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The Internet Your Rights Online

Sen. Clinton Wins Rights to HillaryClinton.com 47

Posted by timothy from the also-interns-are-skanks.com dept.
SteveBlink writes "The National Arbitration Forum announced today that a ruling has been issued in favor of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton regarding rights to the Internet domain name hillaryclinton.com. A quick search of the Yahoo! phone book reveals at least 3 other people sharing the name Hillary Clinton living Ohio, California, and Delaware, respectively. It's curious to note that Sen. Clinton's full legal name isn't "Hillary Clinton," and the website itself is a generic link farm that makes no overt reference to the senator."
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Sen. Clinton Wins Rights to HillaryClinton.com More

Sen. Clinton Wins Rights to HillaryClinton.com

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  • Not quite as the submitter suggests (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jhon ( 241832 ) * on Wednesday March 23, 2005 @05:34PM (#12029430) Homepage Journal
    I've seen a lot of RTFAs in my day, but it's rare to need to suggest the submitter RTFA!
    A quick search of the Yahoo! phone book reveals at least 3 other people sharing the name Hillary Clinton living Ohio, California, and Delaware, respectively.
    What does that have to do with the price of Tea in Washington? The one who HAD and was USING the domain WAS NOT a "Hillary Clinton", it was a "Michele Dinoia" who was using it to redirect traffic to search (*cough*)SPAM(*cough) engines.

    Good riddance to a bit more sleezy domain profiteering. I don't even like Clinton, but I'm glad she won.
    • I'm glad that it's one less sleezy domain, but I don't particularly care for the precedent that a person (or probably more accurately, a celebrity) can yank a domain from someone just because they have a piece of the name. I imagine that if one of the other Hillary Clintons had tried this tactic, they would have been laughed out of court.
      • One of the other Hillary Clintons would not have set up a link farm specifically for the purpose of making money off of the name of the ex-first lady.

        You geeks may be able to set up a prototype database for the purposes of resume tracking for your employer in no time flat and yet you completely miss out on simple facts like what I typed above.
      • I'm glad that it's one less sleezy domain, but I don't particularly care for the precedent that a person (or probably more accurately, a celebrity) can yank a domain from someone just because they have a piece of the name.

        Are you sure? I didn't see anything pointing to the fact that any of the other 'Hillary Clintons' tried to get this domain name. I think it's a perfectly reasonable for any one of them to get their hands on it on a first come first serve basis. If it's their name, and someone is using
      • It's a ".com".. Being "celebrity" status, she therefore would have more of a claim over it than someone else with the same name.

        If we go by the traditional rules, though, she should be required to have a .org or perhaps a .gov rather than a .com. I farking HATE when I see orgs with .coms and businesses with .orgs or .nets. Drives me NUTS. Makes me want to go Columbine.
    • Exactly. I don't think that Mrs. Clinton should be given ANY priority to the ownership of the domain over anyone else with that name. However, anyone with that name should be given priority over someone who doesn't have that name and is not acting in good faith with the domain.

      In other words, if another Hilary Clinton wanted the domain, they should have just as much right to it as the Senator (after all, she already has a .gov or .us domain in her state by nature of her office). But some guy using it to re
    • What does that have to do with the price of Tea in Washington?

      It means that Senator Hillary Clinton has no exclusive claim on the name hillaryclinton.

      The one who HAD and was USING the domain WAS NOT a "Hillary Clinton", it was a "Michele Dinoia" who was using it to redirect traffic to search (*cough*)SPAM(*cough) engines.

      So, is there somewhere I can download the list of Officially Approved Website Uses? Better yet, is there somewhere I can vote to have entries added to or removed from that list?

      Goo

  • Doesn't matter that it doesn't reference her (Score:4, Insightful)

    by etymxris ( 121288 ) on Wednesday March 23, 2005 @05:36PM (#12029437)
    The very act of using a popular domain to set up a link farm is cybersquatting at its finest. I've seen some bad domain handovers, but this isn't one of them.
  • She forced a cybersquater off a page , fair enough plenty other people may also have rights to this domain , but she is the one that sought it first .
    Im sick fed up of these domain farmers , They obviously just bought up this domain in hopes of making a bit of cash off the name , which is in clearly wrong .Hell i would have suported Anyone (nearly) in a case like this, the sooner we get better regulation in to stop the domain farmers , the better our web experiance shall be.
    • Domain parking is no different that hogging up real estate or land. Concept has been around forever.

