Man who wanted $75 million for Lambo.com domain is forced to hand it over to Lamborghini

[midian182]

Facepalm: There have been plenty of instances over the decades of people making small fortunes by selling domain names, but the practice isn't risk free. A man who bought Lambo.com hoped to get $75 million for the name. Unfortunately, a court made him turn it over to Lamborghini for nothing.

In February 2018, Arizona resident Richard Blair paid $10,000 for the Lambo.com domain, likely hoping to make a tidy profit by selling it – Lambo is a popular nickname for the company.

Blair put Lambo.com up for sale several times. He first listed it for £1.12 million in August 2020, increasing the price to $1.5 million in December that year. A month later, it jumped to $3.3 million, increasing it again to $12 million in September 2021.

Apparently not content with these amounts, Blair pushed the price to $58 million in August 2022, and it finally reached $75 million in September 2023. Potential buyers reportedly made offers to buy the domain during this time but Blair turned them all down.

Road & Track writes that after purchasing the domain, Blair started referring to himself as "Lambo" online and claiming he was drawn to the name as a play on the word lamb, not the car company.

He also directed Lambo.com to his own site featuring a blog post, part of which read, "I AM LAMBO of LAMBO.com and I will defend, defeat and humiliate those endeavoring to steal any of my domain name brands – including my moniker."

Unsurprisingly, Lamborghini wasn't very happy with Blair's actions. In April 2022, it filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center, requesting a transfer of the domain name under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

The UDRP is an international process used to resolve disputes over internet domain names, especially when someone registers a domain that includes a trademark they don't own.

In August 2022, the panel determined that Blair was acting in bad faith and ordered the domain be transferred to Lamborghini. Blair's response was to file a lawsuit in the hope of getting the decision reversed.

But the court has ruled that Blair had no legal right to the name and only started using the moniker after he bought the domain. The ruling added that he made no attempt to develop the website, had verbally attacked Lamborghini more than once, and was trying to profit from the company's reputation and goodwill.

Now, Blair has handed the domain to Lamborghini. Not only has he lost the original $10,000, but he's also on the hook for the legal fees.

There have been several instances where domains were sold for millions. Voice.com sold for $30 million in 2019, the most expensive all-cash domain-only sale ever. Chat.com went for $15.5 million in 2023, NFTs.com sold for $15 million in 2022, and Rocket.com was sold for $14 million in 2024.

Image credit: Craventure Media

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Man who wanted $75 million for Lambo.com domain is forced to hand it over to Lamborghini

 

[bviktor]

“ £1.12 million in August 2020, increasing the price to $1.5 million in December that year”

Actually, that’s the same amount haha

On a serious note though, what a *****. They would’ve probably settled for a few million, but he was too greedy. Good for him.

 

[gigantor21]

Should’ve cashed in while he had the chance…

 

[kingmustard]

Should’ve cashed in while he had the chance…

Hindsight is a *****.

 

[Rapob]

He asked too much and got nothing instead. Good news.

 

[Str8Shot]

Greed and grandiosity, the vices that emptied his purse by not being satisfied with a few million.

What can you do with $58 million that you can’t do with $5 or 10 million, assuming a standard upper middle-class approach to life (in his case). Could’ve retired very well off.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Wow, I know we here in the Techspot comments love slurping up Corpo sausage, but I didnt know it was this bad. Are we really celebrating a multi billion dollar luxury corpo using the court system to forcibly remove property from an individual and forcing said individual to pay court costs?

Like, really break that down and think about it for a minute here. Replace "Lamborghini" with "Monsanto" or "Palantir" and ask if this makes you sound like an awful person. We're not allowed to clown on corpos anymore? Not allowed to make fun of them with silly website names?

Should’ve cashed in while he had the chance…

Hindsight is a *****.

Y'all should read the article again. Lamborghini never made ANY offer. He originally offered the sight for sale for $1.12 million, then $1.5 million. There were no offers for him to cash out.

On a serious note though, what a *****. They would’ve probably settled for a few million, but he was too greedy. Good for him.

