12 Dec 2000
Kenneth Harvey of Newfoundland has won the right to continue hosting a customer grievance web site at Wallmartcanadasucks.com following the first decision of its kind by a panel of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) that went against Wal-Mart, the retail giant.
It was the third case between Wal-Mart and Mr Harvey to come before WIPO. The other cases involved similar domain names, but also involved requests for money from Wal-Mart which WIPO took as evidence of bad faith use, ruling in favour of Wal-Mart. The latest decision concerned the question of whether a domain name including the suffix “sucks” is confusingly similar to the word to which “sucks” is appended; and whether a criticism or parody privilege extends to the use of the suffix “sucks”. The panellist, Henry H. Perritt, Jr. wrote,
“As sole panellist, I conclude that a domain name including the word ‘sucks’ cannot be confusingly similar and that a privilege for criticism and parody reinforces that conclusion.”…
The domain name was neither registered nor used in bad faith…