Legal
Written in-house, not yet reviewed by a solicitor. These are the terms that apply to purchases today.

Trademark & Slug Disputes

A vanity URL is a short name that points at a system, such as /your-name. This page sets out what to do if you think someone has registered a name they have no right to, and how we decide.

This is a UDRP-inspired process. We are not a domain registrar and this is not UDRP.

What a dispute can be about

This process covers vanity URLs. It does not cover coordinates. A coordinate is a place, not a name, and holding one gives nobody a claim over a brand.

A vanity URL is an annual subscription at £19 a year. It is not owned, and it is not tied to who owns a system. Nobody can hold a company's name hostage here.

Some names cannot be registered at all, and some well-known brand names can be registered only after we have checked who is asking. Names use the letters a to z, digits and hyphens only, so a look-alike spelling in another alphabet cannot be registered.

Who may complain

The holder of a registered trade mark, or someone who can show unregistered rights in a name, or a person authorised to act for them.

What to send us

Write to us at support@charteduniverse.space with:

  • the vanity URL you are complaining about;
  • the mark, its registration number and the country or region where it is registered;
  • evidence of your rights in it, especially if the mark is not registered;
  • why you say the registration is abusive;
  • your contact details.

The report button on a system has an "Impersonation or trademark" reason. A report sent that way goes to our review queue and we do not reply to it. To start a dispute under this process, write to us as set out above.

The test we apply

A complaint succeeds only if all three of these are shown:

  • the vanity URL is identical or confusingly similar to a mark in which the complainant has rights;
  • the person who registered it has no rights or legitimate interests in the name; and
  • it was registered and is being used in bad faith.

What happens when we receive a complaint

We may freeze the vanity URL while we decide. A frozen URL shows a neutral page that says "This URL is under review". It does not show the system the name pointed at. Nothing is deleted: the registration, the system and the system's own coordinate address are untouched, and the system can still be reached at its coordinate.

We tell the person who registered the name about the complaint and give them 14 days to respond before we decide.

We freeze a name before its registrant has been heard only for clear impersonation or phishing. Otherwise any freeze comes after they have had the chance to respond.

Outcomes

  • The freeze is lifted and the name works as before. If the subscription ended while the name was frozen, the name is released instead of restored.
  • The name is moved to the complainant.
  • The name is not renewed and ends at its renewal date.

Vanity URLs are annual, so declining to renew is always available as a clean way out that takes nothing away mid-term.

If a name is moved to the complainant, the registrant gets a pro-rata refund for the unused part of the year, unless the name was registered in bad faith. There is no refund when a name is not renewed.

Complaints brought in bad faith

This process is not one-sided. If we find that a complaint was brought in bad faith, for example to take a name from someone with a legitimate interest in it, or to harass them, we reject it, we lift any freeze, and we record the finding. We take that record into account if the same complainant writes to us again.

The record we keep

Every freeze and every lifted freeze is recorded with who did it, when, and the reason given. A reason is required for each. We keep that record so that we can show how a dispute was handled.

If you disagree

Write to us at support@charteduniverse.space and we will look at the decision again.

Not a court — nothing here limits either party's legal rights.

See also Terms of Service and Acceptable Use.