Cindy Crawford whose full name is Cynthia Ann Crawford ,won the rights to the domain name CindyCrawford.com in a UDRP decision handed down today, by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Now that the decision is out its clear that the Supermodel never owned the domain, despite that the whois for many years showed her as the owner of the domain, and that the domain was pointed to Ms. Crawford’s site which is at Cindy.com
It seems like Ms. Crawford was fine with the registration while the owner was forwarding it to her official site at Cindy.com but when the owner started redirecting the domain to a porn site in 2012, Ms. Crawford filed this UDRP.
Here are the relevant facts and findings by the one person panel:
The Complainant holds numerous active or pending registrations for the trade mark CINDY CRAWFORD in over 50 countries.
The Complainant holds (at least) the following trade mark registrations: CINDY CRAWFORD, in the United States, Registration No. 2,392,820 (registered October 10, 2000,); and Community Trade Mark for CINDY CRAWFORD, Registration No. 002246288 (registered May 15, 2003,),(together, the “Trade Marks”).
The Respondent is Julian S. Garcia of Madrid, Spain. The Respondent did not file a Response, and consequently little information is known about the Respondent.
The Disputed Domain Name was first registered on October 17, 1996.
According to the publicly-available WhoIs information, the Disputed Domain Name has had multiple registrants since 1996. From the evidence submitted by the Complainant it seems that the Respondent has held the Disputed Domain Name since at least August 8, 2012.
The Disputed Domain Name redirects to a website which contains pornographic material.
“The Complainant has never owned the Disputed Domain Name (contrary to false registrant information in the publicly available WhoIs history report). ”
“The Respondent has been in control of the Disputed Domain Name since February 13, 2004. ”
“The Respondent was listed as the technical contact on this date, with “Cindy Crawford” listed as registrant (both with the same address). These details changed on February 10, 2010, (“Cindy Crawford” was listed as technical contact, still with the Respondent’s address), and again on August 8, 2012, (the Respondent was listed as both the registrant and the technical contact).
The Complainant has not authorized the Respondent to register or take any action in relation to the Disputed Domain Name.
“Prior to August 8, 2012, the Disputed Domain Name was either inactive, or directed to <cindy.com>”
“Since August 2012, the Disputed Domain Name has been redirecting to an English-language pornographic website for a pornographic actress using the same professional name as the Complainant.…
