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WIPO Panel Says Ron Paul Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking

An anonymous reader writes "Ron Paul lost his two cybersquatting complaints against RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org. In the case of RonPaul.org, Paul was been found guilty of 'reverse domain name hijacking'. A reverse domain name hijacking finding means that the arbitration panel believes the case was filed in bad faith, resulting in the abuse of the administrative process. The panel ruled this way since Paul filed the case after the owner of RonPaul.org had already offered to give him the domain for free. The panel also ruled against Paul for the RonPaul.com domain name."

9 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. For free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Paul filed the case after the owner of RonPaul.org had already offered to give him the domain for free.

    Why was Ron Paul trying to use the force of government to coerce someone into doing something they were already going to do?

    1. Re:For free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      A politician that doesn't follow the same set of rules that they claim everyone else should have to follow? Un-possible!

    2. Re:For free? by WillgasM · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He wanted both the .com and .org. They offered to sell him the .com and/or give him the .org for free. I'm willing to bet he didn't take the .org for fear that it would hurt his ability to file for the .com, like a settlement of sorts.

    3. Re:For free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This.
      The .com wanted $250,000

    4. Re:For free? by arth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And in a free market they should be allowed to ask whatever price they want, whether two zorkmids or half a tonne of diamonds.

      The price has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue here, which was whether Ron Paul had a right to the domains. He did not show that he did.

    5. Re:For free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about Ron's career history? The fact that Ron Paul has been in office on and off since the 1970s, has been a type four deliverer of pork to his district, has failed to pass or even develop solid legislation based on his professed ideology, and thus has been fairly ineffective given his ideological goals, and yet believes that somehow as President he would finally have the legislative power to make all his ideological dreams come true... and without exerting any that evil presidential power that would at least be necessary to do so? How about that? Ron Paul has been around a long enough time that his ineffectiveness sort of proves he either doesn't care as much as he says, or he's just not very good.

  2. My prediction by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I predict the Pauls will use this for political gain. All it takes is a bit of spin:

    Clearly the "official" establishment is failing to support the little guy who just wants to use his own name. Because they obviously aren't catering to the desires of a particularly-vocal individual, they must of course just be a tool for oppression by the Big Government. After all, what good are these "rules" and "procedures" when they hinder the industrious and innovative people building their own future, and instead help the lazy people just using others' names?

    --
    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  3. Free market! by daniel.garcia.romero · · Score: 5, Funny

    Free market will fix that! There's always www.ronpaul.bs or www.ronpaul.museum available.

  4. Re:Site owners not so innocent looking. by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A "fan site" whose domain name is owned by some corporation

    Corporations are just groups of people freely associating with each other.

    in Panama?

    Property rights are a fundamental human right. It doesn't matter where you are located; you have the right to your own property.

    Spin it any way you like, the good doctor wants to use an arm of the UN to confiscate other peoples' property by threat of force.

    A much better way to resolve the problem would be by using the free market: There are trillions of DNS names still available on the free market for only a couple of bucks per year. He should just pick one and be happy that he obtained this new property without resorting to coercion.