Irish Cybersquatting...help

meglome

A client of ours let an old Irish domain name lapse last year that they weren't using anymore. But it turned out a lot of people/sites were still linking to it. This wouldn't have been the end of the world except someone registered a trading name and is now using it to sell porn.

The IEDR have been less than useless. Anyone know the best way to deal with this?

Adam

It's a .ie domain then?

Well under the laws on .ie domain they would have to have followed procedure to register it, and therefore have every right to it at this stage, because if they didn't they would not have been granted the registration...

When you say "deal with this", do you mean the problem that other sites are linked to porn brokers, or is it a case that your old client wants the domain again?

meglome

Yeah it's an .ie domain and as far I can tell they followed proper procedure. The problem is the pornsters are tricking people into believing the site is education related which it isn't.

http://www.nbsstralee.ie/

The text here is from the real website. Suggestions?

Adam

It's a toughie alright... You say the IEDR have been useless, have you heard from them at all?

My guess would be that your best line is to take them up on the fact that they are implying association with the Limerick Education Centre explicitly. This would surely extend into legalities beyond the durisdiction of the IEDR, as it's a misinformation. But I'm not legal expert!

meglome

I spoke to them and they put me onto the international domain dispute people.

mneylon

The IEDR has a dispute policy which is handled via WIPO. It's the only way to deal with a problem involving a domain dispute

nikimere

I would be VERY surprised if the IEDR were to take a domain off anyone.
They have signup procedures for a reason, by them revoking a domain it would show the flaws in their system.
Goodluck anyway though.

jmcc

I think that in this case, if that link is to a porn site, then it may well be grounds for revoking the registration. It would be easy to demonstrate a clear intent to profit from the good will and good name of the previous registrant. And the fact that it is an educational link make the use of a porn link all the worse. This will result in some seriously bad karma for the current registrant if the media runs with this story.

Regards...jmcc

meglome

blacknight wrote: »

The IEDR has a dispute policy which is handled via WIPO. It's the only way to deal with a problem involving a domain dispute

So as long as your willing to fork up a few grand...

Seems like a total cop out to me.

meglome

jmcc wrote: »

I think that in this case, if that link is to a porn site, then it may well be grounds for revoking the registration. It would be easy to demonstrate a clear intent to profit from the good will and good name of the previous registrant. And the fact that it is an educational link make the use of a porn link all the worse. This will result in some seriously bad karma for the current registrant if the media runs with this story.

Regards...jmcc

A good tack to try.

jmcc

meglome wrote: »

A good tack to try.

Talk to the current registrant first. See if some arrangement can be reached.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

meglome wrote: »

Seems like a total cop out to me.

Err no. It's a dispute policy

Most registries have dispute policies.

In many cases the disputes are handled by a neutral 3rd party such as WIPO or one of its agents.

EKRIUQ

Long shot but a lot of hosts don't allow adult content on their servers, so maybe by contacting the current host thay might disable the site

meglome

blacknight wrote: »

Err no. It's a dispute policy

Most registries have dispute policies.

In many cases the disputes are handled by a neutral 3rd party such as WIPO or one of its agents.

They should look at every case and decide, I don't think they even looked.

mneylon

meglome wrote: »

They should look at every case and decide, I don't think they even looked.

They don't have to. They have a dispute policy in place.

If you follow the dispute policy things will happen

The only reason they would look into it is if the domain registration itself infringed the rules, which by the sounds of things it didn't