Company finally gets hold of Australian domain name.
Twitter has won a cybersquatting complaint against the owner of the Australian domain name Twitter.com.au. The company filed the complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization.
Jason Boyce registered the domain name in 2006, just as the Twitter service was in development. Twitter hadn’t bothered him about the domain name (at least formally) until 2012, when it objected to Boyce’s trademark filing for Twitter.com.au.
Now, in 2015, it decided to file a cybersquatting complaint under the .au Dispute Resolution Policy.
After using the domain name for many years, Boyce got creative. He started offering email addresses and said his company name was “Tyas Wittermann Creative”, and Twitter is short for that.
Boyce had asked for AUS $500,000 for the domain name.
Under the .au Dispute Resolution Policy, complainants just have to show that a domain name was used in bad faith, not that it was registered in bad faith (as is necessary with .com disputes). The panel determined that it was, indeed, used in bad faith.
Good for them. I wonder if he could face lawsuit depending on the bad faith claims.
Unless it has changed, registering a .com.au with the intent to sell constitutes bad faith. When registering, the domain must be applicable to a good or service you offer (which would explain the excuse used)
Poor guy, all his “creative” strategies to acquire a good compensation in exchange of twiiter.com.au have gone wasted. Good for twitter ! I just visited the page, it is not redirected to twitter.com. I don’t know why?
Tyas Wittermann Creative … Worst justification for owning a domain name ever?
I just checked this guys traffic history there was not much there. But still have the old meta/tags screenshots. He was not doing that well with it, I am glad they put it him out of his misery.