Baccarat SA of Baccarat, France just won a UDRP on the domain name onlinebaccarat.com owned by Virtual Clicks of San Diego, California which may have been owned by the domain holder for as many as 12 years.
At the end of the day, the domain holder couldn’t prove to the panel satisfaction that they owned the domain name continuously since it moved to privacy a number of years back. The other problem for the domain holder is that the landing page at some points had links to crystal rather than gambling.
The four UDRP loses that Robert Farris d/b/a Virtual Clicks had didn’t help either.
Here are the relevant facts and findings by the one member panel:
The Respondent operates a website at the disputed domain name which appears to offer for online sale a variety of products which appear on the home page to comprise essentially card or gambling related services.
The home page features items of jewelry as well.
The search function allows a visitor to type in “crystal” and sponsored links to other sites appear.
So also does a window for related searches which displays Waterford and Swarovski products, both very well-known manufacturers and suppliers of crystal.
These would appear to be pay-per-click (“PPC”) links or links that default to other online shopping websites.
The Respondent’s website does not appear to feature Baccarat crystal at all nor any online games for the card game commonly known as Baccarat. Typing Baccarat into the search window displays other websites for crystal products and also websites for card games.
The various windows on the website at the disputed domain name all have a banner at the top “the domain online-Baccarat.com is for sale” and direct inquiries to BuyDomains.com.
That website appears to be a warehouse that deals in selling domain names.
The disputed domain name was registered in the name of VirtualClicks.com in 2001.
Although there is no evidence to the point it is assumed it has been live (as opposed to being merely a parking site) since that time.
The Registrant was changed in April 2010 to Domains by Proxy, Inc. The Registrant was changed again in April 2012 to Virtual Clicks.
The Respondent relies on its registration of the disputed domain name since 2001.
It says the domain name of the Complainant <baccarat.com> has been registered for only 9 months. In contrast the Respondent has owned the disputed domain name for 12 years.…
