Step-by-step: prove bad faith registration of a .info domain

Step-by-step: prove bad faith registration of a .info domain. UDRP and ccTLD domain recovery and defense across .info. Email the firm to assess your case.

Someone registers a .info domain that matches your brand exactly. They point it at a pay-per-click parking page, wait for your customers to arrive, and then demand a price well above any plausible registration cost to sell it back. You want to know whether you can take it. The answer is yes – if you can prove all three elements of the UDRP, and if you build that proof in the right order.

To prove bad faith registration of a .info domain under the UDRP, a complainant must satisfy all three elements of Paragraph 4(a): confusing similarity to a mark you hold, no legitimate interest on the registrant's side, and registration and use in bad faith. The .info zone operates under the UDRP administered by WIPO, the Forum, CAC, and ADNDRC. A standard case resolves in roughly two months, with transfer or cancellation as the only available remedies – no damages, no legal-fee awards.

This guide walks each step, flags the trap hiding in it, and shows what evidence decides the outcome.

Why does the UDRP apply to .info domains – and what are the real limits of the procedure?

The UDRP applies to .info because the registry operates under ICANN accreditation and has incorporated the Policy into its registration agreement. Every .info registrant, anywhere in the world, accepts UDRP jurisdiction at the moment of registration. That acceptance is the procedural hook that makes the remedy available without court filing – no service of process, no jurisdictional hurdles, no waiting for a foreign court docket.

The limits matter, though. The UDRP delivers only two remedies: transfer of the domain to the complainant or cancellation of the registration. There is no monetary award, no injunction against future registrations, and no costs order against a losing registrant. If the primary goal is to recover a domain and move on, the UDRP is often the most direct path. If the goal is compensation for diverted traffic or reputational damage, a court proceeding is the only route that reaches money.

In our practice, complainants sometimes arrive having already contacted the registrant informally. That is rarely fatal, but it can hand the registrant evidence of when they learned about the dispute – a detail that matters when timing arguments arise at the bad-faith stage. Act deliberately, not reactively.

Step 1: Confirm your trademark rights – the threshold the panel checks before anything else

The first element of Paragraph 4(a) requires you to show rights in a mark and to demonstrate that the disputed domain is identical or confusingly similar to it. This element is widely described as a standing check rather than a full merits inquiry. Panels typically resolve it quickly. But it carries a trap.

The trap is relying on an unregistered mark without building the record. A registered trademark is the clearest evidence of rights. A national registration in the country where the registrant operates is particularly useful – it goes to awareness later, at the bad-faith stage. If you hold only common-law or unregistered rights, you must produce evidence that the mark had acquired distinctiveness before the .info domain was registered: advertising spend, sales figures, press coverage, or third-party references that collectively establish secondary meaning in the relevant market.

The confusing similarity comparison is a visual and phonetic side-by-side. Panels set the generic top-level domain – ".info" – aside when making that comparison; it adds nothing distinctive. A domain that reproduces your mark in full, with or without a generic word added, ordinarily clears this element. Where your mark is compound or stylized, reduce it to its dominant verbal element before comparing.

What to have ready: a copy of each trademark registration certificate, a printout of the WHOIS or RDDS record for the disputed domain, and a written explanation of why the domain is confusingly similar to the mark. If you rely on common-law rights, assemble a dated evidence bundle covering the period before the domain was registered.

For an assessment of whether your trademark record is strong enough to open a UDRP complaint, contact info@cognomenlaw.com.

Step 2: Prove the registrant has no legitimate interest – the element that trips most self-filed complaints

The second element of Paragraph 4(a) asks whether the registrant has any rights or legitimate interests in the domain. The burden here is asymmetric, and the asymmetry is the trap. Because the complainant cannot know with certainty what the registrant's internal motives were, panels allow a complainant to make a prima facie case – a reasoned showing that none of the safe harbors apply – after which the burden of production shifts to the registrant to rebut it.

The three Paragraph 4(c) safe harbors are: (1) a bona fide offering of goods or services at or before notice of the dispute; (2) the registrant being commonly known by the domain name; and (3) legitimate noncommercial or fair use without commercial gain or intent to mislead. To make the prima facie case, show that none of these fits the facts.

