News

WWF not master of its domain

Fundraising | Gareth Jones | 1 Dec 2006

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has been defeated in its attempt to gain control of the internet domain wwf.com, following a judgment by the arbitration panel of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

Despite successfully wresting the rights to the WWF initials from the World Wrestling Federation in 2001, which was forced to cancel or change all such domain names, the Fund did not obtain an order from the High Court in England for its transfer, resulting in the domain becoming disused. The WIPO judgment explains that it was 'picked up by one of the various services which scavenge for discarded domain names', first being acquired by a Frank Baach, who then sold it to Gregory Ricks of Texas for a reported $10,000.

WWF argued that the domain had been acquired by Ricks in 'bad faith', as for a period it was used to raise money from click-through advertising to wildlife sites.

However, it was proved that Ricks had acquired the domain for the purpose of a legitimate business, the 'Web Wrestling Forum', with wildlife links only appearing after this time. 'The interval between the domain name registration in January 2003 and the appearance of wildlife etc. links on the website some time after April 2005 is just too long to justify an inference of bad faith registration at the time of registration,' the judgment said.

Furthermore, the WWF's position was weakened by the length of time it took to file the complaint. Although it had prepared a WIPO case against Baach, after the domain came into Ricks' possession in January 2003 the WWF took a further three and a half years to file its case. According to the ruling: 'Whilst there is no time limit for filing a complaint under the policy, it can become more difficult for a complainant to infer bad faith registration the greater the distance between the dates of registration and of the filing of the complaint.'

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Directory: World Wildlife Fund UK (WWF UK)