miss spelt domain name sharks

[kier]

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yet even as a retailer, the use of the domain in your eyes would be infringing the owner of bathroom.co.uk, a statement I just don't agree with.

No, it wouldn't in my eyes. You've taken what I've said, put it into a completely different context and decided what I would say about it.

Let's come back to the example we're actually talking about:

The domain laurashley.com is not being used as a merchant site or a dropshipping site. As far as we know it is not being SEOd or having paid traffic sent to it. As far as we know the domain has been bought entirely to profit from people who were looking for Laura Ashely but mistyped. The affiliate in question is being paid for traffic that he did nothing at all to generate. Your example is entirely different, it has nothing to do with misspellings and the domain names in question are generics.

No one can reasonably say that they have rights to use of 'bathroom' can they? But Laura Ashley is a well known brand and both you, I, and the affiliate who registered this domain knows precisely that people who type in laurashley.com are looking for Laura Ashley. That's why they bought it and that's why they are putting their affiliate links to Laura Ashley on it.

[KieronD]

John Jupp - the major difference here is that bathroom is a generic term whereas Laura Ashley is a trademarked brand. You can't compare your example to the cybersquatter who is making money from somebody elses brand.

[John Jupp]

What about DIY.com Kieron? Wouldn't they be mad as they trademarked that? What if I got idiy.co.uk?

[kier]

Someone looking specifically for DIY.com would be unlikely to mistype it by putting an i at the start would they?

[KieronD]

What about DIY.com Kieron? Wouldn't they be mad as they trademarked that? What if I got idiy.co.uk?

DIY is a generic word and whether or not anybody owns this as a trademark is another completely different topic.

However to get this discussion back on track, Laura Ashley is a trademarked name, without the brand and the retail business that is Laura Ashley then the domain name in question would never have been registered. Thats a fact. It was registered for no other reason than to exploit type ins.

This is simply cyber squatting and nothing else. As I said before Laura Ashley should ask (not pay) for the domain to be handed over to them and thats all there is to it really.

[drivetowin]

Kier

I'm sorry but I don't think your argument stands up - you cannot say that by registering one name you have an automatic right to any name that is similar to it - otherwise what's to stop the Java Development company who own the name Webgain saying that Webgains is too close to their name and so you must hand over your domain name to them.

You say affiliates shouldn't exploit merchant weaknesses and as a broad brush I would agree with you but is this affiliate really doing anything different to an affiliate who bids on a merchant brand name via ppc (where the merchant has not expressly forbidden it - note I don't say 'has actively allowed it') - yet you know as well as I do dozens of affiliates do that every day and networks happily take their override on the commissions earned (and I've no qualms that they do) - I just think it's wrong to treat one way of making the revenue from a brand as some sort of 'hang-em' criminal act and yet the other way (unless expressly forbidden) is treated as ok.

I know some will say 'ah but on ppc you're risking your money' - well a) this guy/lady took a risk on registering a domain and hosting it (so they spend money, and ok it may not be in the same league but it's still a financial investment) and b) brand name ppc is about as risky as putting a bet on Michael Schumacher if he's racing an 80 year old granny.

Take an example - we own about half a dozen domain names related to a well known UK air show, all of which the organisers would using your argument say should be theirs (we also own domain names related to every grand prix in the calendar). We make good money off of those domain names and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't - if they didn't register them and we did (and to be fair they are not misspellings but combinations of words) then I would argue that's just tough luck. As I keep saying, domains names are not new and they are not rocket science - if you don't buy them you only have yourself to blame.

I don't accept either that this is giving affiliates a bad name - affiliates are about driving incremental sales - and surely that is what is happening here - if the affiliate did not have this name someone else probably would - what if someone set up a porn site for a model who's pseudonym was Laura Ashley - if I were Laura Ashley I'd rather have the current status quo than that situation.

Equally, Kieron you have a domain name containing the name of a well known motor racing driver - are you saying you shouldn't have that name as it should be his?

[DavidCartlidge]

Equally, Kieron you have a domain name containing the name of a well known motor racing driver - are you saying you shouldn't have that name as it should be his?

Comparing a non-misspelled word +other word(s) domain to a spelling / typo domain is apples and pears.

[kier]

Keith before you say my argument does not stand up perhaps you could look at what I've actually argued for! I have not said that the domain name should belong to to Laura Ashley rather than the affiliate. What I'm saying is that what the affiliate is doing is wrong and is in all likelihood not adding value to the merchant.

The risk of registering a domain such as this one is incredibly negligible. Assuming you already have a reseller account then hosting isn't an issue really and can you not return a domain name within a certain period anyway after you've seen what type in traffic it gets or has that loophole been closed now?