Concretely: confirm that the registrant's WHOIS or RDDS record does not show a name matching the domain; confirm that the registrant has no trademark registration for the term; confirm that no content on the site constitutes a bona fide offering rather than a parking page, a redirect, or a click-farm. Screenshots of the website at several points in time, pulled from an archival service, are among the most useful exhibits here. They show what the registrant actually did with the domain, not what they later claim they intended.

In a recent matter – a .info typosquat in the consumer goods sector, spring 2025 – we documented that the registrant had used the domain to serve pay-per-click links for competitors of the complainant. That pattern collapsed any plausible fair-use argument before the response was even filed.

The deeper trap at this step is over-relying on default. Panels in UDRP proceedings do decide on default when a respondent fails to reply, but they still examine the record. A thin complaint that merely asserts lack of legitimate interest without producing specific evidence can result in denial even in an uncontested case.

Step 3: Prove bad faith registration – why timing and knowledge are decisive

Bad faith registration is, for many complainants, the hardest element to prove in a .info proceeding. The reason is the word "registration." The UDRP requires that the domain was registered and used in bad faith. Both limbs must be shown. Showing that the current use is abusive does not automatically reach back to establish that the original registration was bad faith.

To prove bad faith at registration, you must establish that the registrant knew – or should have known – of your mark at the moment the domain was registered. Several fact patterns support that inference directly.

First, if your mark was registered in a jurisdiction where the registrant is based or active, panels apply a presumption of constructive notice where the mark is commercially well-known. Second, if the domain incorporates your mark in full without any meaningful addition, panels often infer that the registrant was targeting the mark; a meaningless addition (a number, a hyphen, a generic term) changes little. Third, prior communications are powerful: if the registrant contacted you before registration about purchasing or licensing the mark, or subsequently offered to sell the domain at a price wildly above cost, that conduct is catalogued in Paragraph 4(b) as a bad-faith circumstance. Fourth, a pattern of similar registrations – where the registrant holds other domains that track the marks of well-known companies – supports an inference of systematic targeting.

What to have ready: the registration date of the disputed domain; the date of your earliest trademark rights; any evidence of the mark's profile in the relevant market as of the registration date; any communications from the registrant about price or sale; and RDDS or web archive records showing what the domain resolved to immediately after registration, not merely today.

Step 4: Prove bad faith use – the second limb and how it interacts with the first

The bad-faith use limb is usually easier to demonstrate, but it must connect to the registration. Panels have consistently held that a domain parked with pay-per-click links to competitors of the mark owner satisfies the commercial-gain-by-confusion circumstance in Paragraph 4(b). A domain that redirects to the mark owner's own site may not – some panels treat it as consistent with a scam or a typosquat, others have found it ambiguous without additional context.

Where bad-faith use is less obvious – for example, a domain that is passively held, showing no active content – panels apply a doctrine of passive holding. Passive use is not automatically legitimate. In passive-holding situations, panels examine the totality: the strength of the complainant's mark, the absence of any plausible good-faith use, prior correspondence, and the registrant's history. See our case note on recovering a domain from passive holding for a detailed look at how that analysis applies.

Concretely: gather web archive records showing the domain's content or absence of content at multiple points since registration. If the domain has ever been listed for sale on a domain marketplace, a screenshot of the listing with the asking price is direct evidence under Paragraph 4(b)(i). If the registrant has written to you or your client about a sale, preserve every message, including metadata.

If you have already assembled evidence but are unsure whether it reaches the bad-faith bar, email info@cognomenlaw.com to weigh the file before filing the complaint.

Step 5: Choose the right forum and file – where the case is decided and why it matters

The .info zone is governed by the UDRP, and all four approved dispute-resolution providers – WIPO, the Forum, CAC, and ADNDRC – accept complaints for .info domains. Choosing the forum is not a formality. Fees differ, panel pools differ, and the tone of reasoned decisions differs in ways that affect strategy.

WIPO handles the largest caseload and is the forum most institutional complainants use. The filing fee for a single-member panel covering one to five domains is USD 1,500. The Forum begins around USD 1,300 for one to two domains with a single-member panel. The Czech Arbitration Court (CAC) has the lowest entry point, beginning around USD 500–800. The practical difference is not only cost: WIPO decisions are more extensively published and cited, which matters if the registrant is a serial cybersquatter and you want the decision on the record.

The choice between a single-member and a three-member panel is significant. A single-member panel is faster and cheaper; it is appropriate where the facts are clear and you do not anticipate a sophisticated defense. If the registrant is likely to mount a serious defense – or if you want three independent views precisely because the evidence is close – a three-member panel costs more (USD 4,000 at WIPO for a single complaint) but produces a more authoritative and less easily appealed outcome.

