In 2001 when I worked for The Sheffield College - http://www.sheffcol.ac.uk/ - I initiated a complaint to Nominet concerning an abusive registration of the domain http://www.sheffcol.co.uk/. The result of this [50 kB PDF] was the compulsory transfer to The Sheffield College of http://www.sheffcol.co.uk/ from its owner. Excerpt:
"In light of the foregoing findings, namely that the Complainant has rights in respect of a name or mark which is identical to the Domain Name and that the Domain name, in the hands of the Respondent, is an Abusive Registration, the Expert decides in favour of the Complainant. The Complainant’s requested remedy is transfer, and accordingly the Expert directs that the Domain Name, sheffcol.co.uk, be transferred to the Complainant."
At that time organisations were in the process of learning the importance of precautionary registration of domains relating to their brand. (Since that time, The Sheffield College seems to have let its ownership of the sheffcol.co.uk domain lapse.... to poor effect.)
This interesting, though long post by Derek Morrison in Auricle "On the video - a reflection on YouTube and friends (part 2)" shows how easy it now is to register "channels" on YouTube, and, by implication, the importance of education providers seeing the registration of such channels as something to manage, rather than treat passively. Derek writes:
"What I find a bit surprising is that many HEIs don’t seem to view ever-growing services like YouTube as an important part of the virtual landscape. When that perception is compounded with a lack of naming convention then there is some risk that others will occupy the space. For example, a visit to http://uk.youtube.com/OxfordUniversity will not illuminate any aspect of the Oxford University’s brand. In that case the University of Cambridge’s, as yet unpopulated, YouTube channel may be a wise move. So what to do? It took me just 5 minutes to register the following YouTube accounts:
- http://uk.youtube.com/UniversityPoppleton
- http://uk.youtube.com/PoppletonUniversity
- http://uk.youtube.com/AuricleDotOrg
- http://uk.youtube.com/AuricleOrg"
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