Navigation Catalyst Systems
Encyclopedia
Navigation Catalyst Systems, previously known as Vendare, First Look, and qsrch.net, is a pay-per-click advertising company that specializes in monetizing parked domain names and registrars' wildcard DNS record
s. Navigation Catalyst Systems is a subsidiary of New.net
and an affiliate of the ICANN
-accredited registrar
Basic Fusion.
of 1,392 domain name
s incorporating Verizon's trademark
s (Verizon California, Inc. v. Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc., 2008 WL 2651163 (C.D. Cal. June 30, 2008). Navigation argued that it did not register the domain names in bad faith because it had used a proprietary software tool that, through both manual and automatic means, "scrubbed" its registered domains for registered trademarks. It claimed that it was merely "reserving" the domain names by taking advantage of Basic Fusion's Add Grace Period. Basic Fusion attempted to argue that it was not the same legal entity as Navigation Catalyst Systems, but the court stated that they were the same for the purposes of a preliminary injunction motion.
Navigation further asserted an unclean hands
defense, arguing that Verizon used a similar pay-per-click program to monetize its wildcard DNS record
s. The court rejected both arguments and ultimately granted a preliminary injunction against Navigation Catalyst Systems. In so doing, the court held that Navigation Catalyst Systems had intended to profit in bad faith from the typographical errors of Internet users that mistyped Verizon's trademarks in the URL bar of their web browsers:
Wildcard DNS record
A wildcard DNS record is a record in a DNS zone that will match requests for non-existent domain names. A wildcard DNS record is specified by using a "*" as the leftmost label of a domain name, e.g. *.example.com. The exact rules for when a wild card will match are specified in RFC 1034, but the...
s. Navigation Catalyst Systems is a subsidiary of New.net
New.net
New.net is an alternate DNS root system which is enabled via NewDotNet, a DNS hijacker application, which is usually bundled with legitimate software...
and an affiliate of the ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
-accredited registrar
Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity, accredited by both ICANN and generic top-level domain registry to sell gTLDs and/or by a country code top-level domain registry to sell ccTLDs; to manage the reservation of Internet domain names in accordance with the guidelines of...
Basic Fusion.
Lawsuit
In 2007, Navigation Catalyst Systems, along with its affiliate registrar Basic Fusion, was sued by Verizon for the registration and domain tastingDomain tasting
Domain tasting is the practice of a domain name registrant using the five-day "grace period" at the beginning of the registration of an ICANN-regulated second-level domain to test the marketability of the domain...
of 1,392 domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
s incorporating Verizon's trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
s (Verizon California, Inc. v. Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc., 2008 WL 2651163 (C.D. Cal. June 30, 2008). Navigation argued that it did not register the domain names in bad faith because it had used a proprietary software tool that, through both manual and automatic means, "scrubbed" its registered domains for registered trademarks. It claimed that it was merely "reserving" the domain names by taking advantage of Basic Fusion's Add Grace Period. Basic Fusion attempted to argue that it was not the same legal entity as Navigation Catalyst Systems, but the court stated that they were the same for the purposes of a preliminary injunction motion.
Navigation further asserted an unclean hands
Unclean hands
Unclean hands, sometimes called the clean hands doctrine or the dirty hands doctrine, is an equitable defense in which the defendant argues that the plaintiff is not entitled to obtain an equitable remedy on account of the fact that the plaintiff is acting unethically or has acted in bad faith with...
defense, arguing that Verizon used a similar pay-per-click program to monetize its wildcard DNS record
Wildcard DNS record
A wildcard DNS record is a record in a DNS zone that will match requests for non-existent domain names. A wildcard DNS record is specified by using a "*" as the leftmost label of a domain name, e.g. *.example.com. The exact rules for when a wild card will match are specified in RFC 1034, but the...
s. The court rejected both arguments and ultimately granted a preliminary injunction against Navigation Catalyst Systems. In so doing, the court held that Navigation Catalyst Systems had intended to profit in bad faith from the typographical errors of Internet users that mistyped Verizon's trademarks in the URL bar of their web browsers:
It is clear that their intent was to profit from the poor typing abilities of consumers trying to reach Plaintiffs' sites: what other value could there be in a name like ve3rizon.com? Further, the sites associated with these names often contained links to products directly competitive with Plaintiffs' cellphone and internet businesses, potentially diverting consumers who would otherwise have purchased goods or services from Plaintiffs away from Plaintiffs.