DECISION

 

Ingram Industries, Inc. v. Usman KarachiWala

Claim Number: FA2607002233769

 

PARTIES

Complainant is Ingram Industries, Inc. ("Complainant"), represented by Ryan D. Levy, Tennessee, USA. Respondent is Usman KarachiWala ("Respondent"), Texas, USA.

 

REGISTRAR AND DISPUTED DOMAIN NAME

The domain name at issue is <ingramsspark.com> (the "Disputed Domain Name"), registered with Hostinger operations, UAB.

 

PANEL

The undersigned certifies that he has acted independently and impartially and to the best of his knowledge has no known conflict in serving as Panelist in this proceeding.

 

David L. Kreider, Chartered Arbitrator (UK), as Panelist.

 

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Complainant submitted a Complaint to Forum electronically on July 20, 2026.

 

On July 21, 2026, Hostinger operations, UAB confirmed by e-mail to Forum that the <ingramsspark.com> domain name is registered with Hostinger operations, UAB and that Respondent is the current registrant of the name. Hostinger operations, UAB has verified that Respondent is bound by the Hostinger operations, UAB registration agreement and has thereby agreed to resolve domain disputes brought by third parties in accordance with ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the "Policy"). The Registrar has further confirmed that the registration agreement is in English, and the Panel accordingly conducts this proceeding in English pursuant to Rule 11(a).

 

Complainant submitted an Amended Complaint on July 22, 2026, following the Registrar's disclosure of the underlying registrant information. The Amended Complaint is the operative pleading, and the caption and Respondent identification in this Decision follow it.

 

On July 23, 2026, Forum served the Complaint and all Annexes, including a Written Notice of the Complaint, setting a deadline of August 12, 2026 by which Respondent could file a Response to the Complaint, via e-mail to all entities and persons listed on Respondent's registration as technical, administrative, and billing contacts, and to postmaster@ingramsspark.com. Also on July 23, 2026, the Written Notice of the Complaint, notifying Respondent of the e-mail addresses served and the deadline for a Response, was transmitted to Respondent via post and fax, to all entities and persons listed on Respondent's registration as technical, administrative and billing contacts.

 

Having received no response from Respondent, Forum transmitted to the parties a Notification of Respondent Default.

 

On August 13, 2026, pursuant to Complainant's request to have the dispute decided by a single-member Panel, Forum appointed David L. Kreider as Panelist.

 

Having reviewed the communications records, the Administrative Panel (the "Panel") finds that Forum has discharged its responsibility under Paragraph 2(a) of the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the "Rules") "to employ reasonably available means calculated to achieve actual notice to Respondent" through submission of Electronic and Written Notices, as defined in Rule 1 and Rule 2. Therefore, the Panel may issue its decision based on the documents submitted and in accordance with the ICANN Policy, ICANN Rules, Forum's Supplemental Rules and any rules and principles of law that the Panel deems applicable, without the benefit of any response from Respondent.

 

RELIEF SOUGHT

Complainant requests that the domain name be transferred from Respondent to Complainant.

 

PARTIES' CONTENTIONS

A. Complainant

Complainant alleges:

 

That the Ingram companies have for decades supplied publishing, book distribution, print-on-demand, and library services worldwide, and that through its IngramSpark platform Complainant offers authors a service by which they may publish, print, promote, and sell books worldwide.

 

That Complainant owns United States registrations for INGRAM and INGRAM-formative marks, including U.S. Reg. No. 4,621,330 for INGRAMSPARK and U.S. Reg. No. 5,163,854 for INGRAM.

 

That the Disputed Domain Name <ingramsspark.com> is a misspelling of the INGRAMSPARK mark, differing from it only by an inserted letter "s," and that the ".com" gTLD is disregarded in the comparison.

 

That Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name. Respondent is not a licensee of Complainant and has never been authorized to use the INGRAM or INGRAMSPARK marks in a domain name, an e-mail address, or communications with authors. The Disputed Domain Name supports no website, and its demonstrated use, the impersonation of Complainant in dealings with an author, is neither a bona fide offering of goods or services nor a legitimate noncommercial or fair use.

 

That Respondent registered and is using the Disputed Domain Name in bad faith. An e-mail address at the Disputed Domain Name was used to hold a person out to an author as an IngramSpark manager and to solicit payments from him for purported retail placement and printing services, conduct against which Complainant's published fraud alerts warn and which caused actual confusion and financial loss. Respondent thereby intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, the recipient of those communications by creating a likelihood of confusion with Complainant's mark under Policy ¶ 4(b)(iv), and the absence of an active website does not avoid bad faith.

 

B. Respondent

Respondent failed to submit a Response in this proceeding.

