I must state here that what I’m about to elaborate is my personal experience and is not meant to dis-credit anyone.

A few months ago, I had intention to start a website selling an eBook “Advanced Selling on eBay”, from eBookWholesaler. Like a good student, I follow the “gurus” advice and tried to select a domain name related to my eBook. Unfortunately, advancedsellingonebay.com was taken. I settled on the next best one, www.ebayadvancedselling.com

With www.ebayadvancedselling.com, I went to my favorite Netfirms to register it. A couple of days later, my registration was declined, due to the word “ebay” being in the domain name. Undaunted, I went to godaddy.com to register. The registration was successful.
“Hmm…maybe Netfirms is no longer my favourite. Maybe Godaddy has more clout and got around the problem”, Or so I thought…

A few weeks ago, I received an email purportedly from eBay. The email said I had infringed on eBay’s trademark with my domain name. I was told, “not to use the domain name for any purpose, do not sell, offer to sell or transfer the domain name to a third party, and instead simply let the domain registration expire”. Otherwise, further legal action will be taken. Sheeesh!
When I incorporate the word “eBay” into the domain name, I’m termed cybersquatting, if I intend to transfer or sell the domain name at an inflated price.

One thing about online business, is that I want to avoid any form of legal action like the bubonic plaque! It’s just not worth it.
Being ignorant of certain business practices can lead to rude awakenings…if you’re lucky. Legally sued, if you’re not.

I tried asking Godaddy for a refund, just for the heck of it. To see what’s their response. They replied something like, “Sorry, its not our responsibility to exercise good judgment and due diligence in researching any marks that you intend to register. Just give us your money and we will register whatever you want”.
Erm…that last sentence was NOT what they said. But that’s the impression I got after reading their reply.

Oh, did I forget to mention that they “must respectfully declined” my request for a refund?

It can be seen how 2 domain registrars handled my issue of registering www.ebayadvancedselling.com.

I’ve also heard about how Godaddy has shut down several domain names for unverified claims of spam.

So…Netfirms is again my favorite domain registrar. Not only it’s a responsible corporate citizen, it’s also $4 cheaper to register a domain name than Godaddy.

Oh oh…just received an email update from Netfirms. They are having their Christmas promotion for their Business hosting package for only $9.95/month, a discount of $5. That’s for 300GB disk-space, 3000GB month bandwidth, unlimited websites and 5 free domain names!