- Judge ruled the Lambo Dot Com owner acted in bad faith under law.
- The owner listed the domain for huge sums without developing the site.
- Court awarded Lambo Dot Com to Lamborghini for free after ruling.
Investments can be a tricky thing. Sometimes they make fortunes; sometimes they make headlines for all the wrong reasons. One man in Arizona just found that out the hard way while trying to turn a tidy profit, or a megafortune, to be exact. Back in 2018, he bought the domain Lambo.com for $10,000, hoping to flip it later for a handsome return.
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His asking price climbed steadily until recently, when he wanted no less than $75 million for it. Now, he’s not just lost the opportunity for profit, but the site itself for $0 to none other than Lamborghini itself.
The Man Behind the URL
The man at the center of the case appears to be a domain investor with a portfolio exceeding 100 web addresses. According to court documents, he never developed Lambo.com but instead made it a parked landing page meant to advertise the domain’s availability for sale.
In just three years, the asking price shot from $1.1 million to $12 million; by September 2023, he listed it for $75 million. That’s a 749,900 percent markup over what he paid.
Lamborghini challenged him in 2022 via the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), arguing that “lambo.com” was confusingly similar to its LAMBORGHINI trademark and that he was attempting to cash in on the brand’s goodwill.
WIPO agreed, calling his behavior “bad faith,” and directed the domain to be transferred. The Arizona man then sued in federal court to overturn that ruling. He just lost, and it wasn’t particularly close.
The Legal Outcome
U.S. District Judge Roslyn O. Silver issued a 24-page ruling that leaves no room for interpretation. He admitted he had no trademark rights to “Lambo” and acknowledged the domain was confusingly similar to Lamborghini’s famous mark.
The court also found that he only began calling himself “Lambo” after purchasing the domain. That was an attempt, the judge wrote, that didn’t qualify as a legitimate use or personal identity under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA).
Ultimately, it looks like a combination of factors led to the ruling. The man never made a bona fide commercial or noncommercial use of the site. As Road&Track points out, at one stage he made it point to a forum where he accused Lamborghini of “theft” and vowed to “defend, defeat, and humiliate” the automaker.
Lamborghini now receives Lambo.com for free. The ex-website owner is left with his legal bills, the loss of his $10,000 investment, and a sharply worded order dismissing his case with prejudice.
Credit:Wayback Machine
