Paris threatens US citizens over domain names
Paris entices millions of tourists every year with the Eiffel tower, Louvre Museum, gorgeous food and beautiful architecture. Yet the cities recent behavior does not reflect its fine, elegant image.
A recent law case saw Paris fined multiple times, in some cases up to $100,000 for sending threatening letters to US citizens who registered the domain name ‘.Paris’ and ‘.Parvi’ (Paris’s free wifi system).The United States government, top lawyers and citizens from both countries have taken sides and despite Paris being an internationally recognised capital city – it lost the case!
It all started when US entrepreneur, Jeffrey Walter, registered the domain name .Parvi; interestingly, Jeffrey Walter claimed he had not intended to relate the name to the city of France, he had meant for it to be related to the Latin word Parvus – meaning small, to use for his new software. Following a long legal battle over claims of reverse domain name hijacking Jeffrey Walter won the domain name.
The same debate has taken place for Pariswifi.com, Paris-wifi.com, Paris.tv and Paris.org. Unfortunately for Paris, to date, it has lost all cases except Paris.org.
As for Jeffrey Walter, he is yet to use the domain fully - http://wiki.parvi.org/articles/News.
Could Paris have avoided this embarrassment? Of course they could! All the city needed was a domain name strategy - a plan to secure the important domain names. If you think about it, how many names are related to Paris? It’s a common birth name as well as being a famous 1984 film known worldwide, not to mention another city in America, Paris, Texas.
So our advice to avoid this – have a domain name strategy! Check if a domain is available before you name your brand/product, think about who might try and register your company name or related domains and pre-empt these registrations; a domain is a minimal investment and it can be released for registration if you decide you don’t need it. Avoid yourself the embarrassment of legal battles and threatening letters, or even the need to rebrand…
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