Brand PPC is an entirely different matter for the reasons I've already stated. If the affiliate was driving traffic via other means that could possibly justify them getting sales from this domain then fine, but as far as we know that isn't the case. But if this is all they are doing then it is clearly abusive in the same way that if an affiliate ONLY bids on brand then that is indeed abusive also.

If I was Laura Ashley and someone owned laurashley.com and had a page about a porn star on it what's the problem? A customer looking for the actual shop Laura Ashley is unlikely to arrive there and just say "oh well I guess they only do porn now" unless the page is covered with Laura Ashley branding. They would in all likelihood realise their mistake and either retype the domain or go via a search engine.

'Incremental' I understand to mean growth, extra sales beyond what is generated by other marketing approaches. Any sales that come through this domain name are clearly sales that were originally heading to the site with no other input from the affiliate. Certainly you can say if the affiliate *weren't* doing it then some might go elsewhere but as I already said I expect overall they would be far better off losing the odd sale here and there in that instance and not paying out thousands of pounds in commission.

[ashseo]

Personally I think its great!

Would love to shake the domain owners hand, well done for thinking of an excellent money making scheme, the site already has a page rank 2 on google indicating it has a decent level of traffic! well done!

Wish I had thought of it!

[KieronD]

Equally, Kieron you have a domain name containing the name of a well known motor racing driver - are you saying you shouldn't have that name as it should be his?

I think we are going a bit off the subject of this post but I'll answer. Maybe. Will that do? lol

In my case yes I own the domain lewis-hamilton.org.uk and to be honest if his representatives asked for it back then I would give it back without hesitation. However there are hundreds of examples of "fan sites" out there that use hyphenated or less popular extensions of famous people's names in order to create an online community/site. Yet again, its a bit of a grey area, and trademarking an individual's name is not always as simple as you would think. In the past, cases brought to court whereby celebrities have fought to have all variations of their name taken from cyber squatters have not always succeeded.

But...I go back again to the case in point. The Laura Ashley mis-spell is in my opinion, naughty. Its clearly and obviously a trademark and the person who regged it is in no way better than the person who registered tesco1.co.uk in another thread. For me, this tarnishes the reputation of affiliate marketing and is quite possible than an outsider looking in will see us all as ""grubby affiliates".

[drivetowin]

Kier

Apologies that I misunderstood your original argument - I see where you are coming from now.

I'm not sure Laura Ashley would agree with you on the point that if the affiliate were driving traffic to the domain by ppc or seo that would be ok - I would agree with you but I'm not sure they would!!

I guess in this case for Laura Ashley it's a case of put up or shut up - either accept the domain getting affiliate revenue or shut the affiliate account and risk the traffic going elsewhere, and in the meantime try to get the domain holder to give it / sell it to them.

It's probably worth mentioning in this particular case that the domain was registered in March 2000 so it's a bit late impo for Laura Ashley to be shouting about it.

[DavidCartlidge]

It's probably worth mentioning in this particular case that the domain was registered in March 2000 so it's a bit late impo for Laura Ashley to be shouting about it.

I have been stealing money from your wallet, but since it has been going on since 2000, it's too late for you to do anything about it

[drivetowin]

I have been stealing money from your wallet, but since it has been going on since 2000, it's too late for you to do anything about it

If I was dumb enough not to notice, then I would say yes it is.....but I don't accept the premise that this affiliate has 'stolen' anything - 'taken advantage of the situation' - yes - 'stolen' - no

[steveaich]

Welcome to the forum Joel, good to see you here representing Laura Ashley.

For what its worth I think its this type of behaviour that gives Affiliate Marketing a bad name. Any moron can register a mis-spell of a brand's domain and then cash in on type-ins. But in my opinion thats not what AM is about.

Yes of course Laura Ashley should have registered that domain years ago but they didn't, lesson learnt, now its time to move on.

If I were you I'd simply call the affiliate explain that you're not happy with them using a mis-spelling of a trademark name and ask that they hand it over. You don't need to pay them for the domain name. If they say no, kick them off the affiliate program immediately and take legal action.

Totally agree! Well almost, I'd probably offer the affiliate a 'reasonable' figure for the domain, maybe what they would earn over the next 6 months from owning the domain. This way you are saying thanks for registering that domain for us, this is the premium we are willing to offer. If they don't accept, drop them from the program.

As for some of the arguments above. If the customer was looking for laura ashley, mistyped and got an error message, well duh they would realise they had mistyped the domain and try again, therefore if this domain wasn't registered the traffic would belong to LA anyway.

[drivetowin]

Not necessarily on the mistype argument - my guess is at least 50% of the people would not realise they had mistyped (most people don't) and simply assume Laura Ashley did not have a website and go off and buy online from another merchant instead.

There are plenty of people who will try [enternamehere].com and if they get a server not found will assume the merchant has no website, without ever trying [enternamehere].co.uk which is probably a fully functioning website, so if people do it with tlds they certainly do it with mistypes too.