TECHCRUNCH
MIKE BUTCHER
30 APRIL 08
Last February, MySpace
popped the champagne corks. It could go ahead and use the MySpace.co.uk domain name - after securing it in a decision by Nominet’s dispute resolution service - from a small UK ISP which had registered the .co.uk in 1997, two years before MySpace.com launched. Total Web Solutions (TWS), a company in Stockport, near Manchester, had started off using the domain for hosting sites. Then recently the domain started serving ads to social networks, a questionable move. But a Nominet appeals panel has today handed the domain back the tiny ISP. What happened?
Myspace.co.uk was originally used to offer email services and websites to subscribers, so TWS had insulated itself from an action for some time. But MySpace’s main argument to Nominet centred on the most recent use of the domain, which sent MySpace.co.uk visitors to a parked page with advertisements for social networking websites including MySpace. MySpace Inc says the practice started in July 2005 when News Corp took it over, boosting its fame, but TWS claims it was “at least” before June 2005.