Use of Former Employer’s Name as Domain Pointing to ripoffreport.com Shows UDRP Bad Faith

A former employee’s registration of the schwartzapfellawyers.com domain name only to have it resolve to defamatory remarks on ripoffreport.com that were intended to harm the complainants Steven J. Schwartzapfel and Schwartzapfel Lawyers PC constituted bad faith registration and use of the domain, a panelist at the National Arbitration Forum ruled April 15 in a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) proceeding. While the registrant’s conduct did not fit within examples of bad faith listed in UDRP paragraph 4(b), such as offering to sell the domain to the mark owner for an excessive price, those examples are meant to be ...