Former Spice Girl and the wife of a famous football player David Beckham won a case in World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) against the owner of victoria-beckham.biz. The domain was registered way back in 2006 and for a long time was a harmless fan webpage, this is why Victoria Beckham and her lawyers didn’t see any trouble in its existence. But in 2014 the domain expired and previous owners didn’t renew the domain on time. This is when Viktor Pavlenko, opportunistic resident of Kharkov, used this chance. In December 2014 he became the owner of the domain and created a webpage “at which adult and/or pornographic images and services are offered”, according to the WIPO panelist. This turn of events obviously did disturb the star and her lawyers.
The outcome of the case considered under Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) was obvious from the beginning. Viktor Pavlenko didn’t even try to protect his interests that in this situation were clearly not legal. WIPO ordered that domain victoria-beckham.biz should be transferred to Victoria Beckham. It remain unclear how the domain is to be used in the future.