 

FINDINGS

The Panel finds the following:

 

Complainant owns United States Registration No. 4,621,330 for INGRAMSPARK, registered October 14, 2014 in International Class 42 for media publishing services enabling users to manage the production and publication of physical and electronic books and to offer them for sale to the public. Complainant also owns United States Registration No. 5,163,854 for INGRAM, registered March 21, 2017, covering the digital delivery, distribution, and on-demand printing of books among other services. The registration certificates in the record name the registrant as Ingram Industries Inc., a Tennessee corporation.

 

On the uncontested record, Complainant uses the INGRAMSPARK mark for an author-facing platform offering self-publishing, printing, promotion, and worldwide distribution, and Complainant's published materials state that its distribution network reaches more than 45,000 bookstores, libraries, online retailers, and educational institutions. The record also contains Complainant's fraud alerts, warning authors that third parties pose as IngramSpark through lookalike domain names, e-mail addresses, and staff names, and ten prior UDRP decisions issued between July 2025 and May 2026 ordering the transfer of INGRAM- and INGRAMSPARK-formative domain names registered by unrelated third parties. On that evidence the Panel finds the INGRAMSPARK mark to be well known within the publishing and author-services sector and a recurrent target of impersonation. Those prior decisions concern other registrants; they bear on the standing of the mark and on the recurrence of impersonation, not on any pattern of conduct by this Respondent under Policy ¶ 4(b)(ii).

 

The registration record in evidence shows that the Disputed Domain Name was created on May 14, 2025, more than ten years after the INGRAMSPARK registration issued, and gives a registry expiration date of May 14, 2027. The Complaint puts the registration a year later, in May 2026; the Panel takes the date from the record. The registrant's contact data was redacted for privacy protection by the Registrar, and the Registrar's verification confirms that Respondent is the registrant, identifying Respondent as Usman KarachiWala of Houston, Texas. Nothing in the record suggests that Respondent has been commonly known by the Disputed Domain Name or by any INGRAM-formative name, and Complainant states without contradiction that it has never licensed or authorized Respondent's use of its marks.

 

A screenshot in the record shows that the Disputed Domain Name supports no website; it returns a server error page reading "403 Forbidden."

 

The demonstrated use of the Disputed Domain Name is by e-mail. The record contains a letter dated June 24, 2026 from an author to Complainant, reporting that he had approached what he took to be IngramSpark about republishing three of his books and writing, "Now I'm wondering if I was really dealing with your company." He reported that he was offered three levels of retail-outlet placement priced at $8,000, $11,000, and $19,000, chose the $8,000 level, was asked shortly afterwards for a further $2,000, was then told to send $20,000 for printing costs, and paid all of it. He identified the person he dealt with as "Joshua," described in the letter as "Sr. Marketing Strateghist & Project Manager" of "Ingramspark," and gave that person's contact address as joshua@ingramsspark.com. He reported that the book files he received were defective and that a second person calling himself "Chad" then sought further money to arrange book signings. The letter gives the same telephone number for "Joshua" and for "Chad."

 

Complainant's fraud alert states that <ingramspark.com> is IngramSpark's only official website, that IngramSpark does not require customers to print copies of their books in order to obtain global distribution, and that the Disputed Domain Name is among the entities IngramSpark does not work with or endorse.

 

Complainant states, and Respondent does not dispute, that it authorized neither the Disputed Domain Name nor the solicitation of payments from authors in its name. Respondent is the registrant of record, has not appeared, and has not disclaimed the use made of the Disputed Domain Name; the Panel infers that the use was Respondent's own or was made with Respondent's permission. The Panel finds that an e-mail address at the Disputed Domain Name was held out to an identified author as the address of an IngramSpark manager, in the course of a dealing by which money was extracted from him, and that this conduct is phishing. Directed as it was at one identified author, a member of the constituency Complainant serves under the INGRAMSPARK mark, it is properly described as spearphishing.

 

DISCUSSION

Paragraph 15(a) of the Rules instructs this Panel to "decide a complaint on the basis of the statements and documents submitted and in accordance with the Policy, these Rules and any rules and principles of law that it deems applicable."

 

Paragraph 4(a) of the Policy requires that Complainant must prove each of the following three elements to obtain an order that a domain name should be cancelled or transferred:

 

1) the domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights; and

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

3) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

 

In view of Respondent's failure to submit a response, the Panel shall decide this administrative proceeding on the basis of Complainant's undisputed representations pursuant to paragraphs 5(f), 14(a) and 15(a) of the Rules and draw such inferences it considers appropriate pursuant to paragraph 14(b) of the Rules. The Panel is entitled to accept all reasonable allegations set forth in a complaint; however, the Panel may deny relief where a complaint contains mere conclusory or unsubstantiated arguments. See WIPO Overview 3.1 at ¶ 4.3; eGalaxy Multimedia Inc. v. ON HOLD By Owner Ready To Expire, FA 157287 (Forum June 26, 2003).

 

Identical and/or Confusingly Similar

Complainant's United States registration of INGRAMSPARK establishes its rights in that mark for the purposes of Policy ¶ 4(a)(i). See WIPO Overview 3.1 ¶ 1.2.1.

