In the land of bizarre cybersquatting complaints, the Trivago cybersquatting complaint is a bizarre case. Trivago, the travel company claimed that the website Traveltrow.com was too simiar to Trivago.com.
Provided that they deal with “travel”, do the two names sound anything alike? Now, the sane person would say no, but Trivago thought otherwise. In filed documents, Trivago tried to explain their case by stating the following.
Complainant argues, first and foremost, that the TRIVAGO mark and the Domain Name both have three syllables (one disregards the “.com” generic Top-Level Domain). Complainant then notes that the last syllable of the Domain Name (“trow”), rhymes with the last syllable of the mark (“go”). Complainant notes that the first syllable of the mark and the Domain Name begins with the letters “tr,” and that the second syllable of both begins with the letter “v.”
This is just bizarre to us. In all honesty, who would confuse the two domain names? The only thing that sounds similar to us is the endings of each name “trow” and “go”. That’s it! Notably, the panel decision they saw the case just as we do.
“As such, if a domain name is not confusingly similar to the complainant’s trademark, the case is over, regardless of whether the respondent is a bad actor.”
Regarding cybersquatting cases, we’ve read some in the past and you can argue the complainant has a case. However, this is not even close to one of those cases. Specifically, the Trivago cybersquatting complaint is far reaching. The fact that Trivago’s case is that the domains have three syllables, and the endings rhyme, didn’t make a case with the panel. In short, we’re glad the administrative panel made the right decision.
If you want to read their full details on this cybersquatting case, take a read here.
To read our other articles on website domain topics, you can do so here.