i.e Domain names

jrd

Wanted to register my family name for the .ie domain for webhosting, to incorporate a photography business sideline. I checked through the whoisireland.ie search and the name was taken. Out of curiosity I then checked my spouse's maiden name and my mother's maiden name and they were all taken by the same company.

See attached.

% Rights restricted by copyright; http://www.domainregistry.ie/copyright.html
% Do not remove this notice

domain: browne.ie
descr: Browne Technologies Ltd.
descr: BODY CORPORATE (LTD,PLC,COMPANY)
descr: Corporate Name
admin-c: DM532-IEDR
tech-c: VDS9-IEDR
renewal: 30-September-2007
status: Active
nserver: NS1.KALOPA.NET
nserver: NS2.KALOPA.NET
nserver: NS3.KALOPA.NET
source: IEDR


Just pick any common enough Irish surname and soon enough, you will see what I mean.

Does this company have a legitmate right to buy up the .ie family name domains and do what they are doing? Could it ever be considered cyber-squatting?

roomwithaskew

all those addresses point to an email service. you can have whatever@kennedy.ie (smith.ie, moore.ie etc) for 25euro a year.

Seems a bit dodgy alright.

Liam Byrne

I didn't think cyber-squatting was possible with a .ie domain ? Were the IEDR on holidays that week or what ?

misterq

the person behind it registered companies corresponding to each name so they could register them. They are therefore, perfectly entitled to register those .ie domain names.

The .ie rules as ever, are skewed in favour of anyone that can produce a company registration number or business name number. Private individuals don't get equal treatment.

And that folks, is why the IEDR market themselves as a "premium" "managed" domain registry.....

DJB

It seems a lot of effort, setting up all those companies just to get the domain names. There are easier ways to get .ie domains without having a ltd company.

mneylon

jolly wrote:

Does this company have a legitmate right to buy up the .ie family name domains and do what they are doing?

Yes. If they own the company Browne Technologies Ltd they are entitled to the domain name

jolly wrote:

Could it ever be considered cyber-squatting?

No.

Philbert

Jolly,

If you do a search on the CRO you'll find that all these companies are dissolved since 2005. Well they are for the few I tried, specifically:

Browne Technologies Ltd (browne.ie)
Smith Technologies Ltd (smith.ie)
Murphy Technologies Ltd (murphy.ie)

I think you have a very good case to claim for the domain name since all these companies are dissolved.

Surely a company that goes under cant indefinitely hold on to their .ie domain name, can they?

jmcc

Philbert wrote:

Jolly,

If you do a search on the CRO you'll find that all these companies are dissolved since 2005. Well they are for the few I tried, specifically:

Browne Technologies Ltd (browne.ie)
Smith Technologies Ltd (smith.ie)
Murphy Technologies Ltd (murphy.ie)

I think you have a very good case to claim for the domain name since all these companies are dissolved.

Surely a company that goes under cant indefinitely hold on to their .ie domain name, can they?

Are you sure that these domains were not obtained with one company using a pile of Registered Business Name (RBN) certs? This is how squatters and warehousers tend to abuse the IEDR regs.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

Liam Byrne wrote:

I didn't think cyber-squatting was possible with a .ie domain ? Were the IEDR on holidays that week or what ?

Tell that to Bebo Liam. Or ask Adidas and Nike. Even Ebay and QXL suffered. The big mistake that people tend to make about IEDR is in thinking that the people doing the checking are competent enough to realise that there are glaringly obvious problems with certain registrations - irishindependent.ie for example. And that doesn't even cover typo squats like those targeting Google.

Regards...jmcc

Philbert

jmcc wrote:

Are you sure that these domains were not obtained with one company using a pile of Registered Business Name (RBN) certs? This is how squatters and warehousers tend to abuse the IEDR regs.

Regards...jmcc

Surprisingly they are all limited companies and not RBN’s.

So the guy either a) didn’t realise he could get away with just registering RBN’s and not forming companies or b) wanted to make sure there was no room for other people to make a claim on his domains.

