Suspicion Is Not Proof: Inferring a Change of Registrant Behind a Privacy Shield
Where a privacy service has covered the Whois record for years, a complainant often cannot tell when the domain name came into the hands of its current registrant. The creation date does not answer the question. As UDRP Perspectives, §0.16 (Determining the Date of Registration) explains, Whois privacy has deteriorated the historical records that could once be used to establish when a domain name changed hands, but complainants must still investigate, and they can do so by compiling circumstantial evidence such as a change of use shown in the web archives or a change of registrar. Continue reading commentary here.
We hope you will enjoy this edition of the Digest (vol. 6.42) as we review these noteworthy recent decisions with expert commentary. (We invite guest commenters to contact us):
‣ Suspicion Is Not Proof: Inferring a Change of Registrant Behind a Privacy Shield (cashy.com *with commentary)
‣ Knowledge Is Not Targeting, and Infringement Is Not Necessarily Cybersquatting (end-label.com *with commentary)
‣ Is “Farms” Enough? A Disclaimer, a Dictionary Word and the First Element (farmsbotanicals.com *with commentary)
‣ A Post-Sale Handover Dispute Is Not Necessarily a Cybersquatting Case (bluems.com *with commentary)
‣ A Capital “I” and a Lowercase “L”: Right Result, But Is Malice the Test for RDNH? (polarisinc.com *with commentary)
Suspicion Is Not Proof: Inferring a Change of Registrant Behind a Privacy Shield
Cashy Technology OÜ v. Gareton B.V. and RazorTrade Corporation, WIPO Case No. D2026-3613
<cashy.com>
Panelist: Mr. David H. Bernstein
Brief Facts: The Complainant is an Estonian company, incorporated on September 9, 2020 as Studya Edu OÜ and renamed Cashy Technology OÜ on November 4, 2022. It operates a game-based financial literacy platform at <cashygame.com>, registered on October 13, 2021. It owns the trademarks for CASHY in the EU (filed November 9, 2022, registered February 23, 2023) and U.S. (filed November 9, 2022, registered October 22, 2024, claiming first use: October 16, 2021). The disputed Domain Name was created on February 10, 2016, and resolves to an online casino operated by the Respondent – Gareton B.V. under Curaçao Gaming Authority License. The Respondent – RazorTrade filed an EU Application on May 7, 2025, covering gaming and online casino services, which the Complainant opposed on July 25, 2025, and owns UK Registration for CASHY (filed December 9, 2025, registered March 6, 2026). The Complainant sent a cease-and-desist letter on June 8, 2026 to BitStarz customer support and the data-protection address on the website, and BitStarz replied the next day that it could not handle the request and directed the Complainant to the contact details on the website.
The Complainant alleges that the use of a domain name identical to another’s trademark to operate a competing or reputationally incompatible service that trades on the confusion created by that identity is not bona fide. The Complainant further alleges that the Respondents did not acquire it until early 2025 based on changes in the disputed Domain Name’s nameservers and hosting infrastructure between February and April 2025, followed by the appearance of CASHY-branded casino launch pages. The Respondent contends that they acquired the disputed Domain Name through BrandBucket in January 2019 and submits a January 15, 2019 purchase confirmation showing it was purchased for USD $24,995. The Respondent further contends that the disputed Domain Name is used for a genuine, licensed online casino operated by Gareton B.V. and that the casino does not use the Complainant’s logo or content or otherwise refer to the Complainant or its financial literacy business. Finally, the Respondents add that the 2025 changes to the nameservers, hosting, and website content reflect the casino’s development and launch, not a change in ownership.
Held: The Complainant has not submitted sufficient evidence to establish that the Respondents’ casino business is unlawful. Rather, the record shows that the Respondents were making a bona fide offering of services. By April 2026, months before this proceeding was commenced in August 2026, the Respondents were operating the CASHY online casino at the disputed Domain Name under a Curaçao Gaming Authority license. The Complainant has also not shown that the Respondents’ operation of a CASHY-branded casino constitutes trademark infringement or otherwise negates the bona fide nature of their offering. The Respondents acquired the disputed Domain Name more than seven years ago and subsequently obtained a registration for the CASHY trademark in the United Kingdom. Although the Complainant questions the bona fides of that registration, the record contains no evidence that the Complainant has challenged it. Absent evidence that the UK registration is invalid or was obtained fraudulently, it is entitled to a presumption of validity.
The Panel finds that the Respondents acquired the disputed Domain Name on January 15, 2019. This acquisition predates the Complainant’s incorporation in September 2020, its claimed first use of CASHY in October 2021, and its trademark applications filed in November 2022. The Respondents therefore could not have acquired the disputed Domain Name in 2019 with the intent to target rights that the Complainant did not yet possess. See WIPO Overview 3.1, section 3.8.1. The Complainant has also failed to establish bad-faith use. Any initial confusion arising from Internet users visiting the Respondents’ casino website while seeking the Complainant’s financial game website results from the parties’ use of the same mark for different services, rather than from an intent by the Respondents to target the Complainant. Finally, the Respondents’ use of the disputed Domain Name for a casino does not tarnish the Complainant’s mark or reputation.
