Empires and Allies: Another missed domain name opportunity for Zynga?

Zynga announced the launch of another game this week called Empires and Allies, its first combat strategy game which has more features than any other Zynga game to date. 

The company which is known for acquiring domain names on the aftermarket like Cityville.com and for buying never-before-registered domain names like HangmanwithFriends.com and FarmvilleExpress.com, may have another missed opportunity on its hands by failing to get the domain name EmpiresandAllies.com, a domain that was first registered in September 2010, along with the dotnet and dotorg versions of the name.

The company put out news on its blog about the launch of Empires and Allies, which included different links as to how to connect.  Play Empires & Allies at: http://www.zynga.com/empires, follow Empires & Allies on Twitter at @EmpiresAllies, or “Like” Empires & Allies on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/EmpiresAndAllies.

The missed opportunity

You’ll notice in the company’s announcement there’s no mention of a separate website address for the game. 

That’s because Zynga doesn’t appear to own the .com, .net, or .org domain names, which are currently sitting behind WHOIS privacy at GoDaddy. 

The .com doesn’t resolve at the time of this story, while the .net and .org are both parked at GoDaddy.  While it’s entirely possible Zynga may own the domains but hasn’t developed a website, all three names are registered to a yahoo address according to GoDaddy, not a Zynga address which is typically the case seen with Zynga’s domain names.

Could it be that an insider registered the domain names in the midst of development?

Zynga domains

Whether an insider registered the domains or not, Zynga is facing another problem on the web — most domain names are already taken.

A NamePros member yesterday posted a questionable message on the forum asking other members to appraise the .us version of the domain that they had purchased, noting in the post that the following domains were already registered:

empiresandallies.com
empiresandallies.info
empiresandallies.net
empiresandallies.org
empiresandallies.mobi
empiresandallies.us
empiresandallies.biz
empiresandallies.ca
empiresandallies.mx
empiresandallies.eu
empiresandallies.in
empiresanda…com.mx
empiresandallies.nl
empiresandallies.se

The member ends the post by saying, “By the way, Zynga doesn’t have the trademark yet, so Zynga can’t WIPO it due to Reverse Domain Hijacking laws.”

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. 

If you track the cases at WIPO, you’d know that Zynga has been successful.

Zynga files trademark

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Zynga filed a trademark for “Empires and Allies”. 

Not with the United States Patent and Trademark Office yet, but with the Trademark Office of the European Union.

Trade mark name :	EMPIRES & ALLIES
Trade mark No :	010017028
Trade mark basis:	CTM
Date of receipt :	02/06/2011
Number of results:	1 of 9

Name:  Zynga Inc.
ID No: 437897
Natural or legal person:  Legal entity
Address:  365 Vermont Street
Post code:  94103
Town:  San Francisco,
State: California
Country: UNITED STATES
Correspondence address:  Zynga Inc.  365 Vermont Street San Francisco, California 94103 ESTADOS UNIDOS (DE AMÉRICA)