The arbitration of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has completed consideration of an extremely curious case. One of the world's leading insurance and investment companies AXA Group (one of the systemically important for the global economy) filed a complaint under the UDRP Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Policy against the axa.blog. The rights to manage this domain zone belong to Automattic, and the direct management is carried out by its subsidiary, the Knock Knock Whois There (KKWT) registry.
Initially, the axa.blog domain was, like many other short domain names, reserved as a premium domain. But then the registry went further - and registered the domain, providing it with a landing page. This caused the outrage of the AXA Group. During the proceedings, representatives of KKWT emphasized that reserving premium domains is the most common practice for any registry, and a decision in favor of the plaintiff would undermine the business of many companies.
However, WIPO Panelist Matthew Harris strongly criticized this position. “The domain name system would not fall apart, nor would the business model of the Internet need to change, if this case were decided in favour of the Complainant,” Domain Name Wire quotes his conclusions. “Such a decision would merely confirm that where a registry decides to become either directly or indirectly the registrant of a domain name in its own registry, it is subject to the same rules in relation to that registration as is every other registrant.”
However, AXA Group's complaint was eventually dismissed. According to the Panelist, the company was unable to provide any evidence that the registration of the axa.blog domain name in any way affected its interests or was related to them at all. Thus, it is not possible to establish the fact of cybersquatting in this case.