Once the complaint is filed and formally complies, the provider commences the case and gives the registrant 20 days to file a response. That clock does not run from filing; it runs from the formal commencement date, which follows the compliance review. Plan for that gap. After the response period closes – whether or not a response is filed – a panelist is appointed, typically within a few days, and the decision follows within two weeks of appointment.

From filing to transfer implementation: in an uncomplicated .info proceeding, the full cycle runs roughly two months. A settlement, a three-member panel request, or a supplemental filing can extend that.

For context on the cross-zone dimension: if the same registrant holds your brand as both a .com and a .info, you can include multiple domains in a single UDRP complaint provided the registrant of record is the same holder. That saves both filing fees and time. If the .info is the only abusive registration, a single-domain complaint is the standard path. Learn more about UDRP recovery services at COGNOMEN.

What evidence tips a close case – and what the respondent will argue

Every UDRP case turns on its specific record. The elements are fixed, but the weight the panel gives to evidence varies with the strength of the overall file. In our experience, the evidence that most frequently tips a close case in the complainant's favor is contemporaneous – evidence assembled at or shortly after the registration, not retrospectively.

If you monitor your brand across zones (a service we provide as part of portfolio brand protection), you will typically capture the domain registration within days or weeks, while the registrant has not yet had time to build a credible defense story. Early capture means a web archive screenshot before the registrant sanitizes the page; it means capturing a for-sale listing at a speculative price; and it means preserving an unsolicited email from the registrant before they understood the strength of your position.

What will the registrant argue? In defended .info cases, the most common lines of defense are: (1) that the domain was registered for a different, innocent reason unrelated to the mark; (2) that the complainant's mark is not distinctive or was unknown at the time of registration; and (3) that the use of the domain was a bona fide or noncommercial fair use – for example, a commentary site. Where the complainant has a strong, well-documented mark and the registrant's asserted purpose is contradicted by the domain's actual content, these arguments rarely prevail. But they are raised, and the complaint must address them pre-emptively.

In a second recent matter – a .info registration targeting a regional financial services brand, autumn 2025 – the registrant submitted a response claiming the initials in the domain name were their own business abbreviation. We had secured web archive records from the first week after registration showing pay-per-click links to the complainant's competitors. The initials argument did not survive that evidence, and the panel transferred the domain.

For a detailed analysis of how the "no legitimate interest" element works across fact patterns, see our analysis of proving no legitimate interest in .com disputes – the doctrine is materially the same for .info.

The myth of the guaranteed win – and the one step that changes the risk calculation

The most common misconception we encounter at the mofu stage of a domain dispute is that a strong trademark automatically equals a UDRP win. It does not. The UDRP is not a trademark enforcement mechanism in the broad sense. It is a narrow procedure for addressing bad faith registration and use. A complainant with a household-name mark still loses if the complaint is filed against a registrant who had a plausible legitimate use of a generic or descriptive term that happens to overlap with the mark.

More directly: a complaint that fails on the bad-faith registration limb – for example, because the complainant registered the trademark after the domain was created – does not merely lose. It can result in a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH): a formal finding that the complaint was brought in bad faith to deprive a legitimate registrant of their domain. RDNH findings are public and reputational. They are also a reason that rushed, poorly evidenced complaints carry a cost beyond filing fees.

The step that changes the risk calculation is a pre-filing assessment. Before committing to a complaint, confirm that the trademark predates the domain registration, that the mark was sufficiently distinctive and commercially known in the relevant market as of that date, and that the registrant's actual conduct is consistent with one or more of the Paragraph 4(b) bad-faith factors. That assessment takes time; it is not the same as reviewing the WHOIS and assuming the rest will follow.

We assess the three UDRP elements, assemble the bad-faith evidence, select the forum, and file the complaint on behalf of brand owners who have completed that pre-filing step. Where a pre-filing assessment reveals a risk of RDNH or a weak bad-faith record, we advise against filing and discuss the alternatives.

Related at COGNOMEN

• UDRP Recovery Service – recover a domain through WIPO, the Forum, or CAC across gTLDs including .info
• Analysis: Proving no legitimate interest in a .com dispute – doctrine that applies equally to .info
• Case note: Recovering a passively held cloud-zone domain – how passive holding analysis works in practice