A controversial domain name registrant is annoying some of Australia’s largest companies by registering their domain names in obscure country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) and then attempting to sell the domain names to them at vastly inflated prices.Dominic Holland has been found attempting to sell the domain names qant.as and westp.ac, Australia’s national airline and one of Australia’s largest banks respectively, to the respective companies. .AS is the ccTLD for American Samoa while .AC is the ccTLD for the Ascension Island.Other domain names he appears to have registered include japanpo.st, wesfarme.rs, virg.in and 2day.fm.Holland claimed two weeks ago that bidding on the qant.as domain name started at $1 million and finished at $1.35m according to a report in The Australian.Both Qantas and its main Australian competitor Virgin Blue have denied participating in the auction. Qantas have not commented on whether they will take legal action, but Holland claims they have no legal recourse.”A company or entity may seek legally the rights to a domain name in a similar fashion as that of trademark law. This means that a domain name must be proven to be, include or contain a trademark for which may attract consumers or viewers through utilising a known trademark.”However, this does not extend to the extension of a domain name, and only applies to the preceding letters.”In this case Qantas would have to prove that consumers would be drawn to that domain because of the use of ‘Qant’. However, as they have at no point advertised, portrayed or conducted themselves with ‘Qant’ they hold no legal rights to the domain. The extension .as or any extension is not taken into consideration as legally it is considered an indicator of domain type or location,” Holland told The Australian.Westpac has taken a similar line as Qantas and has not expressed any interest in purchasing the domain name from Holland. But their legal team has sent a trademark claim on the domain name, which Holland has described as “bogus”.At the time of the article in The Australian the qant.as domain name redirected to the Virgin Blue website, but now it is parked with information on other domain names Holland has registered.For more information on the above stories, see:
Registrant Attempts to Profit From Curious Australian Company Domain Registrations
A controversial domain name registrant is annoying some of Australia’s largest companies by registering their domain names in obscure country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) and then attempting to sell the domain names to them at vastly inflated prices.