WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center

ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION

Synchrony Financial v. Withheld for Privacy Purposes, Privacy service provided by Withheld for Privacy ehf / Work Man

Case No. D2021-1223

1. The Parties

The Complainant is Synchrony Financial, United States of America (“United States”), represented by CSC Digital Brand Services AB, Sweden.

The Respondent is Withheld for Privacy Purposes, Privacy service provided by Withheld for Privacy ehf / Work Man, Netherlands.

2. The Domain Name and Registrar

The disputed domain name <synchronysbank.online> is registered with NameCheap, Inc. (the “Registrar”).

3. Procedural History

The Complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) on April 20, 2021. On April 21, 2021, the Center transmitted by email to the Registrar a request for registrar verification in connection with the disputed domain name. On April 21, 2021, the Registrar transmitted by email to the Center its verification response disclosing registrant and contact information for the disputed domain name which differed from the named Respondent and contact information in the Complaint. The Center sent an email communication to the Complainant on April 23, 2021, providing the registrant and contact information disclosed by the Registrar, and inviting the Complainant to submit an amendment to the Complaint. The Complainant filed an amended Complaint on April 27, 2021.

The Center verified that the Complaint together with the amended Complaint satisfied the formal requirements of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Policy” or “UDRP”), the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Rules”), and the WIPO Supplemental Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Supplemental Rules”).

In accordance with the Rules, paragraphs 2 and 4, the Center formally notified the Respondent of the Complaint, and the proceedings commenced on April 20, 2021. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5, the due date for Response was May 17, 2021. The Respondent did not submit any response. Accordingly, the Center notified the Respondent’s default on May 20, 2021.

The Center appointed Miguel B. O'Farrell as the sole panelist in this matter on May 27, 2021. The Panel finds that it was properly constituted. The Panel has submitted the Statement of Acceptance and Declaration of Impartiality and Independence, as required by the Center to ensure compliance with the Rules, paragraph 7.

4. Factual Background

The Complainant Synchrony Financial is a consumer financial services company delivering customized financial programs to several industries including retail, health, auto, travel and home, along with consumer banking products, and one of the largest providers of private label credit cards in the United States based on volumes and receivables.

Synchrony Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Complainant, is an online bank with many awards and accolades, including Bankrate.com s’ “5-Star Safe & Sound Rating”.

The Complainant owns several trademark registrations, including the following:

- United States trademark registration No. 5317372 SYNCHRONY BANK, registered on October 24, 2017, in Classes 9 and 36.

- Canadian trademark registration No. TMA 1045478 SYNCHRONY BANK, registered on July 29, 2019 in Classes 9, 16 and 35.

- United States trademark registration No. 6108303 SYNCHRONY, registered on July 21, 2020, in Classes 9, 35 and 36.

- United States trademark registration No. 5296650 SYNCHRONY, registered on September 26, 2017, in Classes 9 and 36.

- Canadian trademark registration No. TMA 627787, registered on December 7, 2004, in Class 36.

The Complainant owns the following domain names: <synchronybank.com> registered in 2015, <synchronybank.online> registered in 2017and <synchrony.com>, registered in 1995.

The disputed domain name <synchronysbank.online> was registered on February 12, 2021 and currently resolves to a blank page which lacks content.

5. Parties’ Contentions

A. Complainant

The Complainant claims roots dating back to 1932 and sustains that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar with the trademarks SYNCHRONY BANK and SYNCHRONY in which the Complainant has rights; that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name, which was registered and is being used in bad faith.

More specifically, the Respondent is not sponsored or affiliated with the Complainant in any way. The Complainant has not given the Respondent permission to use the Complainant’s trademarks in any manner, including in domain names, and the Respondent is not commonly known by the disputed domain name.

The disputed domain name was previously used to redirect Internet users to a website that copied and attempted to duplicate the Complainant’s official website by utilizing Complainant’s trademarks and logo yellow/white color scheme and impersonating the general design and feel in an attempt to pass off the disputed domain name as being affiliated with the Complainant.

In addition to the disputed domain name, the Respondent currently holds registrations of several other domain names that misappropriate the trademarks of well-known brands and businesses, such as <valertino.com> (Valentino SPA – VALENTINO), <ca-tdbanca.com> (The Toronto - Dominion Bank – TD) and others.

The Respondent, at the time of initial filing of the Complaint, had employed a privacy service to hide its identity, which past Panels have held serves as further evidence of bad faith registration and use.

Finally, the Complainant requests the Panel to issue a decision ordering that the disputed domain name be transferred to the Complainant.

B. Respondent

The Respondent did not reply to the Complainant’s contentions.

6. Discussion and Findings

According to paragraph 4(a) of the Policy, for this Complaint to succeed in relation to the disputed domain name, the Complainant must prove each of the following, namely that:

(i) the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar with a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and

(ii) the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name; and

(iii) the disputed domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith.

A. Identical or Confusingly Similar

The Panel is satisfied that the Complainant has proved that it has rights in the trademarks SYNCHRONY and SYNCHRONY BANK.

