JK Rowling, author of the world famous Harry Potter books, has
won an order for the transfer of two domain names, "kjkrowling.com"
and "www-jkrowling.com", that had been registered by a known
typosquatter.
Both registrations are examples of typosquatting – the practice
of registering internet domain names that are misspellings of
famous brands or names.
Rowling complained to the domain name dispute service of the
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) when she discovered
that Alvaro Collazo of Colonia in Uruguay had registered the
domains in May this year.
Both domains link to web sites that state "This domain is
registered at Dot.Registrar.com by a customer and parked
temporarily. To contact the owner of the domain name ... please
email: [e-mail address]." But users visiting the sites are,
according to WIPO, also bombarded with pop-up ads for goods and
services unconnected to Dot.Registrar.com.
In a decision published today, the arbitration panel found that
Collazo had acted in bad faith in registering the sites and ordered
that they be transferred to Rowling.
It was perhaps helped in its decision by the fact that Collazo
has previously had actions brought against him for typosquatting
by, most notably, Expedia ("expediua.com") and the Bank of America
("bankofamericq.com").
Some of these cases had revealed, according to the panel,
Collazo's declared intent to earn money from registering special
domain names.
