An Australian construction company called BHP Billiton, recently announced the name of its spin-off company – South32.
They could have named the company anything really, after checking for the name being available as a .com, but they opted for this name. The .com was registered in 2012, long before BHP Billiton’s choice of a name was ever conceived.
“Cyber squatters bought the web address for the new South32 business and tried to charge $10 million for it!” squealed the writer of an ill-researched article for the Aussie publication BRW.
The article initially focuses on the Registrar, Australian domain company Fabulous, as if they were the culprit in this case. Quick after, the writer references the owner of the domain that was auctioned off, a company called Kari Bian Film.
Regardless of the method of this acquisition, BHP Billiton stated they are not willing to pay any exuberant fees to acquire the domain South32.com, which is being offered for $1,000,000 dollars on Sedo.
BHP Billiton appears to have secured the domain South32.com.au for this new project instead.
You can read the details of this anti-domainer article right here.
Company Kari Bian Film owns a lot of domain names that are listed for $1 million each at Sedo. And yes, many of them are third party trademark related names, so whoever are the people behind that company, they are Cybersquatters.
Mark – Another Aussie publication got it right:
“The domain registry through which South32.com was registered has also denied claims of cyber squatting, with a spokesperson for Dark Blue Sea, owner of Brisbane-based Fabulous Domains, telling SmartCompany this morning the domain was secured by Kari Bian Film Company long before BHP’s South32 concept was a reality.
“The domain South32.com was first registered in 2008, fully six years before BHP even mentioned the phrase,” the spokesperson says.
“That some publications have labelled this cyber squatting is clearly not the case.”
Link at http://www.smartcompany.com.au/legal/44992-bhp-billiton-s-crap-co-misses-out-on-domain-name-lessons-for-your-business.html
DomainGang – As I wrote, “many”, not “all” domain names registered by company Kari Bian Film are third party trademark related names.
DomainGang – There are many domain names registered by company Kari Bian Film that were registered or acquired way later the related trademarks have been registered by third parties and such domain names are parked with showing of related ads to such trademarks, products and/or services.
Looks like the new company, South32, balked at paying millions for South32.com — despite the company being worth $10 BILLION on day one of trading on the Australian stock exchange — and launched its website at South32.net, which it likely paid just $10 for. Interesting.
Kari Bian changed his name from Saeid “Karim” Yomtobian, after gaining US citizenship, which he explains here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/02/gaypons-battle-san-francisco_n_947206.html
Ironically your post, which was calling out a company for falsely claiming cybersquatting, actually identified a notorious cybersquatter, Saeid Yomtobian, which a cursory google search will flag the many WIPO decisions registered against him.
He and his son Daniel Yomtobian, CEO of Advertise.com formerly ABCSearch, were imfamous for malware, in fact they even made Wired back in 2003 with their Xupiter toolbar, that infected many http://www.wired.com/2003/02/xupiter-mongers-deal-spam-scams/. Real nice guys, these two: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10635772879866230 http://www.wired.com/2003/10/students-toil-as-spyware-hunters/
http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/threats/webdefenders-yomtobian.html