TechCrunch is one of my favorite websites to read, and I have to say, I spend quite a bit of time on the site. I especially enjoy reading articles by Michael Arrington, Robin Wauters, and Erick Schonfeld, two TechCrunch staff journalists. Unfortunately, I disagree with the portrayal of Mike Mann’s Domain Asset Holdings in yesterday’s article about Facebook’s UDRP filing for 21 domain names.

First, let’s start with the case. Facebook filed a UDRP for 21 domain names owned by Domain Asset Holdings that included the term “Facebook” in them. Some of these names include FacebookBabes.com, FacebookCheats.com…etc. Some might think it’s a cut and dry case, but with trademark law, there’s very little that is cut and dry.

When I was in college, there was a freshman facebook distributed to all RAs, administrators, and freshmen. I am sure there are plenty of other colleges that did and still do the same. Facebook the company did not coin the term “facebook” despite making it into a well-known brand. That being said, according to Domain Asset Holdings founder, Mike Mann, “those names were registered by accident and we are trying to give them back to them.”

My biggest issue with the article is Robin’s characterization of Mann’s company. The article stated that these 21 “domain names are all currently owned by a company called Domain Asset Holdings, a known domain squatter based in Potomac, Maryland.” The article linked to a legal action for the domain name CustomResins.com, which appears to have settled.

There are two organizations that handle UDRP cases: World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and National Arbitration Forum (NAF). According to the WIPO database, there were no UDRP decisions with Domain Asset Holdings listed as the respondent. The NAF database lists two decisions with Domain Asset Holdings as the respondent. Both of these cases ended with Domain Asset Holdings winning.

In looking at Domain Asset Holdings’ nameservers, the company appears to own over one hundred thousand domain names. Having just two UDRP decisions (not including the recent Facebook filing) is quite remarkable for a company with this many domain names. This surely isn’t the sign of a company that’s a “known domain squatter.”

Furthermore, Mike Mann is the entrepreneur who previously sold BuyDomains to NameMedia. I don’t know the purchase price, but I’ve heard it was many millions of dollars. I’ve seen BuyDomains lose very few UDRP cases. Both of Mann’s companies generally invest in descriptive domain names, not trademarks.

For whatever reason, Domain Asset Holdings “accidentally” registered a group of names with trademarks in them and is trying to give them back to the company (according to Mike Mann). In my opinion, the description of Mann’s company as a known domain squatter is quite inaccurate, and I would hope Robin considers changing it.

***Update***

Mike Mann posted a comment on Robin’s article today stating “we have 150,000 names many of which a machine registered.”

I read an article on TechCrunch about a neat new start up that is getting considerable buzz at South By Southwest (SXSW) in Austin. Zaarly is operational only in Austin at the moment, and it lets people posts what they want/need along with a price, and others can agree to provide it for them at that price. For instance, I can post that I want a coffee from Starbucks and I am willing to pay someone $10 for it.

I can see this becoming a popular service if they’re able to work out potentially seedy issues that I could foresee coming up (ie prostitution, drugs…etc).

Seeing that the Zaarly.com domain name was just registered back in February, I would bet the company name was fairly hastily chosen. It’s a unique name, and sounds like a cool new brand, but the problem the company will encounter is that as people spread the word, they will be helping to build traffic to Zarly.com, a domain name not owned by the company (registered in 2005).

While it doesn’t appear that Zarly.com is being used, the company needs to take some of its funding to buy it. It doesn’t need to change its name, but it should make sure it owns the obvious typo to forward that traffic back to the intended website.

Zarly.com looks like it will expire on March 31, 2011, although the owner could obviously renew it.  If the company hopes to get the name on a drop rather than trying to buy it from the owner above registration fee, company directors should be cautious. It’s likely domain investors would back order this domain name thinking about what I am discussing, and the cost would likely increase exponentially.

My advice to Zaarly is to go after Zarly.com ASAP.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the .CO Registry’s Founder’s Program, a program in which web developers with a great plan can be awarded a .CO domain name before others have the opportunity to acquire them. Techcrunch was recently awarded Disrupt.co, and the company has used the domain name for its Disrupt conference currently being held in New York City.

I just learned that Sedo has teamed up with the .CO Registry and together they will be auctioning off the premium, one letter domain name E.co, with the proceeds from this auction going to the charity of the winning bidder’s choice. As you may recall, E.biz was recently auctioned and the bidding ended at over $66,000.

The bidding for E.co will run from June 7 – June 10th, and it will conclude at 4pm. The auction coincides with Internet Week, an event in New York City that celebrates everything related to the Internet, including domain names. To give domain investors and others more of an opportunity to bid, the last hour of the auction “will be conducted live from Internet Week’s broadcast stage and simulcast at both the Internet Retailer (Chicago) and TRAFFIC (Vancouver) shows, allowing conference attendees at all three events and online participants from around the world to be a part of the action.”

With the proceeds of the domain auction going to a charity selected by the winning bidder, I think this is going to exceed the E.biz auction by a wide margin.

The full press release from Sedo is below and you can learn more about this by visiting E.co

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Sedo, the leading online domain marketplace, today announced it will support the highly anticipated introduction of the .CO top level domain name (TLD) by powering an historic charity auction for E.CO.  The auction, which runs from June 7 at 12 pm EDT to June 10 at 4 pm EDT, will be hosted by .CO Internet S.A.S. at  Internet Week, a festival in New York City celebrating all things Internet.  The last hour of bidding – June 10 from 3-4 pm EDT — will be conducted live from Internet Week’s broadcast stage and simulcast at both the Internet Retailer (Chicago) and TRAFFIC (Vancouver) shows, allowing conference attendees at all three events and online participants from around the world to be a part of the action.  All proceeds will go to the charity of the buyer’s choice.