RDNH: The Respondents request a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, arguing that the Complainant knew or should have known it could not establish bad-faith registration. The Panel declines to make such a finding. Although parts of the Complaint were inaccurate, the Complainant had reason to suspect the Respondents’ knowledge and motives. Changes to the disputed Domain Name’s nameservers and hosting between February and April 2025, followed by CASHY-branded launch pages, reasonably suggested that the domain name may have changed hands in 2025. The Respondents’ subsequent launch of a casino, after the Complainant had established a financial-literacy website under that name, may have exacerbated the Complainant’s suspicions.
Nevertheless, the Complaint contained troubling errors. Most significantly, the Complainant claimed that the Domain Name remained listed for sale on BrandBucket until early 2025, despite its own DomainTools report showing a registrar change from GoDaddy to the Registrar in January 2019 and an October 22, 2021 capture stating that it was “NO LONGER FOR SALE ON BRANDBUCKET.” On balance, the Panel considers these errors and inconsistencies careless rather than a willful attempt to misrepresent the record or abuse the proceeding. Had the Respondents answered the demand letter and explained when they acquired the domain name, they might have avoided the proceeding altogether.
Complaint Denied
Complainant’s Counsel: AAA Patendibüroo OÜ (AAA Legal Services), Estonia
Respondent’s Counsel: REVERA Polska sp. z o.o., Poland
Comments by ICA General Counsel, Zak Muscovitch:
Where a privacy service has covered the Whois record for years, a complainant often cannot tell when the domain name came into the hands of its current registrant. The creation date does not answer the question. As UDRP Perspectives, §0.16 (Determining the Date of Registration) explains, Whois privacy has deteriorated the historical records that could once be used to establish when a domain name changed hands, but complainants must still investigate, and they can do so by compiling circumstantial evidence such as a change of use shown in the web archives or a change of registrar.
The Complainant did that here. With the registrant hidden behind a privacy shield throughout, it relied on the domain name leaving the BrandBucket nameservers in early 2025, moving to Cloudflare, and then resolving to CASHY-branded launch pages. The Panel accepted that these changes could reasonably have suggested a new owner. Nameserver records, registrar changes and new website content are proper tools for a complainant in that position, provided they are presented as grounds for suspicion rather than as established fact. The Complainant instead pleaded a 2025 acquisition as fact and asserted that the domain name had remained listed on BrandBucket until then, while its own DomainTools report recorded a registrar change in January 2019 and an October 2021 capture stating that the name was no longer for sale there. The Panel treated these inaccuracies as carelessness rather than an attempt to mislead.
Whether a complaint was brought in bad faith is a judgment on the whole record, and the Panel was right to decline an RDNH finding here. The Complainant had a real basis for suspecting a change of ownership, the Respondents’ 2019 purchase confirmation was not public, and the Respondents did not produce it when given the chance.
That chance came in June 2026, when the Complainant’s counsel sent a cease-and-desist letter before filing. One copy went to the customer support address of BitStarz, an affiliated casino, which replied the next day that it could not deal with the matter and pointed the Complainant to the operator’s contact details on the cashy.com website. The other copy went to the data-protection email address published on that same website. That is an address the Respondents chose to publish, and the record shows no reply to it. The Panel’s observation that the Complainant had not used the correct email address is open to question on that footing. A letter to a contact address the operator itself publishes on its site is a letter to the operator. A pre-filing letter is the prudent step in any case that turns on an inferred acquisition date, since it may produce the answer and, if ignored, strengthens the complainant’s position on any later RDNH claim. The Panel noted that a reply explaining the 2019 acquisition may have avoided the entire proceeding. The absence of any reply at an address the Respondents chose to publish weighs in the Complainant’s favour on RDNH, not against it.
Knowledge Is Not Targeting, and Infringement Is Not Necessarily Cybersquatting
Ashworth and Parker Limited v. Fraser Lee, End Label, WIPO Case No. D2026-3037
<end-label.com>
Panelist: Mr. Nick J. Gardner
Brief Facts: The Complainant is a UK fashion and lifestyle retailer, incorporated in England and Wales on April 1, 2009 and trading as “END.” It was founded in 2005 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, has stores in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, London, Manchester, Glasgow and Milan, and generates about 80 percent of its revenue through www.endclothing.com, with reported revenues of GBP 219 million (financial year to March 2022) and GBP 170 million (March 2025). It sells third-party brands and its own apparel under the “END. LABEL” sub-brand. It owns UK Trade Mark registration for END, filed September 11, 2013 and registered April 12, 2015, in classes 18, 25 and 35. The Respondent is an individual in Maidstone, Kent, trading as “End Label.” The Domain Name was created on January 27, 2026 and resolves to a Shopify-based store named “End Label,” which describes itself as “a streetwear brand focused on bold simplicity, premium quality, and considered design” and sells caps and T-shirts priced in pounds sterling.
