Mumbai: MS Dhoni and Rhiti Sports Management Private Limited have finally found a relief as the WIPO Mediation and Arbitration Center at Geneva evicted a cyber pioneer from using his name i.e. MS Dhoni in the domain name ‘www.msdhoni.com’.
The domain name, msdhoni.com, was first registered on October 31, 2005 with Wild West Domains, LLC and since last February 2014, USA’s David Hanley has been the registrant.
A complaint was filed by Scriboard, who represents Dhoni and Rhiti Sports, in the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center on August 19, 2016 and right after the complain the Respondent offered to sell the domain name to them for USD 1,500.
Scriboard contended that “the Disputed Domain Name is identical to the MS DHONI trademark and the Respondent does not have any rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name”.
It also contended that “the Respondent uses the Disputed Domain Name in bad faith as the website to which the Disputed Domain Name resolved made use of the Complainants’ MS DHONI trademark in order to raise advertising revenue through the use of sponsored or “click through” links”.
The respondent did not file a any formal response to the complainant’s contentions and accordingly the panel found that the respondent had no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.
The panel finally decided that the registration and use of the domain was in wrong hands as the respondent had engaged in a pattern of registering domain names corresponding to the names of famous persons which provides further evidence of wrong doing.
The panel also noted that the respondent’s offer to sell the disputed domain name to the complainants for USD 1,500 was further evidence of faith destruction.
Accordingly, the panel ordered that the disputed domain name — msdhoni.com — be transferred to the complainants.