Hacker arrassing customer to sell similar domain, can any thing be done?

[oliflorence]

Hi,
one of my customer owns a .ie domain, someone bought the very same domain in a .com version, this was a few years back, he then contacted the customer and offered to sell the domain for 500 euro (as they do, nothing new here), the customer never gave in and did not answer.
Now they have built a page with a list of all their competitors and have pointed the domain to it, it has not bee submitted to the serch engine thus.
I would have thought there was nothing to do about it but the customer has heared there was a way to have the domain disabled as this could be seen as arrassment.
Any ideas??

 

[RedCardinal]

I dont think you can stop anyone from linking anywhere they like. Unless they infringe copyright/TM or post something defamatory I don't think you can do much.

Is the .ie domain trademarked?

BTW Where are you from oliflorence?

 

[daviddoran]

There is precident for a cease-and-desist to linking but it has only recently happened and I would disagree with anyone restricting where you link though.

 

[oliflorence]

Hello,
no there is no trademark, customer is in Dublin and the guy selling the domain is in New York!!

 

[Gavin]

Michele is probably the best person for this question as my answer would be off the top of my head.

If you dont mind me asking, what niche is the .ie & .com based on?

 

[RedCardinal]

Try JMCC either here or over at his blog whoisireland.com - he would be the domain guru in these parts.

 

[mneylon]

Getting a domain disabled is not easy unless the domain holder is spamming, phishing or doing something else that would be seen as network abuse.

The other option is UDRP via WIPO if the client feels that it is "passing off", however even if the case met all the criteria under WIPO the process would cost a lot more than €500