Has the IE zone become a squatter's paradise?
Over the last few months the number of dodgy registrations has grown incrementally.
For example, this afternoon I typed in Google.ie into my brower - or at least I thought I did!
I ended up on yet another typo squat belonging to Gabor Varga & Jozsef Petho, who also own such classics as ipod.ie.
Which domains do they have?
Well if you try a few possible typos of the domain google.ie you might guess them:
gogle.ie
googel.ie
googl.ie
googol.ie
(you can generate your own ones here)
Of course the only way that their little scheme would be viable is if they are running ads on the sites that the domains are pointed to. If the ads they are running are either amazon or google ads then they are in breach of the terms of service, as both programs preclude the use of domain names that infringe their intellectuall property rights (try alexa.ie!)
For a managed registry IEDR obviously don't seem to be paying that much attention to the obvious abusers.... They will, of course, claim that the registrants were able to justify the registration through the provision of RBNs, but anyone with half a clue can see that these domains are being registered with only one thought in mind - to grab typo / type in traffic
So who is worse? IEDR or Eurid?
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This page contains a single entry by Michele Neylon published on June 14, 2006 2:56 PM.
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Those lads have nike.ie and adidas.ie and stuff too - I thought it was illegal to speculatively buy these domains without a genuine ownership claim... or does that not apply to .ie?
James
Well that's the thing.. If I owned a shop selling Nike runners I would have an entitlement to the domain name and if I had a registered business name I could get it.. However Nike is a trademark, so the trademark holder should be the one who grants me license to use it (or not).
While it could be argued that the nike.ie and adidas.ie registrations were justified no matter how spurious the justification was, it is much more difficult for anyone to find a justification for typo domains...
The IE zone is supposedly managed, but it isn't very clear as to what they are managing any more. Every day we have to ask clients to produce extra documentation in order to justify legitimate web presences, while this pair of squatters are grabbing typo domains and other IP infringements left, right and centre
Michele
I know that if you have a claim to the name then it will usually stand, so if a guy owns nike.ie because he has a pet dog named Nike, then fair enough, but if the same guy also owns adidas.ie and all these other registered trademark domains then any judge would see that he's clearly up to something.
I just think its funny that Microsoft set their lawyers on Mike Rowe's software company (mikerowesoft.com), while Apple (who seemingly do have their fingers on the legal trigger) are happy to see iPod.ie used by someone else.
I know exactly what you mean about registering the domains - I never even bothered registering legit .ie addresses because of the hassle, but these guys can seemingly waltz in and get googel.ie - if they've shown paperwork for all of these domains then it would be very impressive.
James
Both IEDR and Eurid should be taking a more proactive approach to these kind of operations especially when each registration is vetted (the vast majority of the dodgy EUs stem from sunrise).
If, on the other hand, they are content to allow the registration of dubious domains then maybe the time has come to do away with manual registration entirely and open up registrations as has happened in other countries...
I’m not quite sure what the justification for dog.ie was. What I did notice was the page redirected to http://www.firstpage.ie/ and then on again.
The domains don’t seem to be for local SEO or rankings, only for direct requests. The page doesn’t even relate to the domains. Id love to know what the justification request said when requesting the domains.
It seems like they have invested some time and money into it, so why do it half arsed? I’m all up for squatting as they can’t sell the domains anyway, but at least do it properly.
They also have "police.ie"
http://www.ambrand.com/2006/02/12/policeie/
It is ironic that the chairman of IEDR claimed in the IEDR's annual published accounts that there was no cybersquatting in the .ie zone when it is quite obvious that these cybersquatters have exploited lax IEDR management and poorly applied regulations. This problem is of sufficient magnitude that it damages the credibility of .ie as a reputable and trustworthy cctld. IEDR should act against these cybersquatters as there is a demonstrated pattern of bad faith and abusive registrations.
Ambrand - They're welcome to police.ie as far as I'm concerned :)
John - exactly. Either run a managed registry or don't. The entire "squatter free" thing is just bull.