twitter search Archives – We're Fusible

Twittersearch.com turned over to Twitter, after domain dispute filed back in Dec. ’10

Back in Dec. 2010, Twitter Inc. filed a case against the owner of the domain Twittersearch.com with WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization. As TechCrunch first reported, the UDRP complaint was the first ever since the company was founded.

The disputed domain is now registered to Twitter Inc, according to the latest Whois information and data provided by DomainTools. News of the ownership change has not been reported by any other blog or news site.

The web address continues to resolve to a GoDaddy parked page as it had before the UDRP complaint.

The UDRP complaint, case number D2010-2073, is still active with WIPO. And though no decision has been officially announced by WIPO as of today, the registrant is now Twitter, Inc.

Will Twitter go after more Twitter domains?

While Twitter hasn’t filed any new cases with WIPO, it’s possible that some degree of precedence has been set on twitter domains.

Robin Wauters suggested that Twitter-search.com might be the next disputed domain, but my money is on Searchtwitter.com. According to a rough estimate by Compete, Searchtwitter.com receives just as much type-in traffic (often more) than Twittersearch.com.

And the owner of the domain, even has a For Sale page online suggesting the domain is available for purchase.

Twitter files UDRP complaint against owner of domain: TwitterSearch.com

TechCrunch is reporting that Twitter is going after the domain name Twittersearch.com, that was registered by its owner in March 2007. Twitter launched its popular micro-blogging service a year before, in March 2006.

Twitter late last week filed a UDRP complaint, notably its first ever since the company was founded, in an effort to obtain ownership over the (currently parked) domain name twittersearch.com – as you can see here.

Obviously, Twitter is right to do this, since the domain is likely to cause some confusion, although we should note Twitter hasn’t managed to secure a trademark for the term ‘twitter’ in the United States so far, despite multiple attempts.

A compliance review is currently pending according to the World Internataionl Property Organization (better known as WIPO). In the same list of cases over at WIPO, Pocket Kings the company that owns Full Tilt Poker is going after typo domain names.

A look at a rough traffic estimate provided by Compete, shows TwitterSearch.com receives several thousand visitors per month.

To avoid a trademark issue, other sites like TwitterCounter.com, a site which receives over 1 million visitors per month and provides stats, graphs and widgets for Twitter users, licenses the Twitter name from Twitter, Inc. Probably a smart move short term, but long term it might be in the company’s interest to re-brand. The company also owns Twittermail.com.

Oddly enough, Twitter Inc hasn’t gone after the owner of Twiter.com (a popular typo of Twitter), who is obviously trying to trick unsuspecting visitors into clicking on ads, but as TechCrunch points out: ” Twitter hasn’t managed to secure a trademark for the term ‘twitter’ in the United States so far, despite multiple attempts.” So winning a case for Twiter, might be a lot harder than winning a case for TwitterSearch.com.