International Corporation involved in diamond exploration, refining and trade De Beers lodged a complaint to the World International Property Organization (WIPO) against the domain debeers.feedback. The complaint was considered under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy UDRP and was satisfied: the domain will be transferred to De Beers. This situation establishes a very important precedent for the whole .FEEDBACK domain zone.
The very concept of the domain zone “feedback” involves the use of trademark names that don’t belong to the registrant. Domain zone .FEEDBACK is seen as a social network of forums where goods and services are discussed. Therefore, for example, such domains as apple.feedback or ford.feedback don’t have to necessarily belong to the corresponding companies without violating their rights. This concept faced criticism from rights owners, but ICANN corporation still considered it possible to delegate domain .FEEDBACK. Moreover, Jay Westerdal, the head of .FEEDBACK registry Top Level Spectrum numerously said that the domain zone is “UDRP-proof” and promised to offer his lawyers if someone faces complaints from the rights owners.
It seems that now he will have to take his words back. However, he couldn’t help for a reason: registrant of debeers.feedback preferred to stay anonymous. However, the reason the complaint was satisfied by the WIPO arbitrator was not the copyright violation but improper usage of the domain. It was registered back in January, however since that time just two posts appeared on it, they were no longer than a couple of words and absolutely not informative. After De Beers corporation decided to lodge a complaint a couple of new posts appeared on the webpage. However, they were posted retroactively and were just copies or Yelp! reviews, it’s a service that specialized in publication of user feedback and reviews. The arbitrator had no problem in establishing it all and reaching a verdict in favor of De Beers.
