Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India’s ODI and T20 captain, and Rhiti Sports Management Private Limited ,which manage his commercial rights, have been successful in getting www.msdhoni.com domain transferred to their name.
The above mentioned domain was originally registered on October 31, 2005 with Wild West Domains, LLC and USA’s David Hanley has been the registrant on or before February, 2014. However, the latest development is they have secured the website after a decision made by the WIPO Mediation and Arbitration Center at Geneva.
The Rhiti Sports management related Scriboard has registered a complaint about the issue at the WIPO Mediation and Arbitration Center on August 19, 2016 after which the registrant has offered to sell the website for $1500.
Scriboard, which has made the complaint, asserted “the Disputed Domain Name is identical to the MS DHONI trademark and the Respondent does not have any rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name”.
It further mentioned that “the Respondent uses the Disputed Domain Name in bad faith as the website to which the Disputed Domain Name resolved made use of the Complainants’ MS DHONI trademark in order to raise advertising revenue through the use of sponsored or “click through” links”.
The respondent has not filed any formal response to counter the remarks made by Scriboard which helped the panel in making the decision as they concluded the respondent has no rights over the domain which is under the dispute.
The penal concluded that the domain was in bad faith as it followed the pattern of registering famous celebrity names and has also further noted that the respondent’s $1500 offer to sell the domain as a suitable evidence to make the call in favor of the complainers.