World Intellectual Property Organization Archives – Page 2 of 2

Twitter finally files domain dispute over typo – Twiter.com

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.

After meeting as high school students in 2002, Alex Benzer and Charlotte Genevier, co-founders of Webligo developed and launched Social Engine in 2007. The product is described as a social-network-in-a-box, a white label social networking application that is growing and now earns nearly $1MM/year according to the Webligo home page.

With dorm room offices and virtually zero operating costs, Webligo’s savings grew quickly. In 2006, Alex and Charlotte began developing a new product – SocialEngine – seeded with their sales and the recent acquisitions of two earlier projects (BlogHoster and IMS Pro). SocialEngine, 100% bootstrapped without any outside investment, was launched in 2007 with great reception. With SocialEngine now earning nearly $1M/year, Alex and Char have built a team of seven developers and designers to grow SocialEngine and explore other opportunities.

The only problem is, Webligo’s founders launched the product using the .net (socialengine.net), instead of the .com.

Now Webligo wants the .com, so the company has filed a WIPO complaint over the domain name SocialEngine.com.

While it’s not known whether Webligo made a previous offer on the .com domain, the company recently filed for a trademark on “Social Engine” in Sept. 2010, three years after launching their product, and nearly 11 years after the domain name socialengine.com was first registered.

The current registrant according to GoDaddy Whois is listed as “Domains for Sale” out of Columbus, OH, with an email address of DomainsForSale -at- Gmail.com.

Here’s a little more information about Social Engine, in a video pitch posted on TechCrunch back in 2008.