But the fact that all limited companies are now dissolved should force the IEDR to take a claim on one of these domains seriously.

Shouldn’t it?

jmcc

Philbert wrote:

Surprisingly they are all limited companies and not RBN’s.

So the guy either a) didn’t realise he could get away with just registering RBN’s and not forming companies or b) wanted to make sure there was no room for other people to make a claim on his domains.

This is exactly the approach that was used with ebay.ie and qxl.ie. Two separate compnaies (non-trading, I think) were set up in order to prevent these well known brands from getting their .ie domains.

But the fact that all limited companies are now dissolved should force the IEDR to take a claim on one of these domains seriously.

Shouldn’t it?

It is a very tricky area of law. I think that the assets of the dissolved company rest with the Minister for Trade/Industry. However they could also have been disposed of in the dissolution. Talk to IEDR about it.

Regards...jmcc

Philbert

blacknight wrote:

jolly wrote:

Could it ever be considered cyber-squatting?

No.

It damn well should be

All registered to the same guy with a corresponding dot.ie for all that I have tried. Some he didnt bother renewing.

If this is not cyber squatting I dont know what is!

BARRY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
BRADY SHIPPING LIMITED
BRENNAN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
BROWNE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
BUCKLEY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
BYRNE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
CAHILL TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
CARS SHIPPING LIMITED
CASEY SHIPPING LIMITED
CONNOLLY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
CRONIN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
CULLEN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
CUNNINGHAM TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
CURRAN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
DELANEY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
DOYLE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
DUFFY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
FLYNN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
FOLEY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
GALLAGHER SHIPPING LIMITED
HAYES TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
HENRY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
HICKEY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
HOGAN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
KEANE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
KENNEDY SHIPPING LIMITED
KENNY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
KEOGH TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
KING SHIPPING LIMITED
LYNCH TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MAGUIRE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MAHER TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MARTIN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MCCORMACK TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MCDERMOTT TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MCGRATH TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MCKENNA TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MCLOUGHLIN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MOLLOY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MOLONEY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
MOORE SHIPPING LIMITED
MORAN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
OCALLAGHAN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
OCONNELL TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
ODONNELL TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
ODONOGHUE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
ODONOVAN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
ODRISCOLL TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
OKEEFFE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
OLEARY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
OMAHONY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
OREILLY SHIPPING LIMITED
OTOOLE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
QUINN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
SMITH TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
SMYTH SHIPPING LIMITED
SWEENEY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
WALSH TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
WHELAN TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED

jmcc

Philbert wrote:

It damn well should be

All registered to the same guy with a corresponding dot.ie for all that I have tried. Some he didnt bother renewing.

If this is not cyber squatting I dont know what is!

It is cyberwarehousing. And one of the first major cyberwarehousing events in .ie ccTLD was the Medical Pages fiasco where over 300 medical generics were registered despite their being rules against this. But it did earn IEDR over £15K in registration fees.

This names grab was just another cyberwarehousing event.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

There is a very big difference between warehousing and squatting.

Liam Byrne

blacknight wrote:

There is a very big difference between warehousing and squatting.

I can see how there could be, but [as in this case] if the individual/organisation has no legitimate use for the names, and has jumped through hoops to set them up just so that no-one else can have them, then it's squatting in my book, done solely so that someone has to go through them if they want the name - essentially what the IEDR was meant to prevent.

mneylon

Liam Byrne wrote:

I can see how there could be, but [as in this case] if the individual/organisation has no legitimate use for the names, and has jumped through hoops to set them up just so that no-one else can have them, then it's squatting in my book, done solely so that someone has to go through them if they want the name - essentially what the IEDR was meant to prevent.

If you want to challenge a domain registration then you should learn the difference between warehousing and squatting.

They are two very different concepts

Squats generally infringe on someone else's intellectual property, so the registration of bebo.ie is a squat as it is "passing off" etc.,

When someone grabs a lot of domains then you can consider it warehousing.

You cannot call it squatting.