Daily Domain Name Registration Blog

Build a business, get a domain name, become well know, establish a trademark = success (perhaps not in that order).

So an Australian property company (propertymatch.com.au ) had done just that only to be told by the Australian domain name administration authority that the domain name was mistakenly sold to them. OK fair enough you would think, but this was 12 months ago and it had already been renewed by its previous owner.

David Widjaja (the owner of the domain name) was then forced to tell his staff and a major investor that without the domain name the business was no longer a viable asset. This was after being given 24 hours notice about the issue (via email) to give the domain name back to its “original” owner.

£50,000 is the amount that the investor is pursuing in lost revenue and the web hosting company that made the mistake is set to be pursued by the cyberspace law and policy center.

The director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy centre said it was potentially (potentially isn’t the word i would use) a failure in governance by auDA to have taken so long to discover the problem, and then to have given Widjaja “such an unreasonably short period to rectify matters”.

Unsurprisingly a spokesperson from auDA was unavailable for comment about the issue.