Celebrity Domain Names: Meg Whitman, Conde Naste [Updated]
Friday, January 9th, 2009
Two celebrity domain name scuffles get media attention.
Two stories hit the online world today about pseudo-celebrities battling to get their names as domain names.
First, there’s an Associated Press article about former eBay CEO-turned-politician Meg Whitman. She filed for WIPO arbitration to get MegWhitman.com. The case was terminated because WIPO determined she was not famous enough for her name to be a brand. [The original version of this article said that a woman in California owned the domain name MegWhitman.com. As it turns out, the contact in whois is Whitman's assistant. The domain was put in her name after Whitman recovered the domain MegWhitman.com from the prior owner. A later version of the article also suggested, based on a reader comment and a couple speculative news articles, that her assistant was upset with her over her stance on gay marriage, which was a possible reason for the domain name being in her name. Henry Gomez, spokesman for Whitman, confirms that this is not true. Gomez says the only ongoing dispute is with Tom Hall, as described below.]
Whitman is also suing Tom Hall, a Democrat and paid political writer, who registered megwhitmanforgovernor.com, whitmanforgovernor.com, whitman2010.com, meg2010.com and megwhitman2010.com.
Here’s the catch: by becoming a politician, someone can legally own her name as a domain name. It depends on how they use it and if they profit from it. But right now it appears Hall is generating money from domain parking ads.
Second, The New York Observer has a story about Conde Nast getting its hands on the domains of some of its editors. Gossip web site Cityfile registered the domains — and those of many other New York celebrities — to drive traffic to its web site. Cityfile founder Remy Stern bragged “We did it to promote the site, but I won’t object if someone comes along with outrageous sums of money and wants to buy his name back.”
This Cityfile case is clear cybersquatting. When Conde Naste asked, Cityfile handed over the domain names.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
No related posts.
Tags: cityfile, conde nast, meg whitman, wipo
When are people going to learn that its not ok to cybersquat?
I just dont understand why so many people put there business reputation and company at risk over gaining a little extra traffic from owning a TM name etc.
The issue is there is no way to stop them at present.
Regards,
Robbie
A quick Whois check and Google search of the “California woman” who owns MegWhitman.com, shows the owner to be Meg Whitman’s former exec. assistant! They seemed to have parted company over Meg Whitman’s stance (anti)on gay marriage rights. Sometimes the back story is even more interesting….
“by becoming a politician, someone can legally own her name as a domain name.”
Do you have more information about this? I own a few Miami politicians names and point them to a not-so-flattering article at one of my sites. I state that it is my right to freedom of speech to own their names .com and point the domains to a news article.
So, I feel fine owning their domains but do you have a link to more information on this?
@ Marg – please see updated story.
@ Rob – I don’t have a link handy. I’ve just read a couple cases over the years. Of course a Cuban court could argue you need to hand over the domains. No freedom of speech there
I guess I’ll just keep pointing my RaulCastro.com until they pry it from my cold dead hands.
Andrew,
for whatever it’s worth you had written a column for CircleID on May 24, 2006
entitled: “New York Passing New Domain Name Law”.
http://snurl.com/DomainLaw
Any idea if this law was passed?
—
You may also find this of interest:
“Sam Adams: Politician or Beer?”
http://snurl.com/SamAdams
Patrick – yes it was passed. However, it was only for people who registered a politician’s name with the intent of selling it to them.
I just love Meg Whitman… She’s hardcore
Thanks for the Meg Whitman update Andrew! Memo to self: “When I recover my own name domain from prior owner, I will put MY name as registrant.” (not my exec. assistant who might up and leave me for any number of reasons..)
So my question is how famous do you have to be to get back your name.A-Lister D lister who knows,Cheers,K
Interesting cases.
As a domain name investor, I have owned some celebrities domain names and built related sites around them. But if the celebrities want them back, I will gladly give them up.
Test this out
@danlev never heard of the guy. . . guess he’s not well known enough, eh? That’s what they said about Meg Whitman too http://is.gd/Aw81