As reported by the Associated Press today, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman, sued Tom Hall in U.S. District Court in San Jose on Dec. 31, alleging he is violating federal anti-cybersquatting laws. Mr. Hall registered megwhitmanforgovernor.com, whitmanforgovernor.com, whitman2010.com, meg2010.com and megwhitman2010.com in January and March of 2008 when news reports named her as a potential Republican candidate for governor. Her lawsuit claims Hall is a professional cybersquatter who has registered dozens of domain names related to famous people or institutions. He’s even registered at least three in case Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver, a Democrat, decides to run for governor in 2010.
Ms. Whitman’s attorneys lost an arbitration hearing before the World Intellectual Property Association, which
ruled in December that Whitman’s name is not famous enough to prove she has her own unique brand.
My guess is that Mr. Hall will probably lose and have to turn the names over considering some of his other domains registrations and political background. His motives seem less than innocent. Read the full story here
3 Responses to “Meg Whitman Sues to Get Her Domain Name”
Why would a Federal court over rule an International Court about the very same subject? What if a Billionaire named Bob White wanted your domain?
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Hi Tom
I’m not a legal scholar, but its my guess that they will look at the pattern of the names registered and the timing. Feds probably don’t care about or recognize International law.
Maybe we have some attorneys that would like to opine on that???
If I had any clue that billionare Bob White wanted it, I would try to sell it to him for a “few bucks” before I got sued. I’ve been down this road and lost (settled out of court) in late 1990’s on a generic name. It was the 3rd or 4th name I ever reg’d. I sold all of them after that and didn’t get back into the game until the last year or so. Wish I wouldn’t have been so gun shy back then but I had a few other businesses and concentrated my efforts elsewhere.
Good Luck!
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