Short But Sweet

In one of the shortest UDRP cases I’ve ever seen, LivingSocial was able to reclaim the domain name officiallivingsocial.com, represented by yours truly. We submitted the complaint to the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) against a respondent named Amber Robinson.

LivingSocial’s argument revolved around the fact that the domain name was being used by the Respondent to forward visitors to Ms. Robinson’s employer, a competitive website called my-city-deals.com, thereby diverting LivingSocial’s current and potential customers for the Respondent’s own commercial gain.

In my opinion, the Respondent (in the form of Ms. Robinson’s boss) gave a completely bonkers rationale for the domain. His short response was rather amusing, stating that the domain name means “off ici all iving so cial” rather than “Official Living Social,” clarifying that “ICI” is an abbreviation for various medical terms, “IV-ING” refers to intravenous therapy, and “CIAL” is a type of skin treatment. Since UDRP respondents are supposed to be taken at their word (most of the time) it was rather surprising that the my-city-deals.com site wasn’t showing more discounted offers relating to those trendy IV based skin treatments.

As you could have guessed, the Panel’s response was extremely brief. It quickly found LivingSocial to have proven all three elements of the UDRP and that the domain name should be rightfully transferred to the Complainant, cutting short the Respondent’s cybersquatting career.