Queen Loses Out In newzealand.com Dispute

pidge-nz writes "Hmmmm. Does a country own the rights to its name? Looks like the WIPO thinks not. Here's the New Zealand Herald short article on the decision. My Personal opinion is that they all are a bunch of plonkers - all three partcipants. NZ Govt for not bothering to register the name earlier, Virtual Countries for not bothering to ask to use/"license" the name, and the WIPO for setting a stupid precedent."

Comments

Not stupid

[gmhowell]

If New Zealand wants a domain, it can be newzealand.org or newzealand.net or newzealand.nz Unless the government of new zealand is a for profit entity. It was registered in 1996. The article doesn't mention, but did the gov't attempt to purchase it from the current owner?

Isn't this the result 'we' wanted from the nissan.com case? newzealand.com was there first, has disclaimers, and isn't competing with the more well known New Zealand (IOW, newzealand.com isn't trying to become the government).

TLD's

[MacAndrew]

It's an interesting problem -- sure New Zealand has a claim to .gov, but should they also get .com? Why not every TLD? (.net,.com,.org,.biz.....) Well, no. I've noticed that a lot of sites that are appropriately registered as .org or .gov also buy the .com variation so that default searches will lead to them, also. What about variations like NZ.com? Kiwi.com?

This wasn't a trademark ruling, which would be another obstacle to inappropriate use of an entity's name.

WIPO's focus on good faith was appropriate -- the point is to root out squatters -- and the outcome seems plausible. As least the winner is from a democracy! I'm sure the Queen was only a technical party and NZ is a democracy, perhaps more so than the States. The U.S. is unfamiliar with titles of nobility ... except maybe musicians like Queen Latifah or Prince, the artist formerly known as glyph. I won't discuss Madonna. :)

Re:agree with the ruling

[jon787]

.gov is for US government institutions

Check out RFC 1591

United States Only Generic Domains:

GOV - This domain was originally intended for any kind of government office or agency. More recently a decision was taken to register only agencies of the US Federal government in this domain. State and local agencies are registered in the country domains (see US Domain, below).