Slashdot Mirror
Cybersquatter Ordered To Give Up iTunes.co.uk
DigitumDei writes "Originally reported on Slashdot last year when Apple accused Benjamin Cohen of being a cybersquatter, the UK Internet registry has now ordered Cohen to give up the domain to Apple. Nominet ruled that Cohen had made an "abusive registration," and that he "is using the domain name in a way which has confused people or businesses into believing that the domain name is registered to, operated or authorized by, or otherwise connected with the complainant."
You didn't do your research....
Apple has been awarded control of the domain iTunes.co.uk, even though it was registered before the Mac maker announced its online music service.
This would be the person that stole your identity suing you because you made him bounce a bad check.
with an open mind, follow me on this one...i have a sole proprietership with a long name. the acronym for this name (4 letters) has been registered to a company using a p.o. box in taiwan. the site, as it is now, is completely useless and irrelevant to the domain name.
In order for me to do what iTunes did, I would have to pay over a grand in lawyer's fees to have my case heard.
My only other option would be to pay them around $1300 (proving they are only 'squatting' it for profit in potential resale--also against ICANN's guidelines.
So spend a grand and gamble on my case being upheld, or just pay these guys to continue in their infesting of the internet.
Seriously, is it so hard to see that these types of things are worse than spammers and the like? At least spam can be deleted or blocked, these people are using valuable resources indefinitely (what cybersquatter doesn't use domain locking)....so before you think this is just a case of corporate guy vs. little guy, think of a few other situations that might happen to exist in this place called the internet
It won't be long before every website that starts with the letter i will be taken over by Apple, because people will get confused if it doesn't.
This is a fairly extreme exaggeration, even for Slashdot. It's a bit ridiculous to claim that Apple is going to start shutting down sites like infinity.com (whoever owns that). There's a big difference between owning a domain name that just happens to become some company's product name some day and buying a domain right after a company publically announces a new product by that name. And it's not like the process of taking someone's domain name is instantaneous, right after a corporation sends a letter. This case has been going through hearings for about a year now, the purpose being that the registrant is entitled to the site unless it can be proven that he/she took it maliciously as it was in this case. This is hardly a situation where some company victimized the little guy with their expensive lawyers.
It's not like this guy's name is "Padraic iTunes" and he's been using the site to post pictures of his kid, iPaddy. He's obviously just a parasite on Apple's marketing efforts.
In lots of these domain fights it's easy to side with the little guy, but this is pretty blatant squatting. Rather than use a simple formula like "corporation == bad, unknown person == good" let's try using our brains a little on a case-by-case basis.
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.