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If You Lose a Judgment and Don’t Pay, Your Domain Names Can be Seized

Office Depot won a judgment against John Zuccarini under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999 (15 U.S.C. Section 1125(d)) based on Zuccarini’s bad-faith registration of the domain name <offic-depot.com>, which was confusingly similar to <officedepot.com>.

Office Depot was unable to collect on its monetary judgment against Zuccarini, so it assigned that judgment to DS Holdings (“DSH”). DSH sought to levy against 190 <.com> domain names owned by Zuccarini and for which VeriSign controls the registry (a receiver having been assigned to auction off the domain names). Zuccarini (representing himself!) argued that DSH should be required to levy upon the domain names where their respective registrars are located, rather than at VeriSign’s single location. (more…)