A warning for leased domains! (6.Viewing)

The Respondent maintains that bad faith use cannot be imputed to it based solely on unilateral actions of an
unidentified third party operating under a temporary lease arrangement. The Panel disagrees. Being the
registrant of record of the disputed domain name, the Respondent remains responsible for its use. It cannot
disclaim responsibility for the content appearing on the website associated with the disputed domain name
simply because it had leased the disputed domain name to a third party. The Respondent does not even
claim to have made any good faith efforts to identify the lessee, to have checked how the lessee was using
the disputed domain name, or to have required the lessee to refrain from infringing on third-party rights
during the lease. Afternic may not have the practice to identify lessees of domain names, but this does not
relieve lessors from their responsibility to know to whom they give control over their domain names and to
ensure that they use such domain names only for legitimate purposes. See in general terms section 3.5 of
the WIPO Overview 3.0.

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