The Forum (formerly known as the National Arbitration Forum) ruled on the complaint by a famous clothes manufacturer Guess. The company filed a complaint against the owner of G81.com domain name and accused him of cybersquatting based on the fact that Guess has a G81 jeans model. The jeans model was created in 2001, while the current owner purchased the domain name only in 2004. However, the owner decided not to give up without a fight. He reported that the domain name was purchased together with two very similar domain names (g83.com and g87.com) as an investment and he had no clue about Guess G81 jeans.
He had little difficulty proving this fact: turned out that Guess employees do not know about G81 jeans either. Searching on the company’s website leads to one result: “Sorry, we couldn’t find any matches for “G81”. The domain owner didn’t stop there; he called three Guess shops and the call center of the company in the USA. In all cases, he was told that they hadn’t heard about such product.
In addition, Forum’s panelist David L. Kreider took into consideration the background of the relationship between the owner of G81.com domain and Guess. Back in 2013 the company tried to buy the domain, but the parties didn’t agree on the price. Five years later Guess, it seems, decided to get the name without paying anything at all. This decision didn’t justify itself: Domain Name Wire reports that panelist Kreider considered company’s actions to be an attempt at reverse domain name hijacking and misleading the Forum. Guess’ complaint has not been satisfied.
