There was a recent post on TheDomains.com blog about TDNAM.com offering TM domains for sale recently and I wanted to add in my 2 cents about it.

First off, I would highly suggest not buying any trademarked term domains, unless it’s a generic term that happens to be trademarked in a certain field. Registering any domain with the term Google in it, is clearly a No, No. Same with eBay or Paypal or Nike etc. Now registering a domain with with a term in it that is a registered trademark but is a generic term is ok if you are using it in a different field other then what the trademark is for.

Some current expired domains at auction right now on TDNAM.com that are SO clearly Trademarked terms are PlayStation.us, WiiForum.com & WiiGames.com . The people bidding on these domains are just asking for trouble and will very likely have the domain taken from them at somepoint. These kind of domains are simply Dumb investment and WILL get you a date! A date in court that is.

TDNAM.com is also in the very wrong, since they are also making a profit on these domains. They wouldn’t sell for the prices they do if they didn’t have the trademarked terms in them like, Wii or PlayStation etc. With TDNAM/Godaddy selling these domains is no different then any other entity selling a trademarked domain. Godaddy needs to do the right thing and offer these domains directly to Nintendo and Sony and only ask they pay the domain registration fees. There is no need to make these domain names offered for public sale, but since it doesn’t make sense to release these domains out of the registry, since somebody will likely register the domain on a drop, there needs to be a process in place to get these domain names to the proper owner. In the cased listed above, it is very clear who the trademark owner is, so the process should be simple once contacts are put in place.

Now TDNAM.com is not the only domain aftermarket auction service offering expired domain names for sale that are clear trademarked terms. Doing a quick search on NameJet.com for the keyword "ebay" shows 116 returns. Now not every single one is clearly an ebay trademarked term but contain ebay in the domain. BluebayCreations.com is one example that the domain is ok, but a domain like ebay-auction-payments.com or ArtEbay.com are NOT ok.

Nearly every domain auction service provided tons of returns when I typed any trademarked term into the search feature that would clearly be infringing. SnapNames.com, Pool.com & Afternic.com with Words like: Nike, Paypal, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Visa, Mastercard, Honda, Toyota etc.

It is also to note that when eNom does it’s bulk domain tasting buys daily, they must have a system in place to weed out trademarked domains, but they do it ass backwards. They weed the TM domains out AFTER they catch/buy them. They have to put the lists into their software to register the domains, so why they do not pull them before they go after domains, I do not know. They do weed the TM domains within about 1 hour after registering their tasted domains and delete them.

Seeing all these TM domains being sold on these domain auction services, makes me wonder how they could even stay in business. They should be getting sued left and right by the TM holders, but I think it’s clear these TM holder companies have not noticed these auction services are doing it or do not spend the time/money needed to go after the issue.