eCommerce giant markafoni first company to file .XXX domain dispute

The Turkish private shopping club markafoni has become the first company to file a .XXX domain dispute with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over the domain markafoni.xxx.  According to WIPO, the case commenced on December 29.

WIPO Case Number (D2011-2298) was filed by VIPINDIRIM, the company behind markafoni, which was featured last July in TechCrunch, after the company was valued around $200 million following 70 percent of its shares being acquired by Naspers.

According to WHOIS records, the domain <markafoni.xxx> was registered on December 6, by Yasin Kaplan who resides in Istanbul.

December 6 marked the first day of general availability of .XXX domains.  

Per the ICM Registry, “General Availability is when members of the adult Sponsored Community get regular, resolving names on a first come, first served basis. Non-members of the adult Sponsored Community can also get “Non-Resolving” names.”

Although the ICM Registry has gone to unprecedented lengths to put an end to cybersquatting by suspending abusive registrations such as BusinessWeek.xxx, there will be other names that fall into a gray area that will get sorted out at arbitration.

As of today, only one other .XXX domain case has been filed under the UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy) — Case number 1421851 commenced on December 30, with the National Arbitration Forum over the domain name heb.xxx.

Discussion: NamePros