May godaddy legally steal customer domains ?

[DomainEmpire.com]

Before making the whole story public, I'm waiting for a clarification from GoDaddy customercare.

My question now is: may godaddy steal a domain from our portfolio without a judge/wipo order and pushing it in the account of the trademark holder without even sending us a single mail about this ?

Probably this's what happened yesterday with a domain of ours, we'll make the whole story public once their support will get back to us and, if true, this means your domains are not safe with them because anyone can easily get your domains by demonstrating its supposed right to own them, with no intervention from Wipo and with no judge order ... It's illegal in my opinion and, once confirmed, I'll post the whole story in all domain forums in the interest of all you domainers.

...to be updated soon ...

[fab]

No they're not allowed to.

[James Jean]

You ever considered that the term "legally | steal" may be an oximoron..... And perhaps "GoDaddy | legally"

[Dave Zan]

Can't wait to hear the story.

[CureCancer]

update us ASAP

[TheLegendaryJP]

Is it possible someone missed the notice?

[bmugford]

No they are not allowed to do that. They need a legal order like UDRP decision or court order.

I would be surprised if there is not more to the story.

Brad

[DomainsInc]

I would hope not...someone with many domains might not even notice is gone for a very long time!

[Gerry]

I think the answer is not cut and dry.

I had a situation where a domain I owned somehow ended up in someone else's account on GoDaddy.

All the WHOIS contact clearly reflected my business but it was in someone else's account.

I contacted my acct. manager and then the legal team.

The legal team had me fill out forms as well as submit proof of identity (Driver's License).

Within hours of all of that taken care of and submitted, the name was in my GoDaddy account.


I guess the question of "can they do it legally" depends on the circumstances.

If the other account holder was aware of the name being in his/her account, then it may appear to them that it was "stolen" out of their account.

The fact is that it was simply placed back into the real owner's account.

In essence, GoDaddy may legally seize (stolen?) a domain out of one person's account and place it in the proper owner.



But, sounds like you have a much deeper issue if TM is involved.

Honestly, it does seem like someone may have overlooked a C&D letter, a judgment, or a WIPO notice.

Something may have arrived in snail mail indicating the steps to be taken if the domain was not turned over.


Could a corporate attorney have contacted the legal team at GoDaddy and followed the same steps as me to recover a name???

[DomainEmpire.com]

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in posting this update but I've just clarified the full situation with GoDaddy.
It has been a big (but strange) equivocal.
On 5-May I partecipated to an auction for a friendster variation, I didn't win it because someone else outbidded me.
Few days after, godaddy gave me a chance to pay for it because the other bidded didn't pay in time so I activated the domain, moved it to my partner account (I acquired it for him) and we kept it for 11 days with no issue.

Suddenly, the domain disappeared from our account and changed whois (no news from godaddy about a possible refund, an explanation ...nothing!)

The new registrant was "Brand Manager"...etc
He lives in a Californian city and friendster has its seat in California too ... For all these reasons, I supposed godaddy gave the domain to a lawyer or someone else related to friendster (there were tons of reasons to think this even after having visited the website of the new registrant, multiple coincidences ...).
Godaddy customer care, in a first moment, confirmed someone moved my domain to a new account but now it seems they assigned it to another bidder without refunding me and with no real clarification from their part so far ... I contacted the new registrant in a second time, having had the doubt he wasn't involved with friendster and he explained me to have won it on auction ...

FINAL UPDATE: Godaddy admits they assigned the domain to me in error because an higher bidder paid for it before me ... Ok, I'll ask for a refund but, at least, now the situation has been clarified at my full satisfaction.

I apologise with you all for posting a wrong version of the story, I was quite sure about it but next time I'll investigate much deeper before expressing an opinion on similar issues.

[DomainsInc]

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in posting this update but I've just clarified the full situation with GoDaddy.
It has been a big (but strange) equivocal.
On 5-May I partecipated to an auction for a friendster variation, I didn't win it because someone else outbidded me.
Few days after, godaddy gave me a chance to pay for it because the other bidded didn't pay in time so I activated the domain, moved it to my partner account (I acquired it for him) and we kept it for 11 days with no issue.

Suddenly, the domain disappeared from our account and changed whois (no news from godaddy about a possible refund, an explanation ...nothing!)

The new registrant was "Brand Manager"...etc
He lives in a Californian city and friendster has its seat in California too ... For all these reasons, I supposed godaddy gave the domain to a lawyer or someone else related to friendster (there were tons of reasons to think this even after having visited the website of the new registrant, multiple coincidences ...).
Godaddy customer care, in a first moment, confirmed someone moved my domain to a new account but now it seems they assigned it to another bidder without refunding me and with no real clarification from their part so far ... I contacted the new registrant in a second time, having had the doubt he wasn't involved with friendster and he explained me to have won it on auction ...

FINAL UPDATE: Godaddy admits they assigned the domain to me in error because an higher bidder paid for it before me ... Ok, I'll ask for a refund but, at least, now the situation has been clarified at my full satisfaction.

I apologise with you all for posting a wrong version of the story, I was quite sure about it but next time I'll investigate much deeper before expressing an opinion on similar issues.

And if you didn't notice I wonder if you would of even gotten refunded...