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Cybersquatters Hand Over Bebo.ie

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I’ve spoken about cybersquatting in the IE namespace in the past.

One of the domains that had been nabbed by EUBrowser was bebo.ie. While it’s still pointing to their feeble attempt at explaining their connection to the name the whois has been updated:

 whois bebo.ie

% Rights restricted by copyright; http://www.domainregistry.ie/copyright.html
% Do not remove this notice

domain:      BEBO.ie
descr:       Bebo INC
descr:       Body Corporate (Ltd,PLC,Company)
descr:       Registered Trade Mark Name
admin-c:     AGK628-IEDR
tech-c:      HH36-IEDR
renewal:     20-April-2008
status:      Active
nserver:     ns.eubrowser.com
nserver:     ns2.eubrowser.com
source:      IEDR

person:      Michael Birch
nic-hdl:     AGK628-IEDR
source:      IEDR

In the last few weeks the EUBrowser pair let some of their domains expire, which may mark the beginning of the end of this pair’s antics in IE space

About Michele Neylon

Michele is founder and managing director of Irish domain registrar and hosting company Blacknight. Michele has been deeply involved in domain and internet policy discussions for more than a decade.
He also co-hosts the Technology.ie podcast.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Michele Neylon says

    The key thing is that the domain’s contacts have been updated. This means that EUBrowser have lost control of the domain.

  3. paulmc says

    I see from the whois info that the renewal is up in April 2008. I’d assume that the domain was registered to Bebo Inc in April 2007. Just seems strange that it still points to a site about Budapest and not the main Bebo domain.

  4. Michele Neylon says

    @PaulMc

    The domain was originally registered to EUBrowser NOT Bebo. The change only occurred recently

    There was obviously a UDRP case involved, as there is a reference on the WIPO site:
    http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/cases/2007/die0000-0199.html

    As you can see the case was suspended, which often happens when the registrant hands over the domain without the UDRP running its full course. If a full UDRP decision had been published it would probably have included a lot of details concerning their other activities and previous WIPO decisions against them.
    While a WIPO decision is not a court decision in the traditional sense it wouldn’t reflect very well on the pair in question, so I’d guess they caved in to avoid more negative media attention and bad PR.

    Michele