Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Alcoholics Anonymous has lost its claim for the domain name alcoholicsanonymous.org against an entity called "Friends of Bill W and Jimmy K" which uses the name for a web site promoting itself as "The Unofficial Web Site for AA Related Information."

AA took its claim before a panel of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. It claimed that the owners of the domain name registered it to confuse "the purchasing public into believing that [AA] maintains, or has approved, endorsed or is the sponsor of, or is otherwise associated with" the unofficial site.

AA also noted that in September the domain name had been linked by its owners to a gambling site and that the owners had also tried to sell it at GreatDomains.com, a popular marketplace for registered domain names.

However, the panel decided that the owners did have a right in the name. It considered AA "a highly decentralised fellowship of local organisations around the world." It wrote that the name's owner had "some legitimate right to use the domain name as well," partly evidenced by its offering AA-related information and the fact that the operation was non-commercial.

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