George Soros’ Open Society Institute Loses Domain Dispute

Monday, September 6th, 2010

Foundation backed by George Soros loses arbitration for domain name.

George SorosOpen Society Institute, a think tank and foundation founded by billionaire George Soros, has lost a domain name dispute over the domain OpenSociety.org.

The majority of the three person National Arbitration Forum found that the domain name wasn’t registered and used in bad faith. Two of the panelists found that the domain was confusingly similar to the Open Society Institute mark and that the owner didn’t have rights or legitimate interests in the domain name. One panelist, Neil Anthony Brown, found against Open Society Institute on all three UDRP factors.

The saving grace for the domain owner appears to be that he registered several other “open” domain names, including openeconomy.org, openpolitics.org, and openpolicy.org. This lends credence to the idea that he viewed the domain name as generic.
The respondent in the case did an informal survey to find out if people identified “Open Society” with Soros’ institute, and found that the majority did not.

Originally, Open Society Institute contacted the domain registrant about purchasing the domain name. The domain registrant responded that he would need a six figure offer to consider selling it. That triggered the UDRP filing.

Photo: Copyright by World Economic Forum. swiss-image.ch/Photo by Sebastian Derungs. Creative Commons.

Further Reading:

  1. Bloomberg Loses Domain Name Dispute
  2. Leggo My Eggo! Kellogg Loses Domain Dispute
  3. Technology Policy Institute To Speak at ICANN Hearings

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6 Comments » - Posted in Policy & Law by

Comments

  1. M. Menius
    September 6th, 2010 | 12:53 pm

    “Originally, Open Society Institute contacted the domain registrant about purchasing the domain name …”

    In my view, making that prior offer should bar them from ever initiating a UDRP proceeding.

  2. David J Castello
    September 6th, 2010 | 12:56 pm

    @M. Menius:
    I agree 100%.

  3. Tim Davids
    September 6th, 2010 | 5:16 pm

    M. Menius:

    and should be an automatic hijacking charge

  4. Dietmar
    September 6th, 2010 | 6:18 pm

    I also agree 100%.
    It’s a shame.

    Ahoi!

  5. Chris
    September 7th, 2010 | 10:56 am

    Soros’ “Open Society” is anti private property – so I find it hypocritical when they put up a fuss like this.

  6. Marousyar
    September 8th, 2010 | 1:44 pm

    @Chris, how is Open Society “anti-private property?” That’s completely ridiculous. Soros is a capitalist, not a communist.

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