The standing test for confusing similarity involves a reasoned but relatively straightforward comparison between the trademark and the disputed domain name to determine whether the disputed domain name is confusingly similar with the trademark.

The disputed domain name totally incorporates the Complainant’s trademark SYNCHRONY BANK, with the sole addition of the letter “s” between the words “synchrony” and “bank”, and the generic Top-Level Domain (“gTLD”) “.online”, which the Panel shall disregard for the purpose of their comparison.

For the purposes of assessing identity or confusing similarity under paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy, it is permissible for the Panel to ignore the gTLD “.online”, as it is viewed as a standard registration requirement, as noted in section 1.11.1 of WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition (“WIPO Overview 3.0”).

The Panel finds that the disputed domain name is almost identical and therefore confusingly similar with the trademark in which the Complainant has rights. Thus, the requirements of paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy are fulfilled.

B. Rights or Legitimate Interests

Pursuant to paragraph 4(c) of the Policy, a respondent may establish rights to or legitimate interests in a domain name by demonstrating any of the following non-exclusive defenses:

(i) before any notice to it of the dispute, the respondent’s use of, or demonstrable preparations to use, the domain name or a name corresponding to the domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services; or

(ii) the respondent has been commonly known by the domain name, even if it has acquired no trademark or service mark rights; or

(iii) the respondent is making a legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the domain name, without intent for commercial gain, to misleadingly divert consumers.

Although the Policy addresses ways in which a respondent may demonstrate rights or legitimate interests in a disputed domain name, it is well established in section 2.1 of WIPO Overview 3.0, that a complainant is required to make out a prima facie case that the respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in the domain name. Once such prima facie case is made, the burden of production shifts to the respondent to come forward with relevant evidence demonstrating rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name. If the respondent fails to come forward with such relevant evidence, the complainant is deemed to have satisfied the second element.

There is no evidence in the file to prove any of the circumstances mentioned in paragraph 4(c) of the Policy, nor any other circumstances to suggest that the Respondent has rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.

Likewise, and as further discussed under section 6.C of this decision, it does not seem that the Respondent is making any legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the disputed domain name, but rather that it intends to use the disputed domain name for the purpose of deriving unfair monetary advantage by confusing Internet users and leading them to believe that the site to which the disputed domain name relates is an official site of the Complainant.

As established in section 2.5 of WIPO Overview 3.0: “Fundamentally, a respondent’s use of a domain name will not be considered ‘fair’ if it falsely suggests affiliation with the trademark owner; the correlation between a domain name and the complainant’s mark is often central to this inquiry.” Here, the nature of the disputed domain name carries a high risk of implied affiliation.

The Panel finds that the Complainant has made out a prima facie case, a case calling for an answer from the Respondent. The Respondent has not responded and the Panel is unable to conceive of any basis upon which the Respondent could sensibly be said to have any rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name (Telstra Corporation Ltd. v. Nuclear Marshmallows, WIPO Case No. D2000-0003).

The Panel finds that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name and that the requirements of paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy have been fulfilled.

C. Registered and Used in Bad Faith

The Panel is satisfied that the Respondent must have been aware of the Complainant’s trademarks mentioned in paragraph 4 above (Factual Background) when it registered the disputed domain name on February 12, 2021.

The Complainant has submitted evidence to support its claim that the trademarks mentioned in paragraph 4 above are widely known and were registered and used many years before the Respondent registered the disputed domain name.

Likewise, the Respondent registered the disputed domain name years after the Complainant registered the domain names <synchronybank.com> in 2015 and <synchronybank.online> in 2017.

The Respondent when registering the disputed domain name on February 12, 2021 has targeted the Complainant’s trademark SYNCHRONY BANK, with the sole addition of the letter “s” between the words “synchrony” and “bank”, which makes this a clear case of typosquatting, with the intention to confuse Internet users and capitalize on the fame of the Complainant’s name and marks for its own monetary benefit.

The fact that there is a clear absence of rights or legitimate interests coupled with no credible explanation for the Respondent’s choice of the disputed domain name is also a significant factor to consider that the disputed domain name was registered in bad faith (as stated in section 3.2.1 of WIPO Overview 3.0).

While the disputed domain name currently does not resolve to an active website with content, the Respondent has used it in the past to host a website that imitated the Complainant’s actual website, thereby furthering Internet consumer confusion.

The fact that the disputed domain name currently points to an inactive website, on the basis of the “passive holding” doctrine, it does not avoid a finding of bad faith from the Panel, (see Telstra Corporation Limited v. Nuclear Marshmallows, WIPO Case No. D2000-0003).

The Panel finds that the Respondent has registered and uses the disputed domain intentionally to attempt to attract for commercial gain, Internet users to its website by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s widely used marks as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement. This amounts to bad faith under paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy.

7. Decision

For the foregoing reasons, in accordance with paragraphs 4(i) of the Policy and 15 of the Rules, the Panel orders that the disputed domain name, <synchronysbank.online>, be transferred to the Complainant.

Miguel B.O’Farrell
Sole Panelist
Date: June 7, 2021