Wal-Mart loses case for control of boycottwalmart.com

**typist** · 10-16-2006, 08:43 PM

cross-post: I found the following in the news section here http://www.dnforum.com/f17/wal-mart-loses-case-control-boycottwalmart-com-thread-184792.html

Originally Posted by cursal;

WIPO does not swallow 'confusingly similar' claim

The world's largest retailer Wal-Mart has failed in its attempt to gain control of the web address boycottwalmart.com. An arbitration panel has ruled that it was unlikely that visitors would be confused and think that it was a Wal-Mart site.

Domain name disputes are settled by the arbitration panel of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). That body has ruled that Wal-Mart cannot have control of the disputed domain.

The domain is controlled by Traffic Yoon of South Korea, a company which put up no defence in the case. Wal-Mart argued that the domain name was "confusingly similar" to its own addresses, which is not permitted.

"Since [Wal-Mart's] mark is embedded in the disputed domain name, it is hard to say there is no similarity, but finding that the disputed domain name is similar to the Complainant’s marks is not sufficient," said the WIPO decision. "The critical question in this Panel’s view on this aspect of the Policy is whether the similarity is “confusing”."

rest of article
http://www.theregister.com/2006/10/1..._domain_claim/

**DNQuest.com** · 10-17-2006, 09:33 AM

Suck sites and sites such as this one have won thier fair share of victories. The complainant will need to come after the domain oner with more than "confusingly similar" arguements. Sucks sites have been protected by the courts as freedom of speach. Plus the complainant must prove bad faith. Remember, there are 3 parts to UDRPs that must be satisfied in order for a challenge to be successful. If you can't prove all 3, then the challenge would be defeated.

So before we start getting all the "what about ****tmname.com", usage plays an important part in this senario. If you demonstrate bad-faith and then try to use the above arguement, you will more than likely lose.

**RazorNF** · 10-17-2006, 09:41 AM

I don't think this is the first time Walmart has tried to go after these kind of names.. I believe quite some time ago, they tried for walmartsucks and/or walmartcanadasucks and lost.

But checking the whois, they are the current registrants now...

Perhaps knowing they can't win these kinds of names, the big companies as part of their course of business, go out and register every disparaging phrase about them, to prevent it from being used...

Has anyone ever come accross a sucks site that came before the actual company in the search engines? That would be funny to see...