Cybersquatter told to give up sites to AltaVista

GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- U.N. arbitrators ruled on Monday that a cybersquatter with addresses in Panama and Latvia must give up 43 domain names it had registered containing variations of the name of the Internet search service AltaVista Co.

The Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization, which runs an arbitration system to evict cybersquatters or Net users who register famous names in the hope of making a quick buck, said the sites were confusingly similar to the AltaVista trademark.

The Palo Alto, California-based Web search service, which is owned by Boston-based Internet investor CMGI Inc, handles around 40 million Internet searches daily. The company recently laid off a quarter of its staff and refocused its business model in an effort to boost profitability.

A WIPO panel ruled that the sites ranging from actavista.com and aliavista.com to autavista.com and antavista.com had been registered in bad faith by a company called Grandtotalfinances Limited, based in Panama and Latvian capital Riga.

AltaVista said in its complaint filed to WIPO in July that the cybersquatter had registered at least 244 domain names with misspellings of other well-known names or trademarks such as www.swisair.com and www.volswagen.com.

As domain names have become more valuable with the meteoric rise of the Internet, a market has emerged for opportunists to grab Net addresses simply by being there first in the current system that is largely first-come, first-served.

The fast-track arbitration system of WIPO, the specialized U.N. copyright and intellectual property agency, allows firms and individuals to avoid costly lawsuits in cases when mischief is the obvious motive or serious money is at stake.

WIPO ruled on a similar cybersquatting case involving 40 variations of the trademark of U.S. Internet media giant Yahoo! in August and ordered the holders of the sites to quit them.

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AltaVista
WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization

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