Preemptive WIPO Strikes – A New Trend In Domaining?

Posted on November 4th, 2008 by admin in Domain News | 1 Comment »

An interesting story is developing around Meg Whitman’s possible future bid for Governor of California. The former eBay CEO who is contemplating running for office in the state of California in 2010 has run into a domaining obstacle that she has decided to tackle head on.

As reported by the Sacramento Bee and picked up by TheDomaining a cyber squatter has snatched up a collection of potentially valuable domain names that may come in handy if Whitman decides to run for office in 2010. The domains in question include megwhitmanforgovernor.com, megwhitman2010.com, meg2010.com, whitmanforgovernor. com and whitman2010.com.

On Oct. 15, Whitman filed a petition against Thomas Hall with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to claim ownership of the five domain names. Hall purchased the domain names on Jan 28, 3 days following the announcement that Whitman might run for office in 2010.

Hall said he had purchased the domains “on a lark” and “completely forgot that I even owned them” until he was contacted by Whitman’s attorneys.

“They demanded I turn over ownership to them,” he said. “They have since offered to buy them, and to be honest, because of the way I have been treated, I don’t want to sell.”

Whitman’s attorneys have since taken the UDRP road (Uniform Domain Name Dispute-Resolution Policy) with costs incurred to be around $6,000 to $10,000 at a minimum with no guarantee of success according to Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice.

There’s no guarantee of victory. In fact, winning can be a long shot for individuals without trademarked names, said Doug Isenberg, an Atlanta-based attorney who specializes in domain-name disputes.

Bruce Springsteen found this out the hard way as he failed to land brucespringsteen.com in a recent case while Jerry Seinfeld did get his domain name before it even went to arbitration.

Earlier this year, Whitman settled a long-standing fight for megwhitman.com outside of the arbitration process, presumably with some type of cash settlement.

I would think they might have a hard time getting these domain names but it does present a new trend in domaining. Perhaps all future candidates will consider getting their domain names in order before they even announce their candidacy for any kind of official position. It will certainly be the cheaper option for them.