I suggest you read all the available CDRPs, as this happens ALL the time.
Don't confuse right or wrong with reality, as once it's outlined that the respondent was displaying ads linked to the complainant's field, you can almost feel the panelists shaking their heads and crossing their arms, then making their decision to award the domain right then and there. Even if you block VegTo ads, the panelists still view you as diverting customers to their competitors.
It just screams "bad faith" to the Canadian panelists. This happens in .COM as well, with many valuable generic domains being lost due to ads, and the only solid way to get around it is to show a registration date predating the complainant. And Canada is 10X worse.
In fact, a board member here lost a generic LLL simply by years ago, once displaying an image of an airplane (the complainant was an airport) and it wasn't even an ad. I can't imagine what would happen if it was an actual ad, he might have gotten life in prison.
The CDRP panelists grasp at absolutely anything to give domains away to their corporate overlords and even with legal representation, displaying ads in the same segment as the complainant is a real death knell in a CDRP. And even worse in this potential case, as the CDRP panelists also really want to return domains to their previous owners.
In one noted case, RLM had to perform some very fancy footwork (that even a lawyer probably wouldn't even think of) to get out of a CDRP on a generic first-name domain that he displayed ads on. It's truly that rare.
So yes, I agree with your previous statement of being safe trying to sell a generic domain like Vegan,ca, but I also think that CDRP precedent clearly demonstrates you are taking a huge risk displaying related ads, even from competitors.
I don't agree actually, if it is a dictionary term and used to display relevant ads or content, then you are 100% safe, it is a fair and good faith use - regardless if there was a previous site or usage. The only exception would be if there was a really really bad trademark granted - it is very rare, but there are some out there. I would have zero problems buying and using Vegan.ca to display content about being vegan, recipes, where to buy vegan goods, vegan sourced hard-goods, etc, etc. Zero.
Of course you have to know what is a generic word and what is a trademarked term (think Realtor, Kleenex, etc...). And I'm no vegan or know anything about it, but I'm pretty sure it isn't a coined term that was trademarked.
Now, many very generic words can and do have trademarks on goods or services that are NOT relevant to its inherent meaning. For example, if you bought Candy.ca and sold candy or ads related to candy, you're good. But if there was a make-up company called Candy with a trademark and you got caught with ads for make-up, then you start to run risk of being hit with a CDRP, which you may or may not win. Then it comes down to good faith at the time you registered the domain. Obviously if the trademark didn't exist prior to your registration, they can't claim you registered it in bad faith. However, even then a prior registration doesn't give you the right to continue to wilfully infringe on the trademark.
What would be
fair is for the Candy Make-up company to inform you of their trademark and your violation (like if you had parked ads and your parking company somehow optimized them for the trademark rather than its inherent use). If you failed to honour their trademark and stop infringing, then they'd have every right to sue you in court for trademark infringement, and would probably file a CDRP as well and show the evidence of your wilful infringement as evidence of bad faith. The way a CDRP is written is that you have to show bad faith at the time of registration, so it is possible that a CDRP would fail anyways, but then again, panellists could possibly take any wilful infringement evidence into account and decide appropriately. And lets face it, the loss in a court case would be every bit as bad or worse (awards for damages) than losing a CDRP. But if you're wilfully infringing and continue to do so after being informed, well then you're just asking for it and probably deserve to lose.
I've received letters from lawyers in the past regarding generic terms and I've simply responded with a "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We acknowledge your trademark rights and certainly understand and respect your position. Now that we are aware, we've corrected the issue and will give all due care and attention to ensuring that no future infringement will occur." I've never heard back from a single one after that. However, sometimes you never even get that chance when they just file a dispute without ever having tried to contact you.
That CDRP you referred to was probably due to the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. Their marketing department explicitly authorized the use of my domain to redirect to their brand for a commission - but their legal department didn't like it and probably didn't know about what the marketing department did. Although they SHOULD have known, for god sakes, it was obvious due to the fact I was redirecting the traffic TO THEM - not showing competitor ads or anything like that. And its also possible they did know but thought they'd take a stab at it anyways - which wouldn't surprise me as its a reflection of the typical lawyer hubris. Its always a gift when a lawyer goes beyond their own expertise and files a CDRP or UDRP rather than using a specialist. That's why a guy like
@Zak has such a high success rate, its a case of Pro vs Amateur, and in any situation, a true Pro will win 99.9% of the time.
Furthermore, in any dispute, the respondant has the advantage - presuming they have the will to proceed and fight it. Think of it like in sports, you've got an offense and a defense. But in a dispute, the offense has to lay out their entire offensive plan for you to analyze and pick apart. If you realize you can't beat it, you fold your hand rather than take the loss. Otherwise you proceed and most likely win. Your record ends up with like 100% wins, zero losses and and unknown number of folds (because those don't get published).
