Back in early March, Google filed a complaint (Case No. 1432449) over the domain name GooglePlay.com with the National Arbitration Forum.
The complaint came shortly after the launch of its new entertainment hub Google Play.
Despite a ruling not yet being published, part of the Whois information for the name was updated this week and now reflects Google Inc. as the registrant.
Google registered several googleplay domain names in late February through the brand protection company MarkMonitor, but wasn’t able to get its hands on GooglePlay.com at the time since it was already registered.
At the time of this story, GooglePlay.com still doesn’t direct users to the official Google Play website.
Because a decision hasn’t been posted online, it’s unknown whether the owner decided to give up the name or the name was ordered transferred by a panel. If a decision is posted, it’ll likely be available here.
[Update 1 on May 18, 2012:. The Whois record has now been fully updated and reflects Google as the owner, however the domain still doesn’t resolve to the Google Play website.]
Talking about this story: Android Police, 9to5Google and Marketing Land
5 replies on “Google takes control of the domain GooglePlay.com [UPDATED]”
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There is also the chance that the past owner simply “changed whois data”… I guess I just don’t see why the amount of stuff was changed in whois but not DNS… plus, some of the data is still the past owners. Seems a bit fishy right now.
Agreed, it’s odd how only part of the Whois record changed. Guess we’ll see more shortly.
The Whois record has now been fully updated as of this week.
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