BRUSSELS — Two universities ended up victorious in two .XXX dispute resolution cases last week.
So far, out of 17 .XXX UDRP cases filed so far, eight cases have been resolved by arbitrators — all in favor of complainants.
BaylorGirls.xxx was handed over to Baylor University, after the registrant failed to respond to arbitrators, who ruled the domain name was registered in bad faith.
As evidence of that bad faith, the National Arbitration Forum said that the registrant also submitted WHOIS information for multiple other domain names, including PennStateGirls.xxx, NYUGirls.xxx, VillanovaGirls.xxx, PurdueGirls.xxx and ClemsonGirls.xxx, among others.
Another scholarly name ordered transferred recently was UTSystem.xxx.
The University of Texas Board of Regents won its case against Charles Cho and Soonyoung Interaction, who said the "UT" site was motivated by the "creation of a business model focusing on the adult industry specifically targeting the Asian audience." Later, the site re-directed to Sex.com
In that case, arbitrators said the registrants gave the university an ultimatum: "pay $20,000 and threatened to post adult-oriented content if his request did not prosper."
"The use of the disputed domain name overtly tarnishes Complainant’s reputation in the education and medical realms," arbitrators said.
So far the other .XXX arbitration decisions include:
- Valero Energy Corp., which filed over Valero.xxx;
- Borusan Holding, which was awarded BorusanHolding.xxx domain from Mahmut Erdogan;
- DenizBank A.S. of Turkey, which filed against Kader Yilmaz of France over the use of DenizBank.xxx;
- HEB Grocery Co., which won its case over HEB.xxx;
- Richard Branson, who was the complainant over RichardBranson.xxx; and,
- Borçelik Çelik Sanayi Ticaret Anonim ?irketi of Istanbul, which was awarded Borcelik.xxx.
The victories keep mounting for .XXX complainants in the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy, or UDRP, cases, particularly since nearly all of the cases involve non-adult companies purchasing mainstream brands.
What remains to be seen, however, is how these cases will be decided when the registrant is a member of the adult entertainment industry and is making active use of the website in connection with adult content.
.XXX domain names became available for the first time last year through various roll-out stages. Its operator, ICM Registry, started offering sites through general availability in December through accredited registrars.