- Lambo.com owner loses lawsuit and domain against Lamborghini after findings of bad faith
- He tried to claim that Lambo came from a pun on Lamb, not from the automaker.
- The domain was purchased for $10,000 and was put up for sale for up to $75 million.
History shows that if you buy the right domain name at the right time, you could sell it for a considerable profit, but it turns out that it is not without risk.
Richard Blair from Arizona thought he had found a promising digital asset when he bought Lambo.com for $10,000 in 2018. Lambo is a well-known nickname for a Lamborghini and therefore has a certain cachet.
As road and track He reportedly later listed it for $1,129,298 in 2020, which would have been a tasty payday, but then increased the asking price to $1.5 million. In early 2021, the price jumped to $3.3 million. It reached 12 million dollars that same year. In 2022, the price rose to approximately $58 million. For 2023 it was set at 75 million dollars. Interested parties reportedly made offers, but Blair rejected them.
I’m Lambo!
In an attempt to gain legitimacy, after purchasing the domain, Blair began calling himself “Lambo” online. He said it came from a pun about Lamb and had absolutely nothing to do with the well-known sports car manufacturer.
He directed Lambo.com to a personal site where road and track says he posted: “I AM LAMBO from LAMBO.com and I will defend, defeat and humiliate those who try to steal any of my domain trademarks, including my nickname.”
Lamborghini, unimpressed with Blair’s activities, took the matter to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Arbitration and Mediation Center in 2022. It requested that the name be reassigned under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, the framework used to handle disputes over domain ownership.
The panel decided that Blair was acting in bad faith and decided that ownership should pass to the automaker. Blair took the dispute to federal court to try to overturn that outcome, but a U.S. district judge sided with Lamborghini and dismissed the case.
The court ruled that Blair lacked any rights to the name and had only adopted the nickname after purchasing the domain. He said he did not develop the site, had attacked the company on more than one occasion and had tried to capitalize on its established reputation.
You can certainly make money buying and selling domains. Voice.com sold for $30 million in 2019, 360.com sold for $17 million in 2015, and Chat.com sold for $15.5 million in 2023. NFTs.com, Rocket.com, Sex.com, and Icon.com also sold for eight figures.
Richard Blair was no doubt inspired by these deals when he bought Lambo.com, but his attempt to get rich ended not only with the loss of the $10,000 domain but also with a hefty legal bill.
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