Don't blame it on domainers - the issue that I mentioned in reference to Olympics / Odyssey of the Mind was back in the mid 1980s - the IOC has had this stance for a long time.
While the Salt Lake Olympics did pose an issue with cybersquatters, it was not where this attitude began. What next, are they going to after the Special Olympics?
I will disagree on this.
None of this would be an issue if it had
not been domainers regging someone else's property and TM by the thousands in the first place.
Who am I to blame? The city of Salt Lake and the IOC for having such great names/words protected?
It was the Salt Lake games that the IOC got real pissed about and came out swinging. This was a major media event of the time.
Now the issue you are talking about may have been covered in the media, but I can recall nothing major coverage up to the time of the Olympics.
These TM regged domains were in the thousands.
The IOC has been unwavering in its desire to control the Olympic brand on the Internet. Starting in 2000 when they filed suit against over 1,800 holders of domains that contained the word "Olympic" or variations thereof, and continuing through the years as they clawed back domains that tried to imitate Olympic franchises by containing word combinations with Vancouver, Beijing and their associated years - the IOC is inevitably successful. Often the IOC registers domain names on behalf and in advance of potential bidders in order to circumvent the problem from the start.
IOC, USOC Sue for Enjoin 'Olympic' Domain Names Alexandria, Virginia, July 21, 2000 -- With less than two months before the start of the 2000 Summer Olympics, the Olympic sponsored Web sites have yet to generate the amount of traffic and revenue that officials had hoped for. In response to the disappointing volume. One reason may be the attempts by cybersquatters to register Internet domain names using the term "Olympics."
In an attempt to direct more traffic to the official Olympic Web sites, the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee and the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee filed a joint lawsuit in U.S. District Court against more than 1,800 registered Internet domain names using the words "Olympic" or "Olympiad." The suit is focused on correcting the domain names of sites that falsely appear to be officially associated with the 2000, 2002, 2004 or 2006 Olympic games. The case involves more addresses than any previous single lawsuit.
According to the Washington Post, the lawsuit, filed on June 20, is not intended to collect damages, rather the committees have asked the violators to either turn over their registered domain names or delete them from circulation. According to the groups' attorney, "several hundred" of the Web sites have since agreed to relinquish their control of the misleading domain names.
Special Olympics? You better believe domains/sites relating to Special Olympics are also being body slammed. Anyone that has a site or a domain
not authorized to use the word Special Olympics can wait patiently for that C&D letter.
