Domain ihateryanair.co.uk to be handed over

[MAllie]

Here's a link to a news report on the decision about this domain name. I found the judge's summing-up interesting:

http://www.independent.ie/world-new...o-forfeit-i-hate-ryanair-website-2376423.html

 

[Jilo]

There's a story about it on thedomains.com too... It seems the guy behind it has already restarted the site on a .org name...

 

[silentg]

That's one unhappy customer.

 

[katherine]

a tribunal has ordered robert tyler to cease using the web address because it earned him money through commercial links to third party websites.

lol

 

[marcorandazza]

While this was a Nominet decision, and not a UDRP decision, the two competing views of the UDRP should help illustrate why the case came down the way it did.

There are two views under the Policy when it comes to criticism sites. See “WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions”, Paragraph 2.4.         

View 1 states: “The right to criticize does not extend to registering a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to the owner’s registered trademark or conveys an association with the mark.”

View 2 states: “Irrespective of whether the domain name as such connotes criticism, the respondent has a legitimate interest in using the trademark as part of the domain name of a criticism site if the use is fair and non-commercial.”

Most U.S. lawyers and judges would trend toward View 2, and the mere existence of ads would not disqualify a legitimate criticism site from claiming fair use. Europeans tend to look at View 1 as the prevailing view -- so "Alitalia Sucks" would be considered to be infringing.

Of course, I never saw the site -- so it is possible that the site was merely a "pretextual criticism" site. i've seen some domainers who thought they would be clever, registering companynamesucks.com, and then directing the site to a PPC page. Needless to say, they *thought* they were clever, they were not actually so.