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Crypto Startup Wins Cybersquatting Dispute Against Deloitte, But Will Still Rebrand

Deloitte failed to show that the domain was registered and used in bad faith.

Crypto startup “Don't Know Your Customer” has won a decision in its favor in an intellectual property dispute against Deloitte. The startup which provides an anonymous funding service is now rebranding although Deloitte’s cybersquatting complaint was denied.

The company claims their service which operates on the Binance Smart Chain and enables users to anonymously spend at over 37+ million retailers online is not connected to any money laundering service and instead promotes privacy and freedom from global financial institutions.

ShadowFi’s website claims their anonymous process ensures user privacy. saying: “Our vendor doesn’t know who we are, and we don’t know who you are,” adding that their credit cards and payment services require no ID and registration in order to protect user privacy

A World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel ruled against the domain squatting complaint by Deloitte, saying the anonymous spending crypto service did not register the domain in bad faith. However the company has decided to rebrand as ShadowFi in an apparent effort to minimize attention.

Dont Know Your Customer has rebranded to ShadowFi

The dontkyc.com domain was registered by Web3 design firm Penultimate Media Systems for its client’s anonymous prepaid card and digital payment services. The cybersquatting case filed by Deloitte Tax and Consulting claimed that the disputed domain name was highly similar to its own trademark DKYC, and is damaging their Know Your Customer service offering branded as DKYC.

Deloitte Know Your Customer is a managed service combining numerous KYC/AML/CTF compliance services. Deloitte claimed the dontkyc.com domain promotes services are illegal and directly in contrast to their website which promotes traceability and maintaining due diligence.

WIPO adjudged that while the two services approach Know Your Customer from opposite sides, but the startup did know about Deloitte’s trademark and the domain was not registered explicitly to harm their service. The panel decided that making a ruling regarding the legality of the crypto company was outside the scope of this ruling.

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