The Complainant alleges that the Respondent is using the disputed Domain Name with the intent of misleading consumers and/or harming the Complainant’s reputation, such that the use cannot be regarded as bona fide, noncommercial or fair. It submits that it is “hard to believe” the disputed Domain Name was registered without the Respondent being aware of the Complainant and its END trade mark, given the goodwill the Complainant enjoys in that mark and in the associated END. LABEL sub-brand. The Panel issued Procedural Order No. 1 on September 15, 2026, asking the Complainant to confirm when END. LABEL was launched and announced. In response, the Complainant submitted that strategic development of END. LABEL was under way by January 2026, that END. LABEL was in public online use in July 2026, and that a broader public launch and marketing campaign took place on or around September 14, 2026.
The Respondent submits that he has rights and legitimate interests in the disputed Domain Name because it has been used, since registration, exclusively in connection with a genuine clothing business: he has designed original clothing, created original branding, developed an independent website, marketed the brand through social media, and fulfilled customer orders. He accepts that he was aware of the Complainant as a fashion retailer, but states that he was not aware of the Complainant’s END. LABEL sub-brand when he independently developed the “End Label” concept, and did not register the disputed Domain Name to exploit the Complainant’s reputation. He relies principally on the dated April 2023 email and attached branding concepts (Annex A to the Response) as contemporaneous evidence of independent creation pre-dating registration of the disputed Domain Name, and on the website analytics (Annex D to the Response) as evidence that the great majority of the website’s traffic is not attributable to search-driven confusion with the Complainant.
Held: The Panel found the Domain Name confusingly similar to the END mark and found that the Complainant made out a prima facie case that the Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests. Taken as a whole, the Respondent’s evidence – an extended, documented design process, a public social media launch, an operating Shopify e-commerce business, and analytics showing that most visitors arrive directly or via its social channels rather than search engines – depicts a business built and promoted independently, rather than by trading on confusion with the Complainant. The Panel, however, also has some genuine reservations. The Respondent operates in precisely the same sector as the Complainant (fashion and streetwear retail) using the “END” element as part of its brand, and the Complainant is a long-established and well-known retailer in the United Kingdom, the jurisdiction in which the Respondent is also based and trades. These are circumstances that give the Panel pause notwithstanding the Respondent’s supporting evidence. However, on balance and within the available mechanisms that apply to a decision under the Policy, the Panel accepts the Respondent’s claim to have independently derived his END LABEL brand.
That is not, however, the end of this analysis because the Panel considers that the Respondent’s activities are, more likely than not, infringing the Complainant’s registered trademark rights. The likelihood of trademark infringement gives rise to a consideration of the scope of paragraph 4(c)(i) – the requirement of good faith (“bona fide”) requires consideration. This Panelist and others have found in prior cases that an infringing use cannot be bona fide. See, e.g., On AG, On Clouds GmbH v. Nguyen Luu, Withheld for Privacy Purposes, Privacy service provided by Withheld for Privacy ehf, Vuong Hoang, AN NGUYEN, NEO CORP., and Ngoc Tam Nguyen WIPO Case No. D2021-1714 (“a use cannot be deemed bona fide if the disputed Domain Names constitute trademark infringement”). The Panel agrees with this approach, and with those prior UDRP panels which have considered that clear cases of trademark infringement may appropriately be addressed under the Policy, and that conduct amounting to such infringement may support a finding that a respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in a disputed Domain Name. The Panel declines to find that the Respondent has a legitimate interest in circumstances where it seems more likely than not that his activities are infringing the Complainant’s trademarks.
It is the Complainant who bears the burden of proof under paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy, and that burden requires more than establishing that bad faith registration is plausible; it must be shown to be more probable than not. Given the Panel thinks the Respondent’s account of independent derivation, without intent to target the Complainant, is more likely than not true, the Panel is not satisfied that the Complainant has discharged that burden. The Panel recognizes that the Respondent has acknowledged he was aware of the Complainant when he registered the disputed Domain Name. However, knowledge of the Complainant and/or the Complainant’s trademark at the time when he registered the disputed Domain Name may not be sufficient in itself, particularly if there is lack of bad faith intention targeting the Complainant and/or its trademark. In the present circumstances, the available evidence is not sufficient for the Panel to conclude, to the standard required under the Policy, that the Respondent’s aim in registering the disputed Domain Name was to unfairly profit from or exploit the Complainant’s trademark.
Complaint Denied
Complainant’s Counsel: Murgitroyd & Company, United Kingdom
Respondent’s Counsel: Self-represented
Comments by ICA General Counsel, Zak Muscovitch:
The Panel accepted that the Respondent independently derived the End Label brand, found that his website copies nothing of the Complainant’s, and found no targeting. It nonetheless declined to find a legitimate interest, reasoning that the Respondent’s business was more likely than not infringing the Complainant’s END registration and that an infringing use cannot be bona fide, adopting earlier panel reasoning that paragraph 2 of the Policy makes registrants responsible for ensuring their domain names do not infringe, so that an infringing use falls short of good faith. The Panel was careful to add that independent adoption, even if true, is likely no defence to an infringement claim, and that infringement is a matter for a court.
