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You guys are not telling him what he wants to hear. He obviously came here to listen to people telling him that his argument is right.
Since searching the company owner's name says he lives in Turkey, I'm guessing he doesn't have to worry about going to court in America or Europe. If you are not American you don't have to worry about American laws, unless they seek legal action in Turkey which is unlikely given how unfriendly and corrupt the Turkish legal system is to foreigners (I have experience with it). If they do go to US court and win damages he might not want to visit the US ever again.
If things do go south they will go after the limited company in the address, which might mean you will loose the company registration. Limited liability should mean that you are not liable for company actions, but that would only apply if the domain is registered and billed to the limited company and not your personal name...
EDIT: On the other hand, if they do go after you in Turkey then cPanel is a registered trademark there also...
ICANN is global. A UDRP doesn't care where you live.
Not to mention that cpanel has actually applied for a trademark in his home country too
and has it been granted?
It looks granted half a decade ago.
Yeah he's most likely fucked from both sides. Spit roasted.
Rebrand, redirect that domain to new one. That's it.
Yes you are using their Trademark..
I would recommend you to change the logo first
Then contact cPanel and explain them the issue.
If they agree (very minimum chance) and allow you to continue then it's fine.
Otherwise change the domain name and everything but renew your existing domain and redirect it to the new one. So when client or visitor open your website it will directly send them to new one..
If cPanel decide to drag you into the court the I'm sure that you can't survive for sure..
Switch logo/brand, re-direct the domain and see what they say...
I doubt you will be allowed to keep it, they may at least allow you to transfer to them and keep the forward/re-direct.
Let them buy your domain..
No need to push the domain as its on your property. Just redirect the traffic to a new website and inform them that you will not use anymore the domain.
This is direct rocket to a district court with ticket of a looser.
I spent 30 seconds looking at your site and see.
Free cPanel Hosting
CPANEL Speed
CPANEL Support
CPANEL Security
Our Free cPanel
etc...
Working on your site SEO has yielded results, it brought you to the attention of the very company you are trying to benefit from without actually giving them anything.
LTniger is right why buy the domain when they can get it by force and you pay their legal costs.
I am more surprised that OP is surprised to have found himself in this fiasco.
What did he expect?
Because they will buy it cheaper than the legal costs they will never recover.
The cost of litigation is null and void for them. Their brand is worth more than any costs incurred, simple. They and most companies will protect their brand which has costs millions to promote and make the number one used hosting panel.
@eurobia - Recently I completed their cPanel university course. They clearly mentioned that you should not modify logo and remove trademark symbol. You did both.
Your domain was listed on Phistank:
It can be used for sending email to cpanel users for password reset, etc,. They want to delete your domain name to avoid this.
not sure, what i am suggesting, would be a proper solution
may be you may wish to apologize to them and request them to grant you to continue, (may be you may bring in the name buycpanel)
and change a few things, like the logo, the seo, a few more contents
all, if they agree
Get naked and dance merrily in front of their HQ.
Then get on your fours and beg for forgiveness.
You will lose domain anyway.
In 2014 I made a replica of worldstarhiphop.com and registered a domain fot it worldstarshit.com I just wanted to host actuall fight video after they just kept on censoring fight video, long story short with in two months I got a notice from a lawfirm, I ignored it and the next they I was sent an actual 15pages of court papers (showing my website and how similar its to their site and trademarks) notice at my address (I am not in Europe or America) so this was when I knew things are serious.. I replied to the lawyer email(which I previously ignored) and transferred the domain to them.
You did not just wokeup and register a domain thefreecpanel.com you knew what you were doing. You did planned to use the word cpanel in your name so it would get you customer, and just that's is more than enough to take you to court regardless where you live.
If you don't transfer them nicely you will have to pay for the damages (What if they ask for 20%of their monthly profits as damage x number of months you have been using their name for you own profit) they will get the domain anyway.
There is a big difference there, they are a cPanel partner, selling their licences.
So, three things:
I'd argue being involved with someone like the OP here devalues the brand
Certainly.
Whoa. The moment shit gets real.
Hope you made it out without damages.
Please, read carefully and think about it.
If this guys are saying that they want their name back, they'll take it anyway. I'm still not sure why you are still waiting from forum members to say, oh you are good guy and why they are trying to f*** your business, because it's not true and nobody will tell you that, as I personally think and I'm 100% sure cPanel guys are also see your business or website or whatever you think they want to "steal" from you, you are bad guy... You are using cPanel's name to lie, you are using cPanel's name to get customers and also you are lying to people and they may think it's cPanel doing all that sht and Believe me, cPanel is wasting ton sht money to advertise their name and sell their products and for many years they have good reputation. it's not just someone wants their name back, it's more like someone wants you to stop using their name for bad reasons.
and tons of other stuff that, I'm 100% sure you changed after that, but if they already sent you that email, believe me they already have collected screens and everything how website looked like whenever they sent it.
I'm shocked how some people decided that he still has chance to win this case...
US gov has no power somewhere? even if it was registered in Russia, they could still get domain back, Because if they'll contact ICANN, they can get domain in seconds and just to know, if you are a bad guy and harming US citizen, business or whatever and US government wants to find you, they'll find you.
So if you want to make it easy and avoid paying extra fines, if they'll send this case to court, it costs money for them
don't think that they'll pay that money, they'll add one line in case, about financial damages, they will require you to pay 20 000, 30 000 or whatever they need, and then what?
My advice: Go rebrand your website, buy new domain name and "DO NOT USE" someone's name for your favor, also do not lie, especially you are in UK as I see, so U.S and European laws are very complex for cases like this and even if cPanel was good guy in this situation and they gave you time, next time someone may not give you extra time and sue you for huge amount of money.
I strongly believe OP has intentionally put a post on this forum for page views purely to raise further his adsense and page rank scores.
If it is true... 100% cpanel will come after OP for using their logo trademark and monetising off their trademark and it will be a 6 digit sum.