LAS VEGAS — The parent company of XNXX.com recently received another victory over a domain name after arbitrators at WIPO agreed that operators of XNXX.pro registered it in bad faith.
The respondent in the cybersquatting case, an unidentified individual or company under blind ownership, contended that it registers generic domain names to derive advertising income via click-through deals and that provided links don't hook up to competitors. (Archived pages from earlier this year show that XNXX.pro depicted adult tube site content.)
The respondent further said that it wanted the WIPO panel to apply the equitable doctrine of laches to deny the complaint, asserting that XNXX operators slept on its rights over the site, which has been in existence in some form since 2009.
Parent company WGCZ S.R.O. of Las Vegas has held a U.S. trademark on its XNXX brand since 2013. The company has waged numerous cybersquatting battles recently against those sites allegedly infringing on its XVideos and XNXX brands.
"The interesting angle to this case is that the respondent originally agreed to transfer the domain name upon receiving the complaint," according to attorney Marc Randazza of Randazza Legal Group.
"However, our client decided that a reported decision demonstrating the bad conduct of the respondent was more important than the sure thing of a settlement," Randazza told XBIZ.
Arbitrators eventually ruled in favor of WGCZ in the case, noting that XNXX.pro was confusingly similar to XNXX.com and that the site was registered in bad faith.
In another cybersquatting decision of significant interest, the operator of Cam4.com, Surecom Corp., has been awarded the domain name NudeCam4.com after a WIPO arbitrator ruled that the name was confusingly similar to its adult webcam site franchise. The respondent in the NudeCam4.com case was ICF Technology Inc., a Seattle operator of adult website properties.