Sunday, 19 February 2012 06:50 Domain News
An arbitrator with the National Arbitration Forum has awarded RichardBranson.xxx domain name to Richard Branson.Richard Branson submitted a complaint to the National Arbitration Forum on January 10,2012,asserting legal rights over the disputed domain name. Richard Branson has rights in the "Richard Branson" mark,making long,exclusive and continous use of the mark in commerce for more than three decades.Moreover,this is complainant’s personal name.The complainant contended in the complaint and managed to demonstrate that the respondent registered and used the domain name in bad faith :"Mr. Branson has indicated that he believes that Respondent has established a website which contains links and advertising that are detrimental to his name and that he believes that the respondent is receiving income from the site in a pay by click manner and is therefore acting in bad faith. Respondent has not taken over control of the domain name since its registration, and all content currently displayed on the resolving website has been created and posted by godaddy.com. The respondent is not receiving any income at all from this site and has no control over this content. The locking of access to the domain caused by the lodgment of this complaint has prevented the respondent from taking control of the domain name and removing these advertisements."The Panel ordered the disputed domain name to be transferred from the respondent to the complainant .
You can read the decision here .
