Sahil Gupta, CEO of Spase Inc, has been found guilty of attempting to steal a valuable domain name from its current owner, who has owned it for over 14 years.
Today we report a blatant reverse domain name hijacking attempt of the domain name Spase.com(.)
Sahil Gupta, CEO of Spase, Inc., tried to steal the domain name Spase.com from the widow of Igal Lichtman, Michal Lichtman.
Sahil Gupta had NO rights to this domain name spase.com as it was created 14 years before his company even existed. Yet, Sahil Gupta took it upon himself to file a UDRP complaint and then lost very publicly and very spectacularly.
Sahil Gupta’s complaint was denied by a 3-member panel at WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). WIPO acted as the arbitration center in these proceedings. WIPO is based in Geneva, Switzerland.
The 3-member panel (William R. Towns, Presiding Panelist, Knud Wallberg, Panelist, The Hon Neil Brown Q.C., Panelist) found that the Complaint by Sahil Gupta was brought in bad faith and constituted an abuse of the administrative proceeding.
The 3-member panel found Sahil Gupta guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH):
In the Panel’s view, the record in this case evinces that the Complaint was brought in bad faith within the meaning of the applicable provisions of the Policy and Rules. As previously noted, the Respondent registered the disputed domain name <spase.com> in February 2005, and had used the disputed domain name to generate PPC revenues for some (14) years prior the Complainant’s adoption of the SPASE name. The Complainant, after unsuccessfully attempting purchase the disputed domain name from the Respondent, then filed a groundless Complaint.
So Sahil Gupta acted in bad faith and abused the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) to try and steal the domain name Spase.com from its rightful owners of over 14 years with a groundless complaint.
I guess the lesson here is… If you try to steal a domain name from someone who has legitimately owned, and continues to legitimately own a domain name, you will be publicly shamed by the global domainer community.
Here’s an updated list of articles detailing why you shouldn’t try to steal valuable domain names;
How Ignorance Can Lead Mark Owners Astray in UDRP Proceedings (By Gerald M. Levine Intellectual Property, Arbitrator/Mediator at Levine Samuel LLP)
The great problem with ignorance is that it leads to disaster when one acts in the belief that he (and not infrequently a corporate “it”) is invulnerable to error.
Spase.io tries reverse domain name hijacking (By Andrew Allemann)
In this case, the Complainant wasted money filing the UDRP and paying for a three-member panel as requested by the Respondent. The Respondent had to pay for the panel and hire an attorney. It was a waste of both parties’ time.
Man goes on twitter rant after trying to reverse domain name hijack a domain (By Andrew Allemann)
The problem for Gupta is that the domain owner registered the domain in 2005 and he founded his company last year. This means it is imposible that the domain was registered in bad faith to target his company.
It’s clear from Gupta’s supplemental filing and rant that he doesn’t understand this.
According to the filing The Complainant’s business was incorporated as Spase, Inc. in February 2019. But the domain Sahil Gupta attempted to HIJACK was registered in 2005. OUTRAGEOUS! What an idiot! What a fool! What a moron. Is this what kind of people YALE produces?? Is Yale proud of Sahil Gupta?
Spase.io Learns Hard Lesson Of Garbage-In, Garbage-Out (HallOfShame.com)
In a case that has become almost become a social media meme for Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, the CEO of spase.io has been found guilty of abusing the UDRP process by a three-member panel of the World Intellectual Property Organization. The WIPO panel handed up its RDNH decision against Sahil Gupta on September 15, 2020, after ruling he had filed his UDRP in a bad faith attempt to obtain the domain spase.com, owned by Mrs Jello, LLC.
Sahil Gupta gets his Reverse Domain Name Hijacking poster!
HallofShame.com Reveals Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Poster! New Poster Boy for 2020: Sahil Gupta
A lot of the news above came from our friends over at RicksBlog.com and OnlineDomain.com(.)
While this is a good story to illustrate there is some protection for domain owners (which is great), do you really think this guy cares what domainers think? I think not. He probably still doesn’t get it and just feels hard done by.
More of these scumbags will be exposed as smart confident Panelists get better informed and grow some bigger kahuna’s to name and shame them in decisions.
Some panelists are too scared or simply still don’t get it and that makes them lose credibility if they don’t call out RDNH in their decisions.
Revese Domain Name Hijacking
https://assets.com.au/reverse-domain-name-hijacking/
http://www.RDNH.com
http://www.HallOfShame.com
https://www.rdnh.com/rdnh-provision-udrp/
Hall Of Shame some .au RDNH guilty exposed https://dnj.com.au/hall-of-shame/
https://www.coopermills.com.au/reverse-domain-name-hijacking