Sunday 27 May 2012

Virgin Boss Sir Richard Branson wins rights to richardbranson.xxx


Domain investors and speculators will always register and buy domains with new TLDs (domain extensions such as .com, .net, and .biz) with the hope of making huge profits. The prospect of registering a domain name for anything between $7 and $100 and then selling it back later for 4, 5 or even 6 figures is enough to have even the savviest of investors splashing out on new TLDs.


Amongst these investors, are persons who will try to register the domains of popular brands and popular individual/celebs, with the hope of profiting from the sale of the domain name or from the traffic going to such domain names.


The .xxx domain extension was introduced as a home for pornography and other adult-orientated web sites in 2011.


Sir Richard Branson, the tycoon behind the Virgin brands had been in dispute with Australian Sean Truman, who registered the domain name last year.

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The National Arbitration Forum (NAF), a US-based adjudication body, ruled that Mr Truman had registered and used richardbranson.xxx “in bad faith”.


ICANN, the body which has overall responsibility for domain names, had ordered the transfer of the richardbranson.xxx domain name to Virgin.


Brands/trademark owners were given the opportunity to block the registration of an .xxx domain name last year before they were made available for general public registration. Quite a few brands and celebrities did not get around doing this. Either they were not aware of the launch of the new TLD, got around to doing it too late or just could not be bothered.


In Mr Truman’s argument to the NAF, he contended that he had registered the domain name as a “souvenir” because of his admiration of Sir Richard Branson.


The NAF ruled that Mr Truman should have recognized that his registration and control of richardbranson.xxx “would serve to vex or embarrass” Sir Richard Branson.
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