That observation raises the question worth identifying here. Trademark infringement does not require intent. A trader who adopts a confusingly similar name in good faith may nevertheless infringe. The UDRP turns on intent. As UDRP Perspectives, §0.19 (Trademark Infringement) puts it, cybersquatting requires intent whereas trademark infringement does not, and unintentional trademark infringement is outside the scope of the UDRP. Paragraph 4(c)(i) asks whether the offering is bona fide, a question that turns on the honesty of the respondent’s adoption and use of the name. Once a panel accepts, as this one did, that the name was adopted independently and without targeting, there is a reasonable argument that the bona fide question has been answered, and that a likelihood-of-confusion test, which takes no account of good faith, answers a different one. UDRP Perspectives, §0.1 (Scope of the Policy) records that the Policy was adopted for abusive registrations made with bad-faith intent to profit from others’ marks, leaving good faith disputes between competing right holders to the courts. This case sits close to that line. The same distinction was drawn in this Digest’s comment on getneuron.com (Vol. 4.50): a respondent who adopts a similar name without knowing of the mark may infringe, but does not cybersquat.
On the third element the Panel drew the line in the right place. The Respondent admitted knowing of the Complainant as a retailer when he registered the domain name. The Panel did not treat that admission as decisive:
“knowledge of the Complainant and/or the Complainant’s trademark at the time when he registered the Disputed Domain Name may not be sufficient in itself, particularly if there is lack of bad faith intention targeting the Complainant and/or its trademark. In the present circumstances, the available evidence is not sufficient for the Panel to conclude, to the standard required under the Policy, that the Respondent’s aim in registering the Disputed Domain Name was to unfairly profit from or exploit the Complainant’s trademark.”
Knowledge of a mark does not, without more, establish an intention to exploit it, and paragraph 4(a)(iii) requires the latter. This Digest made the same point in its comment on ventureupconsulting.com (Vol. 6.25), where a shared location and overlapping services were held not to establish targeting. As UDRP Perspectives, §3.3 (Targeting) explains, the complainant must prove that the respondent intended to target that specific complainant, not merely that it knew of a similar trademark, and without evidence of targeting the complaint fails. The Panel’s finding of good faith on the third element invites the question whether the same finding might also have carried the second.
Is “Farms” Enough? A Disclaimer, a Dictionary Word and the First Element
TNG Worldwide, Inc. v. 王涛 (Wang Tao), WIPO Case No. D2026-3679
<farmsbotanicals.com>
Panelist: Mr. Matthew Kennedy
Brief Facts: The US-based Complainant manufactures and markets personal care, hospitality, and household products including its GINGER LILY FARMS line of vegan, cruelty-free, plant-based soaps, shampoos, lotions and cleaning products, which it sells through <tngworldwide.com>. It owns three U.S. trademark registrations, issued on July 19, 2011, June 12, 2018, and December 15, 2020; each disclaims “GINGER LILY” apart from the mark as shown, and the Complainant’s product labels feature the Ginger Lily Farms logo above the word “botanicals.” The disputed Domain Name was registered on November 8, 2025 by a Chinese Respondent, and resolves to an English-language website that displays GINGER LILY FARMS in the same stylized script as the Complainant’s logo, offers multipacks, hand soap and body products, and shows images of the Complainant’s products. Its footer carries a tagline about cruelty-free foaming dish soaps, and its refund policy contains terms about body-piercing jewelry and engraved items.
The Complainant alleges that the disputed Domain Name is confusingly similar to its GINGER LILY FARMS mark and that the content of the associated website confirms that the Respondent selected the disputed Domain Name to target the Complainant’s mark. The Complainant further submits that the Respondent is not using the disputed Domain Name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services. Rather, the Respondent’s website creates the false impression that it is an official or authorized Ginger Lily Farms website. The Complainant further alleges that the Respondent had actual knowledge of the Complainant and its GINGER LILY FARMS mark, as demonstrated by the Respondent’s website, which is devoted to purported GINGER LILY FARMS products, prominently displays the Complainant’s mark, and reproduces the Complainant’s product photographs, packaging, product descriptions, marketing copy, and overall commercial presentation. The Respondent did not file a Response.
Held: The disputed Domain Name incorporates part of the mark (i.e., “FARMS”) as its initial element, omitting the other elements of the mark (i.e., “GINGER LILY”) and adding the term “botanicals”. “FARMS” is not the subject of a disclaimer in the Complainant’s trademark registrations. There is a prima facie case of confusing similarity for the purposes of standing under the first element of the Policy. This is confirmed by the content of the website associated with the disputed Domain Name, which displays the GINGER LILY FARMS mark and images of products labelled with the Ginger Lily Farms logo above the word “botanicals”, purportedly offering them for sale. These circumstances indicate that the Respondent seeks to target the trademark through the disputed Domain Name. Accordingly, the disputed Domain Name is confusingly similar to the mark for the purposes of the Policy. See WIPO Overview 3.1, sections 1.7 and 1.15.