“With the launch of .CO, we are witnessing the introduction of one of the most valuable domain extensions on the market — one that provides so many unique branding opportunities for Internet users across the globe,” said Kathy Nielsen, director of sales at Sedo.com.  “We are excited to be part of this historic event and hope to leverage this unique opportunity to continue educating the market on the critical role a domain name strategy plays in the success of any marketing campaign.”

The .CO extension has been named one of the most highly anticipated domain launches since .COM, because of the infinite opportunities it provides Internet users, and its instant appeal given short, meaningful names are so rare and difficult to obtain. Considered a unique and exciting alternative to the .COM extension, .CO has many potential uses for Internet users looking to build or expand their brand online.

Many different types of organizations will be able to benefit from what .CO has to offer, including companies, communities, corporations and other commercial and/or non-profit endeavors.  Some early adopters that have already started building websites on .CO domains include the popular political website Politico.com, which recently launched a branded url shortener at politi.co; and the popular blog TechCrunch, which is hosting the TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 conference at www.Disrupt.co.

The E.CO auction marks the beginning of a new era online — it is the very first .CO domain auction available, providing Internet users with a limited opportunity to purchase one of the shortest, most meaningful domain names in the world.  Domain names of this nature are highly valuable because they are more memorable and extremely rare, presenting an incredible branding opportunity for marketers to successfully build or extend their web presence.

“Since the dawn of the Internet, the letter “e” has come to signify all things electronic – from email and e-commerce to online exploration, education and entertainment – and everything in between,” said Juan Diego Calle, CEO of .CO Internet S.A.S.  When paired with the .CO domain, the letter “e” takes on an even greater significance – offering buyers “perhaps the shortest, most memorable digital brand in the world – a domain name with endless possibilities.”

“We are very excited to be working with a strong partner like Sedo to help us introduce the .CO domain to the world,” said Calle,  “and we are confident that our work together will raise a lot of money for a very worthy charity – which is simply a fantastic way to celebrate our upcoming launch!”

To learn more about the .CO domain and the E.CO auction, please visit: www.e.co

About .CO
.CO Internet S.A.S. is the Registry Operator for the .CO top-level domain.  .CO Internet was formed by a strategic venture between Arcelandia S.A. and Neustar, Inc. The .CO domain offers individuals and businesses a truly global, recognizable and credible option in branding their online presence. Thanks to leading-edge technology, enhanced security and unprecedented rights protections for trademark owners, the .CO domain is poised to become the world’s next premier web address. For additional information, please visit www.COinternet.co.

About Sedo
Sedo, an acronym for “Search Engine for Domain Offers,” is the leading domain marketplace and monetization provider.  Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Sedo has assembled the world’s largest database of domain names for sale, with more than 16 million listings.  The success of Sedo’s model has attracted a global membership base of more than 1 million domain professionals.  Sedo is owned by Sedo Holding AG (ISIN DE0005490155 / German WKN: 549015), which is part of the German United Internet AG (ISIN DE0005089031/ WKN 508903).  Sedo offers regional versions of its site for the UK (Sedo.co.uk), France (Sedo.fr), Germany (Sedo.de), and Spain (Sedo.com).  For additional information, please visit them online at www.Sedo.com or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/Sedo and on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Sedo.

TechCrunch ran an article today about a European company called iCharge which accepts credit card payments through an attachable smartphone accessory. The article compared it to Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s company, Square, which I previously wrote about.

I am not going to analyze the company’s product or services since that isn’t my forte and I haven’t tried it out, but I would suggest they buy an important domain name for this international company. At the moment, iCharge uses iCharge.net for its Internet presence. This might not be a problem with for some companies, but inevitably, people will type in iCharge.com, which happens to be for sale via Sedo for $10,000 EUR (not an affiliate link).

When publishers such as TechCrunch refer to the company as iCharge, people will generally assume the will be found on the .com. This is especially true for multi-national companies that operate in many different markets. As a company that will rely on trust since it’s dealing with payment processing, iCharge should not give another company the opportunity to swoop in and buy iCharge.com. If that happens, they will have no control over that generic domain name.

In my opinion, the price for iCharge.com is fair, especially considering the .net company is positioning itself to become a big player in the field. Now would be the best time to buy the domain name, before the company increases its value.

As you probably read on TechCrunch or the same article in the Washington Post, Apple recently won a UDRP filing for 16 domain names owned by Daniel Bijan.  The domain names that they were awarded include: blueipod.com, iphonecheap.com, iphonetoys.com, ipodaccessories.info, ipodkits.com, ipodsbaratos.com, macbookpro.biz, macbookpro.com, macbookpro.net, macbookpro.org, macfriend.com, and redipods.com. Clearly these domain names incorporated trademarks owned by Apple.

In a video posted today on YouTube (embedded below), Bijan doesn’t dispute the fact that Apple has rights to these domain names. In the video’s description, Bijan writes, “Apple hurts me, my wife and 3 kids. Not once did they contact me or send a cease and decist letter. I would have gladly gave them the names. Instead, they just start the arbitration process. This is what is wrong with corporations today. Just pick up the phone and call me.” Bijan continues, “What is wrong with this world. Did we forget to treat people like human beings? I will not buy any Apple products.”

Although I can empathize with Bijan a bit because I would be horrified to see my name in a similar article, I have to say that it comes with the territory when you buy domain names like this. Sure it sucks to be called out publicly, especially because anyone who searches for this guy’s name will probably forever see these two articles, however, one needs to be mindful of one’s domain registrations.

When I worked in the corporate world, there was always a saying that went something like “never send out an email that you would be embarrassed to see on the front page of the New York Times.” Likewise, I would advise people to be cautious about what domain names to which they may forever be linked.

Do you feel badly for the guy, or did he get what he deserved?