WIPO D2015-1679 · decided 16 November 2015
LinkedIn Corporation v. Daphne Reynolds
The parties
- Complainant
- LinkedIn Corporation
- Respondent
- Daphne Reynolds
What did the panel find on each element?
| Policy paragraph | Finding |
|---|---|
| 4(a)(i) Identical or confusingly similar | The panel found linkedlnjobs.com confusingly similar to LINKEDIN, because replacing the second "i" with a lookalike "l" and adding "jobs" do not distinguish the domain from the trademark. |
| 4(a)(ii) No rights or legitimate interests | The panel found LinkedIn had made a prima facie case the respondent lacked rights, and redirecting the domain to linkedin.com was not legitimate noncommercial or fair use. |
| 4(a)(iii) Registered and used in bad faith | The panel found typosquatting showed bad faith registration, and sending fake job offers asking for "Interview Security Fees" from the domain's email address was bad faith use. |
Why does LinkedIn matter for a complaint today?
LinkedIn Corporation won the transfer of linkedlnjobs.com, a domain that replaced the second "i" in LINKEDIN with a lowercase "l". The panel noted that the two letters look alike and that LinkedIn writes its name with a capital "I". The respondent sent fake job offers from an email address on the domain and asked applicants to pay "Interview Security Fees". The panel held that typosquatting can by itself be evidence of bad faith registration, and that the fake job offers were bad faith use. When the panel checked on 9 November 2015, the website simply redirected to linkedin.com. The panel held that this change was further evidence of a bad faith attempt to impersonate LinkedIn. For a business owner, the lesson is that you can bring a UDRP complaint over a domain that shows no harmful website, if you have evidence of the emails sent from it. LinkedIn won on that evidence. Section 3.4 of the WIPO Overview 3.1 confirms that sending deceptive email to job applicants can be bad faith use. The limit: the respondent filed no response, so the panel's findings on the scam rest on LinkedIn's unchallenged evidence.
What does the WIPO Overview 3.1 say?
The WIPO Overview 3.1 summarises how WIPO panels decide each issue. These sections cover the same point of law.
- Section 1.9: Is a domain name consisting of a variation of the complainant's trademark confusingly similar to the complainant's mark? The Overview cites this decision here.
- Section 3.4: Can the use of a domain name for purposes other than hosting trademark-abusive content constitute bad faith?
Who decided the case?
A single panelist, Geert Glas, decided the case on 16 November 2015.
Read the decision
The full text is published by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. We summarise it here; the decision itself is the authority.
Summarised by Gergana Dimitrova, who worked at the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center from 2018 to 2021 and sits as a domain name panelist at the Czech Arbitration Court. Checked against the published decision on 23 October 2026. Full background.
Someone has taken a domain that uses your brand?
The first assessment is free and comes back within 24 hours. If the case is weak we say so rather than take the fee.