Having reviewed the available record, the Panel finds the Complainant made an unrebutted prima facie showing that the Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in the disputed Domain Name. Further, the disputed Domain Name was registered on November 8, 2025, several years after the registration of the Complainant’s GINGER LILY FARMS mark. Given the facts and circumstances as described above, the Panel finds that the Respondent knew of the Complainant and its GINGER LILY FARMS mark when he registered the disputed Domain Name. Furthermore, the Panel finds that the disputed Domain Name is intended to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to the Respondent’s website by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the Respondent’s website or of the products on that website within the terms of paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy. Having reviewed the record, the Panel finds the Respondent’s registration and use of the disputed Domain Name constitutes bad faith under the Policy.
Transfer
Complainant’s Counsel: Dykema Gossett PLLC, United States
Respondent’s Counsel: No Response
Comments by ICA General Counsel, Zak Muscovitch:
There is no doubt about what the Respondent was doing. The website reproduced the GINGER LILY FARMS mark in the Complainant’s own stylized script, displayed the Complainant’s product images and copy, and presented itself as an official store. The Panel’s findings on the second and third elements follow readily from that. The question raised by this decision is whether the first element was satisfied at all, since the domain name is <farmsbotanicals.com> and the mark is GINGER LILY FARMS.
The Panel reasoned that “farms” is the one element of the mark not covered by the disclaimer of “ginger lily”, that the domain name incorporates it, and that there is accordingly a prima facie case of confusing similarity, confirmed by the content of the website. Each step invites a question. A disclaimer records that the registrant claims no exclusive right in the disclaimed words apart from the mark as shown. It does not elevate the undisclaimed remainder into the mark. What the Complainant registered is the phrase GINGER LILY FARMS as a whole, and “farms” standing alone is an ordinary word. A domain name that drops the two words carrying the mark’s identity, keeps the dictionary word, and adds another is not one in which the mark can be recognized. The Panel noted that “botanicals” appears beneath the logo on the Complainant’s product labels, and that is the strongest fact for its finding. But packaging text is not the registered mark, and the comparison the first element calls for is between the domain name and the mark.
That leaves the website content. As UDRP Perspectives, §1.8 (Confusingly Similar) explains, the test is a side-by-side comparison of the domain name and the trademark, and the question is whether the appearance of the domain name itself causes confusion with the mark. Panels may sometimes consider broader circumstances such as website content to support a finding of confusing similarity, but that analysis is an additional factor, not a replacement for the test. The difficulty here is that there was little for the content to confirm. The website did not corroborate a similarity already apparent from the domain name; it supplied the similarity. If a single dictionary word drawn from a mark, combined with an impersonating website, is enough, the first element no longer does any independent work and the third element decides the case on its own.
The instinct to reach conduct this blatant is understandable. But the Policy’s remedy is for domain names that are identical or confusingly similar to a mark, and a complainant whose mark is being impersonated behind an unrelated domain name has other remedies for the website itself. The first element is described in this very decision as a standing requirement. A fair reading of UDRP Perspectives §1.8 is that the Policy asks panels to give it the same attention as the other two, and that on a side-by-side comparison this domain name does not meet it.
A Post-Sale Handover Dispute Is Not Necessarily a Cybersquatting Case
Blue Media Services Ltda v. Celso Oliveira, blue, WIPO Case No. D2026-3763
<bluems.com>
Panelist: Mr. Wilson Pinheiro Jabur
Brief Facts: The Complainant is a Brazilian limited liability company, incorporated on July 16, 2020, and one of four affiliated companies doing online advertising under the BLUE, BLUEMS and BLUE MEDIA SERVICES names. It claims unregistered rights in BLUEMS, the abbreviation under which it trades. The Respondent, an individual in Brazil, founded the Complainant and was its director. He sold its entire share capital to Phaion AG, a Liechtenstein company, under a share purchase agreement reportedly executed in July 2024 as part of a wider transaction for the four BLUE companies completed on January 27, 2025. He resigned as director in October 2025, and had his services agreement terminated for material breach on March 13, 2026. Since then, the Complainant and Phaion AG have been seeking to obtain control over various of the Complainant’s IT assets, including the disputed Domain Name. The Domain Name was originally registered on August 11, 2000. The record does not show when the Respondent acquired it, but the earliest WHOIS record in evidence, dated April 13, 2022, lists “celso oliveira,” company “blue,” Brazil, as registrant.
The Complainant asserts that a founder who holds the company’s own domain name in his personal name, and who has accepted through his solicitors that the class of assets to which it belongs is the company’s, can have no rights or legitimate interests in it, but, at most, holds it in a fiduciary capacity for the company. The Complainant further asserts that, since the sale was completed, and in particular since the Respondent’s suspension in February 2026, the Respondent has used his registrant-level control of the disputed Domain Name to withhold from the Complainant control over the own business email and DNS infrastructure associated with the disputed Domain Name. The Respondent did not file a Response. In its unsolicited Supplemental Filing, the Complainant stresses that, in the correspondence exchanged between the Parties’ solicitors, the Respondent’s solicitors acknowledged the domain had previously been used by the Blue Companies but denied its registration in the Respondent’s registrar account. They described the Respondent only as the privacy service’s “underlying contact,” not as the registrant or owner.
