Meta’s Instagram unit just scored another UDRP win, this time yanking instaproapk.click from a respondent who’d been running a “Pro” APK download site draped in Instagram’s trademark. The WIPO panel wasn’t buying any of it—confusingly similar name, zero legitimate interest, and textbook bad faith all the way down—so the domain’s now headed to Instagram’s vault.
The case follows a well-worn script that’s become almost routine in UDRP land: third-party APK hubs slap a famous brand onto a domain, offer modded or sideloaded apps, and inevitably land in a complaint. Instagram argued the “instapro” + “apk” combo was obviously parasitic, the respondent ghosted the proceeding, and the panel agreed that registration and use were both in bad faith. Transfer ordered, case closed, next.
What makes this one worth noting isn’t the outcome—Instagram was always going to win—but the pattern it fits into. Major platforms have been systematically hunting down APK and clone-app download sites built on look-alike strings, and they’re winning these cases at a clip that should make anyone holding a brand-adjacent “mod” domain nervous. The UDRP panels have shown zero patience for the “I’m just providing access” defense when the domain itself is riding on someone else’s trademark.
The respondent, listed as Muhammad Abid of AbidandCO, didn’t file a response, which is par for the course in these APK cases. Hard to mount a credible defense when your domain is literally “instaproapk” and you’re offering downloads that circle Instagram’s core product. The panel found confusing similarity in about two seconds—”instapro” obviously incorporates the INSTAGRAM mark, “apk” is descriptive, and the .click TLD doesn’t move the needle. No legitimate interest either, since there’s no evidence of any authorized use, fair commentary, or legitimate noncommercial purpose.
Bad faith was equally straightforward. The domain was being used to attract users looking for Instagram-related APK files, classic typo/confusion traffic with commercial intent. The respondent knew exactly what they were doing when they registered a domain that directly references Instagram’s trademark alongside the APK file format. The panel wasn’t about to reward that with a finding of good faith.
Worth watching now is whether Instagram continues what looks like a cluster strategy, systematically targeting related “insta/gram/pro/apk” strings in the aftermarket. The decision also underscores the UDRP’s increasingly hard line on download and sideloading hubs that lean on famous marks—trademark owners are winning these routinely, and the appetite for brand-adjacent APK domains is getting squeezed as a result.
The case adds to a growing stack of precedent that makes clear: if you’re running a third-party app download site on a domain that borrows a major platform’s trademark, you’re not building a business, you’re building a UDRP loss.
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