I'm not going to post this on 2p2 cause I don't want to deal with getting banned regarding something I don't really care that much about the case but I did have some interest in seeing how it played out.

I'm not taking any sides here but I'm a bit of a stickler when things seem to be wrong.

If you're not familiar with domain marketing.... this is how it works.

People register a bunch of domain names. Usually hundreds or thousands at a time. The cost of registering a domain name is fairly cheap as is hosting a simple website with ads.

Different people have different techniques on how they select domain names. With the volume it's mainly automated at least partially. People may look up various sources and then come up with derivations on the name. Some people may just sit and type up a list of domain names and then maybe have a program that comes up with additional versions. I don't know how Boyd did any of this but these are common techniques. Sine he's a poker player and familiar with 2p2 I wouldn't be surprised if he knowingly inserted twoplustwopoker.com in his list or at least seeded some algorithm with variations of the words '2' 'plus' and '2'.

Once the list is made the domains are bulk registered to see if any of them are not taken. Of those that are successfully registered the domain marketer has some scripts that generate these very simple websites that contain keywords and some sort of revenue generating links. Based on the content of this site I'm guessing that this was the same template Boyd used for all his poker related domain names. It's pretty generic. If you understand a little HTML and Javascript you can look at the HTML source on archive.org and figure out what the site would have looked like.

Of the domains that get registered, most won't make any money. The hope is that some will make enough money to cover the expenses. The expenses are pretty minimal. At the time you could register domain names for less than $7 at some places. If a domain winds up generating more than $7 a year it's profitable but you need them to generate enough to pay for the unprofitable domains to make the whole thing worth while.

Search engines have always tried to filter these results out of their search results because the sites don't offer any value to the visitor. They don't get much traffic and therefor not much revenue.

In addition to making revenue off the ads, reselling domain names is part of the revenue model. If you wind up registering a domain name that someone else wants then you can sell it to them. Let's say I just had an idea to start a company called ALKJDFAKSJDFSLJDFDFJSDF and I want to register ALKJDFAKSJDFSLJDFDFJSDF.com but see it's already taken. I'd have to buy the domain from the current owner.

Legal problems arise when you wind up registering a domain name that infringes on someone's trademark as Boyd's domain did in this case.

Boyd was right when he said this wasn't traditional cybersquatting. Maybe the definition has changed but initially cybersquatting was defined as someone claiming trademark domains that had not yet been registered or that expired. Let's say you're Coca-Cola and it's 1994 you decide to build a website but someone registered that domain name in 1993. That's more of a traditional cybersquatting. Also, let's say it's 1995 and Coca-Cola doesn't think the web is going to pick up and they decide to stop putting money into their website and let the domain name expire or maybe they forgot to renew it for some other reason and someone else winds up registering it as soon as it expires. Those examples are more what cybersquatting is. Legally, other violations related to domain names may have been lumped into cybersquatting legislation. Things like misspellings and variations on the name. Technically, that's not "squatting" in my view. That doesn't mean they aren't infringing on trademarks.

The traditional cybersquatting type domains can actually be fairly profitable. Let's say there's a popular website that has a ton of links pointing to it but the owner forgets and lets the domain expire and someone else snatches it up. You put up a different site with links and for a while you're still going to get a lot of traffic to the site until search engines realize there was a change. Even then you'll still get traffic from other pages that still link to pages that were on the original site.

If you're not familiar with how IP attorney's work...

People probably have a good sense of how attorney's that deal with Intellectual Property work based on what they've read related to what's been going on with MPAA and RIAA over the years. This is my personal take on how things probably went down.

Greenbreg Traurig, 2p2's attorney in this case, were dealing with a lot of these types of cases at the time. You can find a press release they put out bragging about being the top firm bring up these types of cases.

I don't know if GT was 2p2's attorney before this case or not but it appears that GT was the one that brought up the infringement to 2p2 based on what Malmuth said in the first post and not that 2p2 discovered the infringement and sought legal help.

Lawyers make money by suing people and threatening to sue people. Since GT was so big in this field I would assume they used similar tactics that RIAA and MPAA employ. If I were them what I would probably do is build some software that searches the millions of domain names that are already registered as well as the many thousands of domain names that get registered every dayand compare it with a trademark database to see if I could identify any potentially infringing names. That narrows down the field where maybe an intern or paralegal can go over the list and narrow it down further which then goes to an attorney who will pick out the cases they think will be profitable.

An attorney can only sue on behalf of a client so at some point a bunch of form letters go out to all the trademark owners indicating that infringing domains were found. Language probably includes how trademark owners, unlike copyright holders, can lose their trademark protections if they don't actively protect their trade names, which is true. Letter would probably also mention that there's a $100,000 statutory maximum award and how successful GT has been in the past. It's basically a targeted sales letter. GT thinks they can make money by representing the case and hopes the receiver accepts the offer for representation.

Based on what Malmuth wrote in that post, it sounds like part of that letter indicated that GT would have to do more digging to determine who was behind the anonymous registration and 2p2 would have to agree to hire GT to start billing hours on the case. I don't know how GT works but it's possible they may also be looking to dupe some companies into paying for a more thorough audit that may or may not result in something that lead to a case.

Once the clock starts ticking GT identifies the domain owner and sends them a letter letting them know their client's intent to resolve the trademark infringement and states what the statutory maximum is in these cases ($100k) and tries to get the infringer to shit his pants and send a check.

At some point attorney's may leave it at that unless they think they have a really strong case they are likely to win at trial. They really haven't invested much at this point. It's very similar to how domain marketers automate a lot of the work and then hope to hit enough profitable cases to make all the work worth it. In this case Boyd's domain was clearly infringing on 2p2's trademark and they were probably happy to let it go to trial because it means more hours they can bill with a high probability of success. From 2p2's perspective it might be a freeroll if GT takes these strong cases on a type of contingency basis since the legislation would also award legal fees to the plaintiff's attorney.

Take away the names like 2p2 being a site everyone loves and Boyd being a person that ran a site that stole a lot of money from poker players. What you have appears to be.

1. Some dude registers a bunch of domain names to try and make some money.
2. If he makes any money at all off that domain it's probably minor since by that point all the search engines were pretty good at filtering these thin parked domain sites. Since the domain was left to expire it probably wasn't very profitable.
3. One or more of those domain names infringe a company's trademark and a lawyer notices it. They tell the company that their IP is being infringed and they can defend them in the matter. They say they don't even need to prove how much the infringement actually cost the company and can still sue for up to $100k.
4. Company says free money? Hell yeah!
5. Lawyers gonna lawyer.

If Boyd wasn't involved this probably wouldn't be that interesting to most people in poker.