Dot Info Disputes
from the taking-away-domains dept
A few months ago we talked about how ridiculous the dot info registration process was and how plenty of non-trademark owners just lied about the trademarks they owned to get domains. Well, now the trademark owners are coming in and snapping the domains out of the hands of those fraudsters. This is fine, I guess, since the rules from the beginning clearly stated you needed to be a trademark owner to get the domain (though, I’m sure some silly rulings will result as well – a la the .com “sucks” domain fights). However, the oddest thing is that some people are winning the new cases even though they don’t own the trademark either! In other words, all you have to do is challenge someone who isn’t the owner of the trademark, and you can win the domain. Of course, then anyone else can come along and challenge you… and so on. Brilliant system those Afilias dot info people have set up. Wasn’t the whole reason it took us about 50 years to add new TLDs was that ICANN was going to set it up to avoid this sort of stupidity?
