Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman has lost the rights to his domain name morganfreeman.com. As is often the case, the actor’s inattentive manager is to blame. The domain should have been renewed before April 13, 2018, but even after that, Freeman’s representatives could have redeemed the domain by paying an extra fee until May 25.
Either way, they failed to renew it. As a result, the domain name was auctioned off. On June 1, a company from Las Vegas submitted the highest bid, $915, to become the domain’s new owner. What’s more remarkable is that initially, the morganfeeman.com domain name was not registered by the actor himself, but by a third party that had nothing to do with him. In 2005, Freeman’s lawyers filed a cyber-squatting complaint with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. This complaint was considered under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy and eventually granted to Morgan Freeman. Ever since, the domain name was used simply to redirect users to the official website of the Revelations Entertainment independent film production company co-founded by the actor. This was the company whose managers were responsible for managing the domain name and renewals.
In their article, Online Domain particularly focused on one important detail. On May 24, the day before the grace period deadline, when Freeman’s representatives still could have paid for the domain name, CNN reported that eight women had accused the 81-year-old actor of sexually harassing them in the past. This could have been considered a mitigating circumstance for Freeman’s managers and lawyers who were likely caught up in defending the allegations against Freeman at that point.