Preliminary Issue: Effect of the Arbitration Proceeding: The Panel notes that Phaion AG, the Complainant’s parent company, is the claimant in five pending LCIA arbitrations against the Respondent and others arising out of the sale of the Complainant and affiliated companies and in which, among other matters, the handover and control of certain IT and other assets is under dispute. The record indicates that the Respondent’s solicitors have sought to exclude the disputed Domain Name from the assets falling within the scope of the handover process in the arbitrations, stating, inter alia, that the Respondent had access “only” to the domain name.
In these circumstances, the Panel considers that determination of the present Complaint under the Policy does not require the Panel to determine the broader contractual disputes pending before the arbitral tribunal, and that the record does not indicate that the question of the registration of the disputed Domain Name in the Respondent’s name is one that the Respondent has maintained falls to be determined in those proceedings. The Panel therefore considers it appropriate to proceed to determine the Complaint under the Policy.
Held: The Panel found that the Complainant established unregistered rights in BLUEMS and that the Domain Name is identical to the mark. Further, given the circumstances and evidence produced in the case, the Panel finds that the disputed Domain Name was held and used by the Respondent, as founder and former director of the Complainant, in connection with and for the benefit of the Complainant’s business. The Respondent subsequently sold the entire issued share capital of the Complainant to Phaion AG and has provided no explanation as to any independent right or legitimate interest he may retain in the disputed Domain Name. In this respect, the Panel finds the circumstances of this case analogous to those in eProfiler Solutions Ltd. v. David Lane, WIPO Case No. D2025-4820, where the panel found that the disputed Domain Name “was registered, and has at all material times been used, for the sole benefit of the Complainant”. In this Panel’s view, there are no grounds on which the Respondent could claim rights or legitimate interests in maintaining in his own name an asset exclusively associated with the Complainant’s business and used not only to host its official website, but also in connection with the Complainant’s email addresses.
The evidence further establishes that the Respondent had become the registrant by April 13, 2022, the date of the earliest WHOIS record in evidence, but does not establish precisely when, how, or under what circumstances that occurred. The Panel accepts that the disputed Domain Name was subsequently used in connection with the Complainant’s business, including in connection with its official website and email addresses, and further notes the Complainant’s contention that the Respondent held the disputed Domain Name in a fiduciary capacity for the Complainant. Those circumstances are relevant to the question of bad faith use. They do not, however, by themselves establish that the Respondent acted in bad faith at the time of Domain Name registration. Therefore, the Complainant has not established bad faith at the time of the acquisition of the disputed Domain Name, notwithstanding that the record raises serious questions as to the Respondent’s continued retention in his own name of a domain name used as an essential part of the Complainant’s business after he had sold his entire shareholding in the Complainant to Phaion AG.
Complaint Denied
Complainant’s Counsel: Keystone Law, United Kingdom
Respondent’s Counsel: No Response
Comments by ICA General Counsel, Zak Muscovitch:
This is a dispute between a company and the founder who sold it, over which assets he was obliged to hand over after the sale. The share purchase agreement defined the intellectual property to be transferred, and the buyer, Phaion AG, which is now the Complainant’s parent, has commenced five LCIA arbitrations against the Respondent and others concerning, among other things, the handover of IT assets. The Complaint asked the Panel to find that an officer who holds the company’s domain name in his own name holds it as the company’s fiduciary and has registered it in bad faith as against the company.
The Panel considered whether to proceed in light of the arbitrations and decided that it could:
“determination of the present Complaint under the Policy does not require the Panel to determine the broader contractual disputes pending before the arbitral tribunal, and … the record does not indicate that the question of the registration of the disputed domain name in the Respondent’s name is one that the Respondent has maintained falls to be determined in those proceedings.”
That reasoning holds as far as it goes. The Panel could decide whether the domain name was registered in bad faith without deciding who was contractually entitled to it. But paragraph 18(a) of the Rules gave the Panel another option. Where legal proceedings have been initiated in respect of the domain name dispute, a panel may suspend or terminate the UDRP proceeding rather than continue it. On the Complainant’s case the domain name is one of the IT assets whose handover is before the tribunal, and the parties’ solicitors had been arguing for months before the Complaint was filed about whether it fell within the “Key Assets”. It is at least arguable that the domain name question was subsumed in that larger commercial dispute and that the Panel could have declined to proceed on that ground alone, without reaching the merits at all. The Panel’s own disposition suggests as much. It found that the Respondent’s post-sale retention of the domain name raised serious questions, and then held that those questions need not be determined under paragraph 4(a)(iii). The question that mattered to the parties was not one the Policy was going to answer.
