Facebook has recently won the Facebook.me domain name in arbitration.The social networking site filed a complaint with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center,claiming rights to the disputed domain name. Facebook owns many trademark registrations all over the world for the "Facebook" mark and, moreover it has a pending application to register the "Facebook" mark in the United Arab Emirates, which is the Respondent's country of residence.
Therefore, Facebook contended that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to its trademark. Moreover, they contended that the respondent registered and used the domain name in bad faith .
"The Respondent registered the Domain Name with full knowledge that he could derive profit from the Domain Name by either attracting users to his website or by selling the Domain Name at a substantial mark up."
"The Respondent’s use of the Complainant’s famous trademark in the Domain Name, combined with his offer to sell the Domain Name at a price far in excess of his likely out-of-pocket costs amounts to bad faith use of the Domain Name."
However, the respondent, Amjad Abbas, defends himself by saying that he never intended to create any website at the domain name. Moreover,the respondent argues that he just wanted to point the domain name to his own page .
All in all, the Panelist has awarded the domain name Facebook.me to Facebook.