They didnt take him up on the $1.12 million offer, there is 0 evidence to say they would have settled for a "few million". That is baseless conjecture.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

The UDRP is an international process used to resolve disputes over internet domain names, especially when someone registers a domain that includes a trademark they don't own.

... and now the $64.000.000 question:
Since when does Lamborghini own trademark Lambo?

Answer: 2024-09-23

Is it not "a little bit" late for domain name sold to that person in February 2018.

Apple did similar thing when named they device McIntosh.
Knowing that was registered trademark.

All subject should be equal before law.
Just some corpos are more equal.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The UDRP is an international process used to resolve disputes over internet domain names, especially when someone registers a domain that includes a trademark they don't own.

... and now the $64.000.000 question:
Since when does Lamborghini own trademark Lambo?

Answer: 2024-09-23

Is it not "a little bit" late for domain name sold to that person in February 2018.

Apple did similar thing when named they device McIntosh.
Knowing that was registered trademark.

All subject should be equal before law.
Just some corpos are more equal.

I seem to remember, at one point, companies were trying to trademark words and people were getting very upset at the obvious abuse of power.

Now we're celebrating it because of the perceived notion that the person involved had money because he could afford the domain name.

All hail our corpo overlords!

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

I seem to remember, at one point, companies were trying to trademark words and people were getting very upset at the obvious abuse of power.

Now we're celebrating it because of the perceived notion that the person involved had money because he could afford the domain name.

So true.
And so sad.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Apple did similar thing when named they device McIntosh.
Knowing that was registered trademark.

Apple has no device 'McIntosh'.
Apple knows it's a trademarked name.

Apple sells computers called 'Macintosh', which they have trademarked. Notice the difference and oh well if that spoils your argument.

 

[bviktor]

They didnt take him up on the $1.12 million offer, there is 0 evidence to say they would have settled for a "few million". That is baseless conjecture.

Yeah, baseless, as in, even the article mentions other successful transactions up to 30 million.

I didn't say there's "evidence for settlement", I didn't say Lambo (the company) made any offers. I said "they probably would have".

Cases like this are bad press, so companies often handle them with grace. But $75m is just nonsensical and no company would ever shell out that much for a stupid domain like this. It's not even their real name, it's just a nickname.

Should I also explain to you how bargaining works? If you're in the same ballpark, you try to negotiate. But if the seller asks for a price that's 100 times your range, you just drop it.

And you even paint like it's an "abuse of power". Except there's nothing legitimate about the whole auction thing. The person made absolutely no use of the domain whatsoever, all he did was try to sell it and turn a 7500x profit on it for an early retirement. Zero value, just asking for a sh*tton of money, just because. And you think that's a legitimate business.

Ok I guess. I'm sure you'd think the same if it was your successful company and some random *diot tried to sell you a similar domain for ridiculous amounts of money.

 

[Axeia]

A rare case where I'll side with the company rather than the individual - what a clown.

He should have hidden his greed better and just drawn a sheep with a Rambo headband and put that on the domain. When you're this obvious about just domain sitting it's obvious the court is going to rule against you.

 

[skuff]

The person made absolutely no use of the domain whatsoever, all he did was try to sell it and turn a 7500x profit on it for an early retirement. Zero value, just asking for a sh*tton of money, just because. And you think that's a legitimate business.

So what? Where does it say he needs to make a use of it? It was his domain and nobody is allowed to tell him what to do with it.

 

[GFitzpatrick47]

Yeah, baseless, as in, even the article mentions other successful transactions up to 30 million.

I didn't say there's "evidence for settlement", I didn't say Lambo (the company) made any offers. I said "they probably would have".

Cases like this are bad press, so companies often handle them with grace. But $75m is just nonsensical and no company would ever shell out that much for a stupid domain like this. It's not even their real name, it's just a nickname.

Should I also explain to you how bargaining works? If you're in the same ballpark, you try to negotiate. But if the seller asks for a price that's 100 times your range, you just drop it.

