Its tourism council now obtained VisitQatar.com in a settlement.
In the end, Qatar got what it was after.
The country’s tourism council is now the owner of record for VisitQatar.com, which it forwards to its official website at VisitQatar.qa.
Qatar National Tourism Council won a UDRP it filed against the domain in 2019. The owner, Teymur Mehdiyev of Azerbaijan, had created a travel booking website on the domain and obtained a U.S. trademark for “Visit Qatar.”
It was a questionable UDRP decision, and Mehdiyev subsequently sued the Tourism Council to retain the domain. He won.
But Qatar wouldn’t relent. Last year, through another state-owned entity, it sued Mehdiyev for trademark infringement.
Qatar voluntarily dismissed the case last month after settling with Mehdiyev. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. But, clearly, the settlement included transferring the domain name.
These State owned entities are getting more aggressive in their geo domain hijacking attempts.
France.com administrative theft for French Republic only makes these attempts more likely in the coming months.
As long as the domain community is silent, this is just going to cause a domino effect and negatively harming everyone with a domain, not just geographical things. Good luck defending something against a company.