    • Like it or not domain names are a commodity. They have value like real estate. Location, location, location. First come first served is the only way to be fair to everyone. Taking away a domain name is like imposing emminent domain on your house and then have the county sell the land to Walmart. If Walmart wants your land they should pay YOUR price and leave the government out of it.
      • The point being , the person was a domain farmer who instead of using the domain for a good purpose was using it to extort money and quite probably install a few bits of malware or tracking cookies to any unsuspecting windows users who stumbled across it , If he had of been using it for a genuine purpose then i would of been apauled by the decision , but as it stands these bastards deserve a slap for lack of ethics and for plainly abusing the rules
  • In other news, there's a George W. Bush in Escondido, CA; it's also interesting to note that the president's full name isn't "George W. Bush", and both georgewbush.info and georgewbush.tv seem to return search engine results (which oddly don't seem to relate to the 'George W. Bush' in Escondido, CA--must be some sneaky bias in the search engine results!)

    now... did you have a point, or do you just like to ramble on about nit-picky partisan bullshit that's entirely unrelated to cybersquatting regulations?
    • now... did you have a point, or do you just like to ramble on about nit-picky partisan bullshit that's entirely unrelated to cybersquatting regulations?

      And a quick check over at Open Secrets shows that the NAF lawyers are Republicans - makes sense as they're the guys who stand to gain from Tort Reform. No bias here.

      What is interesting is that the ruling is based on Common Law Trademark usage, which I like. Yet, during the Clinton Administration media types were chastised for using "Hillary Clinton" wh

      • Re:Resection to politics (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The 'Rodham' of course, in case she decided to ditch the bum, so her name would still be out there.
    • Maybe his point is that Dubya is soft on spammers.

  • and anyone is suprised because? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Interesting dilemna here though... What if I start a company called hillary clinton, inc. (saying theoretically my name was hillary clinton)... so based on past domain cases... can i now take it from her?

  • Once she threatened to crush her opposition under the weight of her massive ego, they caved in seconds.

  • Generic link farm? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Geoffreyerffoeg ( 729040 ) on Wednesday March 23, 2005 @05:52PM (#12029652)
    This isn't such a "generic" site...it references "Hillary Rodham Clinton", "Senators", and even "Monica Lewinsky." It's intended to make money off of her popularity. (I'm not sure of the wisdom of adding the latter...it's pretty much guaranteed to anger Sen. Clinton.)
  • Basically, the submitter was saying that domain squatting is ok.

    Is it?

  • It depends upon how you do it. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A little piece of advice for people out there who may have a domain name that makes reference to someone considered famous..

    * If you point the thing to any content that makes reference to this famous entity, and it's not parody or some other protected form of copyright referencing, you can basically forget about being able to claim you're an innocent party.

    I had a friend who had americaonline.com. He probably could have kept the domain or legitimately sold it to AOL had he not made the foolish mistake of

  • This was a correct decision (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cleetus ( 123553 ) on Wednesday March 23, 2005 @06:18PM (#12029933) Homepage
    IAAL. The dispute was brought to the right venue, the National Arbitration Forum [arb-forum.com] (which is one of the domain name dispute fora available to alleged victims of cybersqatting--this keeps most stuff like this out of US courts and keeps taxpayer dollars from being spent on it). According to the decision [arb-forum.com], the arbitrators took statements and evidence, and, wonder of wonders, the initial registrant of HillaryClinton.com didn't even bother to respond to the complaint. In that case, all they have to go on is the statements of the complainant, which is what they used to make their findings. Finally, the arbitrators used the correct criteria to make the decision. Cut and dry and correct.

    Anyone need a lawyer?
  • OK, in this case, it seems that the domain was fairly transparently squatted by a link farmer/spammer.

    What about cases where someone uses the name of a person who's political or religious stance angers them, in order to publish information which may be damaging to that person?

    The site is www.kipmckean.com isn't run by the Kip McKean who's featured on the site, but is actually a thinly veiled rebuttal of the church/alleged "cult" he used to head.

    Wonder if he'd win if he sued for ownership of the domain
    • >>>The site is www.kipmckean.com isn't run by the Kip McKean who's featured on the site, but is actually a thinly veiled rebuttal of the church/alleged "cult" he used to head.>>>>>

      Interesting that you would bring up an obscure religious figure such as Kip. Have you been a member current or past? Not only did he used to head this cult, he currently still leads a church and has plans to run the whole thing again.

      I was in his church/cult for 14 years and I am the owner of kipmck
      • Thanks for replying Jen. Given that you've taken the trouble to register as a /. user and reply, I take it that you've read all of this (very short) thread about Senator Clinton winning the rights to HilaryClinton.com. If you have, I hope that you appreciate the context in which I posed my question.

        If you're new to /. I should point out that it's primarily a geek news site. One of the topics which are hotly pursued around here is the on-line rights of the individual, usually versus the rights of corporati
        • Yes, I understand your comments much better now. Thank you for clarifying.

          When I purchased the Mckean domain, I did wonder how long I might own it. I have no desires in making money from selling the domain back to McKean, nor do I wish any lawsuits. So who knows how long this will last for me.

          It is an interesting topic to keep my eye on.

  • This should pay for the legal bills (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PetoskeyGuy ( 648788 ) on Thursday March 24, 2005 @02:26AM (#12033436)
    Post a link from /. directly to a spam site. I'm sure they appreciate the traffic.

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