I looked around the WIPO site and found an arbitration case that meets the facts the reddit poster claimed. Either he found a WIPO case and decided to make it a huge "AskReddit," or, yes, the OP is going up against a quite large company.

(Not linking here in an attempt to preserve privacy.)

Indeed, there is a case that seems to match all elements (domain starting with a w).

If that case is indeed the right one, the complainants have had a trademark on their mark since 1953, and yet they let the domain be first registered in 2005, and then bought by the current owner in 2011.

So, they could either have created the domain before 2005 or buy it between 2005 and 2011, but they chose to go against the current owner in June of this year only.

There should be laws against such carelessness.

In fact the domain in dispute is a .org, while the company already owns the .com; the .net belongs to a squatter.

I think what happened is, the company didn't care about other tlds than the .com; the .org was bought in January of this year by the current owner, legitimately, but, I presume, from a squatter (and that's why he says that buying the domain in the first place was expensive enough).

And suddenly the company decides they need other tlds; from their point of view they're all squatters; they're wrong, but their line of reasoning is not absurd.

How can you preserve privacy of something posted to reddit?

At the moment, he's chosen not to reveal his name, his domain, or the company in question.

I think it's silly, publicity can only help him in a case like this, but we don't get to make that choice for him.

That said, he'd be doing everyone a public service by naming the company. Judging by the WIPO case (which I also found), they're quite inept and shouldn't be trusted with anything more complicated than lincoln logs.

this was my thought as well. but others seem to disagree; my reddit comment to that effect was voted down, and others here seem to have looked up the actual case and think it's legit.

Why would a serious law department make an offer that domain squatters regularly turn down when selling obscure domains to nobodies like me? I tried to buy prgmr.net and prgrmr.com (note the extra 'r') from the squatters that had them; I offered $300 a pop, but they wouldn't budge from three grand. (they can keep 'em if they think they can get three grand of value out of them. What do the economists say? the highest value use? They aren't worth two new servers to me, that's for sure.)

It sounded like a grand or two would have made the guy happy, and it sounds like the company in question has already sunk several times that into legal fees. Are serious companies really that irrational?

Actually it is common in domain name disputes like this for large corporations represented by even white show law firms to offer only trivial amounts of money for domain names. Amounts that fall far below the cost of pursuing a case legally.

UDRP specifically refers to "out of pocket costs" so offering a small amount of money allows the complainant to not exceed that without jeopardizing and potentially enhancing (by baiting the owner) any future legal actions.

One reason is to send a message of fear to the registrant that the company that wants the name is unreasonable and crazy and will take all actions at any cost to get the name.

Same strategy in personal injury cases. Some companies will settle for any reasonable amount because the legal cost is high. Others would rather send a message by spending three times the money on legal costs.

That may constitute a bad faith attempt to profit from the domain from the trademark holder, and may cost him the domain.

Why is that bad faith? He simply said that it's worth way more for him. Besides, if I were in his shoes, I would fight "bad faith" with "bad faith" - if a company would threaten to sue me, then I would certainly bump the price some 10x or so.

(1) the manner in which the domain name(s) is/are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and

(2) why the Respondent (domain-name holder) should be considered as having no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name(s) that is/are the subject of the complaint; and

(3) why the domain name(s) should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith

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The issue is registered AND being used. It would be pretty hard to argue that it was registered in bad faith when it is his name. Of course, ask the Nissan guy about this, there are exceptions.