The NAF is one of four bodies authorised to hear domain name disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The domain name dispute process is a popular alternative to lengthy and expensive trade mark lawsuits.
Cybersquatting is normally taken to mean the bad faith registration and use of a domain name. Typosquatting is a practice that relies on a web user to make a “typo” when entering an address in his or her browser.
John Zuccarini registered kevinspacy.com, a common misspelling of the actor’s name. According to the NAF, “Zuccarini evidently profited from advertising directed at internet visitors who made the typographical error while looking for information about the actor. In other court proceedings Zuccarini has admitted to registering thousands of similarly misspelled domain names, which have earned him close to a million dollars a year in advertising revenues.”
FAO Schwarz was recently successful with similar action against Zuccarini over the names faoscwartz.com, foaschwartz.com, faoshwartz.com, and faoswartz.com where he was using the names to force visitors to click through multiple pop-up adverts, a practice known as “mousetrapping”.
Zuccarini did not submit any defence to the arbitration panel.