The sublime game of cricket has made it to a domain dispute, with the captain of the Australian cricket team filing a claim in the Australian Federal Court seeking to have an unauthorised website shut down and damages against the domain name’s owner.According to ComputerWorld, lawyers for Mr Ponting “filed the claim on Christmas Eve and the website, which claimed to be ‘the official Ricky Ponting site’, has already been taken down.””Court documents say the website caused members of the public in Australia to believe it was approved, licensed or affiliated with Ponting, when it was not.” The article does not mention the domain name in question.As the dispute is not about primarily about cybersquatting, Mr Ponting has taken action “under the Trade Practices Act, claiming misleading and deceptive conduct, and is seeking the cancellation of the registration of the domain name, as well as an undisclosed amount of damages.”The domain name is owned by a company whose sole shareholder and director is Victorian man Kevin Leonard.”Freehills intellectual property partner Campbell Thompson says there was no law preventing the use of other people’s names on domain names, but if they claimed an untrue affiliation, it could be actionable.”The report gives examples of how sports people and actors have successfully sued and were awarded damages under this provision of the Trade Practices Act including Paul Hogan, the star of Crocodile Dundee, but there are few of them. Although the common way to resolve disputes involving domain names is through dispute resolution procedures, the report notes “celebrities usually tried to protect their names through the TPA as the effects were more immediate.”To read more of ComputerWorld’s story, see computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/EA04011021EB4A8FCC2573CB00750392