 

The Disputed Domain Name is the INGRAMSPARK mark with one letter added. The added "s" falls at the junction of the two components of the mark, where it is absorbed in reading and makes no difference in speech, so that the mark is not merely recognizable within the string but is what the reader takes the string to be. A domain name consisting of an intentional misspelling of a mark is confusingly similar to it, and the gTLD is disregarded in the comparison. See WIPO Overview 3.1 ¶¶ 1.9, 1.11.1; Ingram Industries, Inc. v. Ab cd, FA 2217782 (Forum May 20, 2026) (substitution of a single letter in INGRAMSPARK held insufficient to distinguish <inqramspark.com> from the mark).

 

The Panel finds that the Disputed Domain Name is confusingly similar to Complainant's INGRAMSPARK mark under Policy ¶ 4(a)(i).

 

Rights or Legitimate Interests

Complainant must first make a prima facie case that Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name, whereupon the burden shifts to Respondent to demonstrate such rights or interests.

 

The Registrar-confirmed registrant is Usman KarachiWala, a name bearing no resemblance to the Disputed Domain Name, and there is no evidence that Respondent has been commonly known by it under Policy ¶ 4(c)(ii). See Novo Nordisk A/S v. aditi sharma, FA 2227366 (Forum July 9, 2026). Complainant has not licensed or otherwise authorized Respondent's use of its marks. The Disputed Domain Name supports no website capable of grounding a claim of bona fide use; its only demonstrated use is to furnish an e-mail identity in Complainant's name. Holding oneself out as an officer of the trademark owner in order to induce an author to part with money is neither a bona fide offering of goods or services under Policy ¶ 4(c)(i) nor a legitimate noncommercial or fair use under Policy ¶ 4(c)(iii). See WIPO Overview 3.1 ¶ 2.13.1.

 

Complainant has made out its prima facie case, and Respondent, having defaulted, has offered nothing in answer to it. The Panel finds that Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the Disputed Domain Name under Policy ¶ 4(a)(ii).

 

Registration and Use in Bad Faith

Respondent registered the Disputed Domain Name in May 2025, long after Complainant's INGRAMSPARK registration issued. The string itself is evidence of knowledge: a doubled letter in the middle of a distinctive coined mark is not a name arrived at independently. What was then done with it confirms the point: an address at the Disputed Domain Name was used to offer an author the very services Complainant markets under that mark. The Panel finds that Respondent registered the Disputed Domain Name with actual knowledge of Complainant's rights and in order to exploit them. Typosquatting of this kind is itself evidence of bad faith registration and use. See Hackensack Meridian Health, Inc. v. Zhichao Yang / Zhichao, FA 2098406 (Forum June 14, 2024) ("Typosquatting is the practice of incorporating a mark and adding small typographical errors, which is evidence of bad faith under Policy ¶ 4(a)(iii).").

 

The use made of the Disputed Domain Name was a spearphishing scheme. An address at the Disputed Domain Name was held out to an identified author as the address of an IngramSpark manager, and under that cover the payments described above were obtained from him for services Complainant did not supply. The Disputed Domain Name supplied the appearance of authenticity. Employing a domain name to impersonate a trademark owner in correspondence for such a purpose is registration and use in bad faith. See WIPO Overview 3.1 ¶ 3.4; The Mitchell P. Rales Family Office v. Mitchell Rales / Glenstone Museum, FA 2224166 (Forum June 23, 2026) (use of a confusingly similar domain name for fraudulent e-mails impersonating the complainant evinces bad faith registration and use).

 

The same conduct falls within Policy ¶ 4(b)(iv). By using the Disputed Domain Name, Respondent intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, the recipient of its communications by creating a likelihood of confusion with Complainant's INGRAMSPARK mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the publishing services it purported to offer. The confusion was not merely likely but actual: the author paid in the belief that he was dealing with Complainant, and wrote to ask whether he had been only after the money had gone. That the Disputed Domain Name returns nothing but a server error page does not assist Respondent, since bad faith under the Policy is not confined to conduct worked through a website.

 

Complainant advances Respondent's use of a privacy service as a further indicium of bad faith, conditioned on what the registration record shows. What it shows is the Registrar's own redaction of the registrant's contact data, which the Registrar lifted on request. The Panel draws no adverse inference from it; the finding of bad faith rests on the use made of the Disputed Domain Name.

 

The Panel finds that Respondent registered and is using the Disputed Domain Name in bad faith under Policy ¶ 4(a)(iii).

 

DECISION

Having established all three elements required under the ICANN Policy, the Panel concludes that relief shall be GRANTED.

 

Accordingly, it is Ordered that the <ingramsspark.com> domain name be TRANSFERRED from Respondent to Complainant.

 

 

David L. Kreider, Panelist

Dated: August 13, 2026