As UDRP Perspectives, §0.1 (Scope of the Policy) explains, the UDRP is intended only for clear-cut cases of cybersquatting, and courts equipped with discovery and cross-examination should be deferred to where a case involves material unreconcilable facts or where the legal issues call into question whether it is a case of cybersquatting at all. UDRP Perspectives, §3.9 (Prior Business Relationship) adds that disputes between former business associates in which the domain name is one piece of a larger falling-out are often outside the Policy’s proper scope and better suited to a forum with fuller evidentiary tools. This case had both features: a contested acquisition history the record could not resolve, and a theory of liability drawn from company law rather than from the Policy.
The Panel reached the right result by holding the Complainant to its burden on bad faith registration, and nothing in the decision prejudges the arbitration. The alternative was to say that a founder’s domain name caught up in a post-sale handover dispute, with the related claims already before a tribunal, is not a matter for the Policy, and to leave the “Key Assets” question to that tribunal. That course was open under paragraph 18(a) and would have reached the same place with a clearer signal about where the Complainant’s remedy lies.
A Capital “I” and a Lowercase “L”: Right Result, But Is Malice the Test for RDNH?
Polaris Industries Inc. v. Domain Admin / FindYourDomain, Forum Case No. FA2609002247733
<polarisinc.com>
Panelist: Mr. Ho-Hyun Nahm, Esq.
Preliminary Issues: Termination of Proceedings and Deficient Response: The Complainant submitted a request to Forum on October 9, 2026, to terminate the proceeding, arguing that it inadvertently identified the wrong domain name due to a spelling confusion, shortly after the Respondent submitted a Response on October 8, 2026. The second issue relates to a deficient response. Forum determined that the Response did not comply with paragraph 5(a) of the Rules and paragraph 5(c)(iii) of Forum’s Supplemental Rules because it exceeded the file size restrictions set forth in Annex A to the Supplemental Rules, and thus Forum does not consider the Response to be in compliance with paragraph 5 of the Rules.
On October 13, 2026, the Panel issued a Procedural Order providing the Respondent with a specified deadline to submit justifiable grounds for objecting to Complainant’s termination request, and simultaneously granting an opportunity to cure the deficient Response. The Respondent timely submitted an Additional Submission on October 13, 2026. Accordingly, the Panel finds that the second issue regarding the deficient Response has been resolved.
Brief Facts: The commencement date of this proceeding was September 30, 2026, and the Respondent timely submitted a Response on October 8, 2026. On October 9, 2026, the Complainant submitted a request to terminate the proceeding pursuant to paragraph 17(b) of the Rules. The Complainant asserts that it inadvertently identified the wrong domain name, explaining that the domain name used by the intended Respondent is not the disputed Domain Name <polarisinc.com> as it initially appeared, but rather <polarislnc.com> (polaris + “lnc”), where the first character of “lnc” is a lowercase letter “L,” rather than a capital letter “I.” The inclusion of the disputed Domain Name was an error, and the Complainant does not seek transfer or cancellation of that domain name. Upon discovering the error, the Complainant sought to withdraw the Complaint. Although the Respondent has declined to consent to withdrawal, the Complainant respectfully submits that continued adjudication is unnecessary because the Complainant has unequivocally abandoned the relief requested against the disputed Domain Name.
The Respondent objects to Complainant’s termination request, asserting that a pending request for a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking under Rule 15(e) constitutes justifiable grounds to refuse a unilateral termination. The Respondent argues the Reverse Domain Name Hijacking claim is valid because the Complainant, despite being represented by experienced counsel, filed a fundamentally flawed complaint. The Complainant falsely certified the accuracy of the Complaint, baselessly accusing an established business of criminal conduct and seeking to transfer a domain registered in 1995. The Complainant’s evidence did not even match the disputed Domain Name, and a simple WHOIS query would have prevented the error. Filing a complaint that the Complainant knew or should have known could not succeed justifies a Reverse Domain Name Hijacking finding. Furthermore, the Respondent contends that terminating without prejudice would reward reckless filing and defeat the deterrent purpose of Rule 15(e).
Held: Paragraph 17(b) of the Rules states that if it becomes unnecessary or impossible to continue the administrative proceeding for any reason, the Panel shall terminate the proceeding, unless a Party raises justifiable grounds for objection.
The Panel acknowledges Respondent’s objection, which is primarily rooted in a request for a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. However, as analyzed in detail in the Reverse Domain Name Hijacking section below, the circumstances unequivocally demonstrate that the Complainant made a genuine typographical error. The creation date of September 22, 2026, explicitly cited in the Complaint, strictly corresponds to the domain name Complainant intended to target, not the disputed Domain Name registered in 1995. Furthermore, the webpage evidence annexed to the Complaint displays content associated with the intended domain name, not the website resolving from the disputed Domain Name. These glaring discrepancies conclusively prove that the Complainant did not target the Respondent with a bad faith intent to harass, but rather committed an understandable spelling mistake between a capital “I” and a lowercase “L,” a visual confusion that can inadvertently occur even when represented by legal professionals.
