Another domain dispute has been resolved by the intervention of UDRP.

Noted comedian, Jerry Seinfeld won control of the domain name JerrySeinfeld.com after his lawyers launched an appeal to get the control of the domain name from a company called Anything.com, which used the site to host little but advertisements.

I wonder how much money did Anything.com was able to make through the advertising on the website considering that Jerry Seinfeld has quite a following!

Anything.com has agreed to hand over the domain name that it had owned for ten years even before the dispute went to arbitration.

Domain disputes are on the rise! What else could you expect when the domaining industry is such a huge money spinner while being a low investment business!

Unscrupulous yet highly intelligent cybersquatters pick up premiuim domains related to any event or celebrities/businesses as soon as they get a whiff of something new and exciting comping up. 

Sample this:

The National Arbitration Forum, an international provider of alternative dispute resolution services, administered a total of 1,805 domain name disputes in 2007, up from 1,658 disputes in 2006. The National Arbitration Forum has been approved as a domain name dispute resolution program provider by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) since 1999.

The National Arbitration Forum reports at the end of 2007:

• UDRP domain names with common extensions like .com, .net, and .org accounted for 1,775 filings.
• usDRP domain names with the .us extension accounted for 30 filings.
• Of the 1,805 filings, Panelists heard 1,391 cases; parties worked together to settle many of the rest.
• There were 9,916 total domain name complaints filed since 1999.
• Of those filings, Panelists heard 8,006 cases; the parties settled many of the rest.

- PR-USA

I wish the practice of cybesquatting just disappears overnight. What a better place this world would be!

Hmmm… wishful thinking!