The battle over the France.com domain name was fought in a variety of legal settings, and it appears to be headed to another venue. A UDRP has been filed against France.com at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It is WIPO Case D2022-1780.
The complainant in this UDRP is France.com, Inc. The current registrant of France.com is the French government. France.com currently forwards to the France.fr ccTLD, which hosts a tourism-focused website related to the country of France.
France.com, Inc. was the former registrant of France.com prior to a protracted legal battle over the domain name. Justia has a pretty good summary of what transpired, allowing the French government to wrest control of this valuable geodomain name asset.
The case appeared to have ended when the US Supreme Court “denied France.com Inc’s petition for review,” as reported last year by Reuters. This UDRP filing brings the fight to an entirely new venue.
In their decision, will WIPO take into account the previous court case for this domain, or will they decide this case based only on standard UDRP rules?
It probably doesn’t matter, since the point here is probably not about attempting to win the UDRP. Obviously, the Respondent is “commonly known as” France, so the objective here might have more to do with renewing a claim that can be litigated.
So even if he wins, the Government will surely challenge the decision in French court, and he has the option to address the suit.
And if he loses, he has the option to file suit in the French court.
I have to assume he must have factored all that in which means he’s surely going to French court.
I don’t see any other outcome.
Nice move, nice persistence. Hope he wins it back. Truly gross evil.
Are people up on the latest posted about what ICANN is doing to the world, i.e. registrants, by George Kirikos? Looks pretty grim.
One of the most heart breaking cases in domain history in my opinion. Recently vistied America.com which also lists several other premium domain names based on countries (Tokyo, Japan, Pakistan etc). No other country has tried to claim the name belonging to their government. International laws…smdh
France has become a global spectacle of evil, tyranny, and government psychopathy. It’s too bad the psychopath Macron wasn’t defeated. Also shows you how stupid and easily manipulated too many people are – and they know it. The power elites have been working to make and keep people that way since before Macron was even born, and they’ve refined it to a centuries old art and science. I don’t care what kind of label people apply to his challenger, “right wing” or whatever they want to call her, she would have been infinitely preferable. Just like our insane asylum country in which the partisan lunatics are now running the asylum (US). Some of the domain bloggers and frequent commenters are part of that though, doubtless many in the industry, even the ones who are supposed to be so smart.
(That was in reply to Anonymous.)