Cybersquatting on my domain name

  • Hi. I’ve owned a domain name for many years, and have finally taken steps to actually turn it into a viable business plan. I just registered the LLC with the State of Florida this month. But someone has been cyber-squatting on the name here in WordPress since 2006 with only one post on the undeveloped blog. I’d like the name, since I’ve owed the dot com for so long and now have launched a business to go with the concept. Please let me know the process to obtain it. It’s obvious whoever the person was just snagged the name and did nothing with it. Let me know as soon as possible. I’m looking to launch by the end of May, and if you guys can’t help me, I’ll have to go with a WordPress alternative – even though I really would prefer not to. But branding wisdom will unfortunately force me to if it can’t be somehow changed out. Thanks in advance for your research on my behalf. I’ll be glad to provide you the name privately via email or phone call.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    Unless the domain itself is registered TO WordPress, WordPress has nothing to do with this.

    WordPress has nothing to do with people who’ve registered domains and happen to use WP.

    Use WHOIS to look up who registered the name, not where it’s parked, but the name of the actual registrant. That’s who you need to get in touch with.

    Had to read the OP a few times but it looks like you’re referring to a wordpress.com blog?

    If — assuming you are referring to a website hosted on paid hosting using www.remarpro.com — you own the domain name ( e.g. have rented it from a registrar ) then you can complain they are using your domain name. If they just got the domain name ahead of you, they have no obligation to give it up or to ‘do anything with it’.

    If — assuming you are referring to a WordPress.com blog — they got it before you the same applies.

    If — and I suspect this is what you mean, you own a domain name for hosting yourself, and a WordPress.com blog shares almost the same name — I can’t imagine that WordPress.com can/would take the latter away from any person because someone else wants it. Their ( legal ) use is not determined by whether they actually exercise that use.

    I’d just choose another domain name, which won’t be confused with any other.

    Although some people complain about a shortage of names, in practise there are so many combinations of English ( and other ) words it can’t be difficult to create thousands of unique websites.

    [ The difficulty with urls is not the www prefix, which is a red herring; but the mere useless existence of extensions which no doubt was a cool and stupid idea at the time of fewer websites , but now merely serves to enable crooked people to copy other domain names simply registering xxx.org instead of xxx.com; and to richly line the pockets of registrars for selling the same name in a dozen different extensions. ]

    Thread Starter positivepurpose

    (@positivepurpose)

    Sorry I wasn’t clear enough you guys. I’m referring to the WordPress blog. I already own the domain name outright. And I’m not asking that they take a truly established blog away. The person (whoever it is) created it in 2006, didn’t post anything but a sort of “testing” type post and has sat on the blog designation ever since. I wanted to use WordPress for my business, but my name is highly brand-able, and there is no way I’d be willing to develop a Word Press blog unless I can have that name. The person who started it could have died for all we know. There needs to be a way Word Press can investigate it and take back that name on behalf of someone who actually could become a viable revenue stream for them via advertising and eventual fees. I was hoping someone from Word Press would respond. I’m new to this and don’t know how to contact them directly. Info appreciated. Thanks.

    I’m referring to the WordPress blog.

    What WordPress blog? Give us a url.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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