And you even paint like it's an "abuse of power". Except there's nothing legitimate about the whole auction thing. The person made absolutely no use of the domain whatsoever, all he did was try to sell it and turn a 7500x profit on it for an early retirement. Zero value, just asking for a sh*tton of money, just because. And you think that's a legitimate business.

Ok I guess. I'm sure you'd think the same if it was your successful company and some random *diot tried to sell you a similar domain for ridiculous amounts of money.

To be fair, Lamborghini isn't going to use the domain either. All they're going to do is have it redirect to the domain they've been using for two decades: Lamborghini.com. So, all you have is a company worth billions, owned by another company worth billions, who used the legal system to get what they claim is an asset FOR FREE from someone who actually paid for it.

Domain parking is a problem, but lets not act like Lamborghini didn't have a functioning domain for decades, or that their customer base was typing in Lambo.com and getting confused when nothing pulled up.

This is nothing more than eminent domain (no pun intended) without the legal requirement of the government/buyer providing fair market value. Frankly put, if someone wants to drop a bunch of cash on a domain as a potential long-term investment, and do nothing with it, why stop them? If Lamborghini, in all its years of operatiing a website, saw no value in scooping the "Lambo.com" domain, how they made the argument that somehow their brand was being hurt, or it was some sort of infringement, is beyond me.

As a Lamborghini fan myself, there hasn't been a single instance where another fan (or car fan in general), was up in arms about "Lambo.com" being owned by some random dude and not Lamborghini themselves (or the Volkswagen-Audi Group as a whole). It's also really telling that one of the issues raised by the court was "had attacked Lamborghini more than once". So ****ing what? What does that have to do with the ownership of the domain?

 

[NumberNine]

It seems difficult to hang onto things if rich people are interested in them.

 

[llamapanda]

Lamborghinis having been referred to as Lambos since some of has a Countach poster on our bedroom walls, long before the internet existed. It seems odd that anyone other than Lamborghini themselves would offer to buy that domain except to see if they could then make a better effort to extort the company than this guy did.

As fun as it is to point and laugh at the chancer getting hosed for $10k+ as gambling losses, it would look better for Lambo if they'd played the goodwill card and offered to buy it for the same $10k adjusted for inflation rather than sueing the guy. Perhaps they reasoned that their customer base isn't likely to be swayed by the court of public opinion (the majority of whom could never afford their products) so happily pounded him.

 

[Vanderkaum037]

I don't understand the legal basis for taking someone else's property and handing it over to a company like this.

 

[Xelions]

The court should have had the domain privately valued and mediated a deal between the 2 parties. If a consensus couldn't be met, just place some minor caveats on the domain owner.

The court has no rights legal or otherwise to transfer ownership of a top level domain name IMHO. Our rights to ownership of property are being stripped away slowly but surely.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

Apple sells computers called 'Macintosh', which they have trademarked.

Apple has it now.
Did not have at time when they firstly made them.

Notice the difference and oh well if that spoils your argument.

Sure.
There is difference.
Than person did not have trademark of "Lambo".
That producer of macintosh had.

McIntosh is a variety of apple from which Jef Raskin derived the name for Macintosh, a line of personal computers from Apple Computer.[1] The McIntosh is in season from September through May and is a good variety to bake in pies, but is not a snacking apple.[2]
The apples are named after John McIntosh, a Scottish-Canadian farmer who is credited with discovering the original McIntosh sapling growing wild on his Dundela farm in Upper Canada in 1811.[2] The name McIntosh is a variant of the Scottish surname that originated from Clan Mackintosh.[3]

McIntosh

McIntosh is a variety of apple from which Jef Raskin derived the name for Macintosh, a line of personal computers from Apple Computer.[1] The McIntosh is in season from September through May and is a good variety to bake in pies, but is not a snacking apple.[2] The apples are named after John...

apple.fandom.com

 

[A Tabby Person]

Lamborghini has spent DECADES building a brand. If they don’t defend against this ticky-tacky they put themselves at needless legal risk in the future. Area man rolled the dice and lost.