Oxford Domain Resolution May Indicate A Shift In Attitude

ajs writes: "As many may have already discovered, Yahoo is reporting that Oxford University has won a domain dispute. The suprising, and perhaps frightening part was a comment from one of their spokespeople: "We want to be sure if you do type into a search engine something about Oxford University or type something into a URL, then you will come to us." The idea that anyone would expect search engine results to be protectable is a little odd. What if google lists my "I went to Oxford" page first?"

Not about search engines.

[SagSaw]

Yes, the thought that a business/organization could sue over legitimate search engine ordering (i.e. no bribes, etc. involved) is scary. This case, however, does not deal with that at all. The decision simply forced the owner of www.university-of-oxford.com, not really a legitimate sounding address anyway, to release control of the domain to Oxford. Yes, a spokesperson for oxford inidicated that they would like all Oxford search results to point to Oxford, but the actual decision had nothing to do with that.

Obligatory names joke.

[Andux]

"Hello, my name is S.L. Ashdot. And you are...?"
"Gregory Oatse."
"Alfred Ol."
"Matthew Paa."
"Richard Iaa."
"Stephen D. Mi."
"Yossem Ahoo."
"George E. O'Cities."
"Nathan Etscape."
"Michael O'Zilla."
"Theodore H. Inkgeek."
"Nice to meet you all."

Re:Obligatory names joke.

[imclaren]

"Hello, my name is S.L. Ashdot. And you are...?"
"Gregory Oatse."
"Alfred Ol."
"Matthew Paa."
"Richard Iaa."

How about A.R.Mani [slashdot.org]?

Sure, cut-and-dried, but...

[Masem]

Assuming the details in the brief story are correct, this is pretty much a straightforward win for Oxford; the guy did this once before, and didn't even defend himself in the suit. So 'cybersquatting' sounds perfectly legit.

But, why in the world would a state-supposored (*) educational institution need a .com for?? I know that the 3 big TLD's have lost their intent, but there's still some rhyme or reason to them! And certainly there are private-sector educational systems (devry, for example), that certainly have a right to a .com. If a states-side public school in my voting area was to pull a similar tactic, using my tax dollars to fund a domain name battle to get at a .com name, I'd be writting certain government officials and demanding to know why my tax dollars are used in such a manner.

(*) I believe that in the UK, Oxford is government funded, but I may be wrong.

Re:Sure, cut-and-dried, but...

[3141]

Agreed, educational establishments shouldn't really use the .com TLD. Oxford University is an independent university though, and if it does receive any cash from the government, it gets much more from private industry, etc.

In the United Kingdom, universities usually go with .ac.uk (academic UK) rather than .edu or .com.