Stolen Domains – Lex Airbnb

At Dotkeeper we talk a lot about the importance of having the right ownership information for your domain names. It is an important hygiene factor. Not having up to date ownership information can be a potential pitfall in your domain management, which can be expensive and cause a lot of headaches. Especially if you are a growing company, expanding through acquisitions.

A recent example of this is Airbnb. Airbnb is (as you probably know) the world’s leading platform for connecting rental houses and apartments with travelers looking for temporary accommodation. During the fall of 2021, Airbnb learned a tough lesson, which arose as a result of not having updated the ownership information on their domain names that were included in a company acquisition. They were deprived of the premium domain tilt.com.

Four-letter .com domains are verry attractive and can drive prices ​​up to $ 1,000,000 or more… And that was probably the motive for the theft since the thief tried to sell the stolen domain on the aftermarket.

So, what happened? How could Airbnb be deprived of its domain?

A few years ago, Airbnb bought the startup Tilt. The acquisition included the domain names tilt.com and crowdtilt.com. But for some reason, it seems that Airbnb didn’t update the WHOIS information for these domains, leaving the ownership information linked to an email address under crowdtilt.com. When crowdtilt.com later expired, it was purchased by an anonymous party. Because the email address in the tilt.com ownership information was linked to crowdtilt.com, the new owner of crowdtilt.com was able to set up an identical email address and reset the domain provider’s password, which ultimately led to tilt.com being illegally transferred from Airbnb.

During the summer of 2021, the imposter then tried to sell the domain name on the domain name aftermarket to a well-known domain investor. In fact, the deal went as far as to Escrow (a service that acts as an intermediary in major transactions to secure the transfer of domain names and money to the right person at the right time) before it was all slowed down from the information that the domain was stolen. According to Domain Name Wire, the law firm behind the current Escrow service is now working to return the domain name to Airbnb, but apparently, the process has been delayed due to disagreements between the firm and Airbnb regarding their compensation.

Airbnb then chose to try a UDRP claim to get the domain name back from the law firm. But UDRP is designed to handle cases of cybersquatting, not situations like the one Airbnb, unfortunately, ended up in. The UDRP procedure failed on the grounds that Airbnb did not present sufficient evidence that the respondent, in this case the law firm currently holding the domain name, acted in bad faith.

The following is a section from the verdict:

“While the Panel has sympathy for Complainant’s situation, namely that it appears Complainant was the victim of a Domain Name hijacking, it is necessary, in order for a transfer order to be made under the Policy, for the Panel to reach a conclusion that in registering or acquiring the Domain Name, the Respondent was acting in bad faith.  The Panel has closely reviewed the material provided by both parties and does not reach that conclusion.”

Although it seems that Airbnb is likely to regain tilt.com in due course, they could have avoided what happened and all the extra work, if they had only updated the ownership information at an early stage. This kind of work is usually easier if you have a domain partner who helps to gather and consolidate all domain names.

Want to know if your domain names are at risk in any way? We will help you. Contact us at hello@dotkeeper.com.

Sources:
https://www.adrforum.com/domaindecisions/1964944.htm

https://domaininvesting.com/tilt-com-udrp-denied-in-unusual-case/

https://www.lexsynergy.com/news/how-airbnb-contributed-to-it-s-domain-being-stolen

https://domainnamewire.com/2021/11/08/airbnb-fails-to-recover-tilt-com-through-cybersquatting-dispute/

https://mashable.com/article/airbnb-tilt-com-domain-name-theft