Tag Archives: Cease and Desist

Reply to MicroStrategy about domain Cease and Desist

MicroStrategy Inc, Personal

This one is from archive. Totally missed. Someone holding the position of VP at MicroStrategy, Inc. sent me the cease and desist letter about owing domains – microstrategy.co.in and microstrategy.in. I was totally shocked about having received such a warning and I was very much laxed about a reply thinking what can they do. Even if NIXI (manages the .IN Registry) awards the domain to, I would take a court stay. But that was a wrong thinking. I was just browsing the ICANN site about replying a domain name C&D notice and I came to know that mere not replying (in 20 calendar days – as per set rules) to C&D notice is sufficient for a domain owner to lose the domain forever, which could not be challenged to the domain registry or ICANN (rare of rare exception). One can read the site of ICANN about how to answer a domain name cease and desist letter. As per ICANN, all the allegation must be replied, else you may lose your case. A complainant may have several charges and all should be replied.

BTW, as per letter received from MicroStrategy, Inc. they had sent the cease and desist letter to my postal address, which I happen to have left just a month before. I have duly notified my registrar about the domain, but whois is still shows the old addresses Said offline letter was never received to the address and thus as per ICANN rules they loose the case. A complainant must send the cease and desist online (which they did) as well as offline, a very strict rule of ICANN. They will have to show the Registrar a proof of delivery of offline notice, who will arbitrate the domain ownership dispute.

Have a look at the reply of cease and desist letter received from MicroStrategy, Inc.

MicroStrategy Ceased and Desist REPIED

MicroStrategy Cease and Desist REPIED

Something I would never forget that there was 20 time increase in the spam on my MicroStrategy forum which coincided reply to the cease and desist letter. Since February and till June, I’ve spent considerable amount of time deleting spam from forum. It is very hard alone handling lot of things. MicroStrategy, Inc also started allowing any register user with support  account, accessing the official MicroStrategy forum too, only after the above sent reply. :mrgreen: . I had to go to extent of allowing post to contain spam and I’ve found that to be the best ant-spam too for a forum based on phpBB. Worst impact, the forum lost the popularity and MicroStrategy official forum gained very much; but now the trend has got reversed in last 2 months. Something to be happy.

P.S. – Don’t get annoyed by the reply. As per ICANN domain name dispute. cease and desist notice must be replied with specific words and sentences.

Cease and Desist Letter received from MicroStrategy, Inc

MicroStrategy Inc

I’ve just received a Cease & Desist letter for having registering domain names “microstrategy.co.in” and “microstrategy.in”. The reason behind this is

1. Using companies trademark, illegally.
2. Domain names made in bad faith since you are not using domain names for any legitimate purpose.
3. abusive registration of domain names

Pretty much pissed off against MicroStrategy, Inc as I love the company for which I’ve worked (though outsourcer) and I receive this kind of letter.

microstrategy.in directs to microstrategy.co.in which is a MicroSteategy forum.

Can’t comment legally, but I do not use anything that can be trademark violation. Site is fully operational and happening so nothing can be bad taste and I need to know what’s an abusive registration of domain name.

If you have any legal/para-legal advice to let me know.

If they would have had asked politely or tried to contact though common acquaintances, I would have had given to them. But this D&C is torturous. Nothing is illegal on site or site itself is not illegal. I would contest the domain name ownership in Indian court under Indian IT Act 2000.
———————

Update 9th Feb 6:30 pm IST

Indian IT Act 2000 doesn’t define anything like cybersquatter. Such case can be only fought in court of law or can be settled by Arbitrator of .IN Registry (which still can be challenged in court, extremely tedious and slow process).

One can check the list of domain that were awarded to the Complainant here. I’ve been though most of them and found that the Registrars were indeed cybersqatters and it was pretty easy for rightful owners to get back the domain (this includes monster.in, pizzahut.in, sonyericsson.co.in, gmail.co.in, morganstanley.in, youtube.in, kfc.co.in, franklintempleton.in).

If one reads the case document on the link above, one would come to know that there were people who had simply parked the domain or had opened shell/ad site not hosting anything actually. But I have a strong case and I would be fighting tooth and nail for the hard work I’ve done in setting up the forum and bringing some good people knowing MicroStrategy.