Micro blogging site Twitter has filed a domain dispute over the web address twiter.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) this week.
The domain has long tricked visitors who typed in the address by sending them to a confusingly similar looking site. Currently when you type in twiter.com in your web browser, you’ll be taken to a website (screenshot above) that tries to lure you into giving your personal information.
In August 2010, twiter.com reached a high of 125,000 unique visitors according to a rough estimate by Compete. Recorded traffic dipped after the URL began redirecting visitors to other sites.
According to DomainTools, the name was first registered in 2004, nearly 2 years before Jack Dorsey launched the site. However, the registrant information has changed over the years.
The respondent in the case is currently hidden behind WHOIS privacy.
Registration Service Provided By: PBCRESELLER
Contact: +85.1234567
Domain Name: TWITER.COM
Registrant:
PrivacyProtect.org
Domain Admin
ID#10760, PO Box 16
Note – All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
Nobby Beach
null,QLD 4218
AU
The only other case filed to date by Twitter Inc with WIPO involved twittersearch.com back in 2010, a domain dispute that wasn’t decided by WIPO, but the company still was successful in having the name transferred.
As I reported in February, though no decision had been officially announced by WIPO and the case was cancelled, the registrant of twittersearch.com is now Twitter, Inc.
Discussion: Financial Post, TheDomains, Asian Correspondent, The Next Web, and the The Inquisitr.