The Panel certainly recognizes that identifying an incorrect domain name is a careless act that can inflict unforeseen temporal and financial burdens upon unintended domain owners. The Complainant is expected to exercise meticulous care to ensure the accurate identification of a disputed Domain Name before commencing a proceeding. Nevertheless, adjudicating a dispute over a domain name that the Complainant does not wish to challenge would be an inefficient use of administrative resources. Furthermore, terminating this proceeding without prejudice does not harm the Respondent’s rights. Accordingly, the Panel grants Complainant’s request to terminate the proceeding without prejudice.
RDNH: While the Panel acknowledges Respondent’s frustrations regarding the time and expense incurred due to Complainant’s negligence, a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking requires evidence of malicious intent or bad faith targeting of a specific domain name holder, not merely professional negligence or a clerical error. Addressing the Respondent’s arguments step by step. First, the discrepancy between the 1995 registration date and the September 22, 2026 evidence reflects error, not bad faith or an intent to hijack the domain. Second, confusing “I” with “L” and failing to verify the WHOIS record was negligent, but does not establish the abusive intent required for Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. Third, the Complainant promptly admitted the error and sought termination, without prolonging the case or pursuing a meritless claim. No calculated harassment or improper motive is evident.
In conclusion, while Complainant’s lack of careful scrutiny is regrettable, the record overwhelmingly supports a finding of an innocent, albeit negligent, typographical error. Therefore, the Panel declines to make a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.
Terminated
Complainant’s Counsel: Lindsay M.R. Jones, Merchant & Gould, P.C., United States
Respondent’s Counsel: Grant Carpenter, United States
Comments by ICA General Counsel, Zak Muscovitch:
The Complainant meant to file against <polarislnc.com>, a domain name registered in September 2026 with a lowercase “l” standing in for a capital “I”. It filed instead against <polarisinc.com>, a domain name created in 1995 and held, on the Respondent’s account, by an established business. The Respondent answered, the Complainant discovered its mistake the next day and asked to withdraw, and the Respondent objected and pressed for a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. The Panel terminated the proceeding without prejudice and declined to find RDNH. Both conclusions look right. One step in the reasoning deserves a closer look.
The Panel stated the test this way:
“a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking requires evidence of malicious intent or bad faith targeting of a specific domain name holder, not merely professional negligence or a clerical error.”
The Panel stated the test as malicious intent or bad faith targeting of a specific domain name holder. That formulation sets the bar higher than the Rules do, although in circumstances like these it may well be the primary consideration. Paragraph 15(e) of the Rules asks whether the complaint was brought in bad faith, and gives RDNH and harassment as examples. As UDRP Perspectives, §4.2 (When a Finding of RDNH is Appropriate) explains, Rule 15(e) provides very broad parameters, and a panel can find that a complaint was brought in bad faith for any number of appropriate reasons. One of the most common forms is a complaint brought where the complainant knew or ought to have known that it could not succeed. Another is a breach of the certification of completeness and accuracy. Neither requires malice. A complainant that files a fatally weak case through carelessness, and then persists in it, faces RDNH on a “should have known” standard without anyone needing to show that it set out to harm the respondent.
The Panel’s result nonetheless holds, because the facts that actually decided it do not depend on malice. The Complainant’s own evidence pointed to the other domain name: the creation date pleaded was September 22, 2026, and the annexed webpage was the intended target’s, not the Respondent’s. That is the mark of a slip rather than a case the Complainant should have recognized, from the facts available to it, as one that could not succeed. A complainant can face RDNH on the filing alone where the public record should have told it as much, and a careless filing is not excused by what happens afterwards. But what happened afterwards still counts. The Complainant admitted the error the day after the Response arrived, abandoned any claim to the domain name, and sought termination. Prompt withdrawal does not erase the filing, but it is strong mitigation, and together with the nature of the error it supports the Panel’s conclusion. The error was also as plain to the Respondent as it became to the Complainant. A short letter pointing out that the Complaint’s evidence concerned a different domain name might well have produced the withdrawal before a Response was needed.
The termination point was handled with care. As UDRP Perspectives, §0.4 (Withdrawal After a Response is Filed) explains, a respondent that has filed a Response and sought RDNH generally has a justifiable objection to a unilateral withdrawal, since termination would otherwise let a complainant escape scrutiny of its conduct. The Panel did not let that happen. It issued a Procedural Order inviting the Respondent’s grounds, considered the RDNH request on its merits, and only then terminated. Termination without prejudice leaves refiling open in principle, which bears on the Respondent’s interest in finality, though the Complainant had disclaimed any claim to the domain name. The Respondent got the ruling it was entitled to, even though the ruling went against it.
Disclaimer: The facts are taken from the decisions themselves and have not been independently verified. The editors and publishers accept no responsibility for their accuracy.
Ankur Raheja is the Editor-in-Chief of the ICA’s new weekly UDRP Case Summary service. Ankur has practiced law in India since 2005 and has been practicing domain name law for over ten years, representing clients from all over the world in UDRP proceedings. He is the founder of Cylaw Solutions.
He is an accredited panelist with ADNDRC (Hong Kong) and MFSD (Italy). Previously, Ankur worked as an Arbitrator/Panelist with .IN Registry for six years. In a advisory capacity, he has worked with NIXI/.IN Registry and Net4 India’s resolution professional.