court for the reasons why you think the domain owner violates your trademark. And then you would filed a dispute claim at UDRP Panel at ICANN, or the other authorized organizations: World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO"); eResolution Consortium ("eRes"); the National Arbitration Forum ("NAF"); and CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution ("CPR").

 

The adsense case was entirely different. The domain was registered years before google started using the mark. First use establishes rights in a classification. If I remember correctly, the owners of the mark had failed register their company within the state - a requirement of state law for a dba. They wound up selling it for a nominal amount of money - enough to cover the cost of changing their stationery and business cards.

Yahoo is a Federally Registered mark that predates this domain registration. This is a clear cut case that Yahoo would win without a doubt. A WIPO claim is all that would be needed to take the domain since it is a registered mark. It would cost around $1,200 - and being a registered mark, Yahoo would be able to claim treble their legal fees - so regardless of the legal costs, it would be peanuts to a big company like Yahoo - and they would be able to recover up to 3X their legal fees PLUS damages. It would be foolish to buy the domain - and trying to sell it Yahoo would be grounds for a cyber squatting case that comes with a maximum of $100,000 penalty.

As previously mentioned, domains like "paypalsucks" are considered a parody "free-speech" because someone looking at the domain (without having to visit it) would likely conclude the trademark holder isn't operating such a site.

 

It is very possible the auction was a hoax, too.

 

lol, ryuedit

 

actually, u have a very good point here

 

Yahoo.com is a registered TM as the word "Yahoo" w/o and tld to the right of it may not be. I have not researched this out.

Let's say in my case: One of my domains is "OfficialClaim" .com as protection I would get a TM on the the full word + the ext. This would entitle any legal ownership of a trademark encase if domain was hijacked.

The word "Yahoo" used as a adjective may be a legal TM as a wordmark "as is" w/o any TLD added. I am sure that the money this company has it most likely is. "Benefical" (tm) is a legal wordmark used by a finace compnay.

If this is the case then the registrant of "Yahoo.is" is in clear violation of TM infringement.

 

I thought the trademark was actually "Yahoo!", I'm not sure that carries over to website domains in every extension imaginable, both present and future. Also it's all very well people talking about "Federal Law" but that means next to nothing anywhere outside the US, though I don't myself believe there is any legal grounds against the owner even if it did have some sway over people in Iceland. The fact is he still owns the domain, it still says for sale on his home page - if it was anywhere near so big a deal as some people in this thread seem to think we wouldn't even be discussing it in the first place because they would have already taken it off him, he's had it for ages (in internet terms) now after all.

 

register yahoo.is in some country as a trademark and start a business with that name. this way you can keep that domain.

like bbc.com was sold to bbc news as their website was bbc.co.uk

bbc.com owner registered bb computers so that he can keep BBC.com

 

Take Apple for example. Huge corporation, everyone knows what they do. So, let's say you acquired Apple.is and you decided to make and/or design a website all about apples, the various varieties from all around the globe. This generally would be considered ok and Apple the corporation would be hard pressed, no pun intended, to take the name from you, since there was no conflict of interest.

On the other hand, if you were using Apple.is to in any way conflict with the corporation by creating a site around anything to do with computers, in any way shape or form, you would have your head, quite rightly so chewed off by the corporation.

In the case of Yahoo, it's a word that doesn't actually mean anything in the Oxford English Dictionary, it is solely a brand name.

In this instance having Yahoo.is is of no advantage to anyone whatsoever, in fact owning it, you are simply asking for trouble from Yahoo. It is absolutely ridiculous registering these kind of domain names and I predict that very shortly we will be seeing a huge upsurge very soon from the corporations and companies trademarked names, sueing more and more domainers for lost traffic and potential revenues, certainly as we face a recession, competition will get more and more feirce and I wouldn't want to be in possession of any name with trademark issues written all over it.

There is a lesson in this, that all new and inexperienced domainers must learn and that is that it is absolute folly to own and/or even think about developing any trademarked or corporation name which would represent a direct conflict of interest with the rightful owners of any said, domain name / company name.

Believe you me, lawsuits are coming already.

If you've got them, dump them or contact the companies concerned and give them their rightful property back before they eat you for breakfast.

You may think I'm joking. The last laugh is when you are completely penniless for your stupidity in the first place.

Steer completely clear of any trademarked names!! It's one of the Golden Rules of domaining!

Mark Magawr