Kennel Club wins its complaint over website

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THE KENNEL Club has won a battle over a website bearing its name which has hosted links to commercial rivals and to websites run by critics of pedigree dog breeding.
Members of the General Committee took action after a Stockport-based company called EDOCO Ltd registered the internet domain name thekennelclub.co.uk .
The UK’s internet domain name dispute resolution service, Nominet, ruled that the registration was ‘abusive’ and ordered that the domain name be handed over to the KC.
However, in his judgment Nominet expert Nick Gardner said he doubted the links were manually generated or that any particular thought or motive has gone into compiling them.
The Kennel Club claimed that EDOCO, of Maple Road, Stockport, was making a commercial use of the domain name by advertising links to third-party commercial sites, some of which are operated by its competitors, from which EDOCO will receive funds each time one of these links is clicked.

Domain name

It alleged that the domain name was registered with the sole purpose of distracting trade from legitimate customers of the KC by inducing those legitimate customers into thinking that the domain name was being operated by or in collaboration with the KC.
It also claimed that EDOCO’s use of the domain name had been damaging and abusive to the complainant by linking to other websites which, it said, damage its reputation and good name.
Backing that claim Mr Gardner said: “It appears to me that the domain name has been ‘parked’ and is used to host a site which I infer is almost certainly automatically generated to contain links to other sites which may contain subject matter broadly similar to that connoted by the domain name.”
He said that he doubted that the links were manually generated, or that any particular thought or motive has gone into compiling them and added: “As such, some of the complainant’s submissions seem to me to ascribe more to the respondent in terms of deliberately seeking to trade off the complainant’s reputation than was in fact the case.”
He continued: “Nevertheless this type of arrangement is one which involves the respondent seeking commercial gain through revenue from customers clicking on links on the website from visitors who have been brought to the site because the domain name connotes the complainant.
“The result also is that some of the links are to sites that sell products which compete with the complainant, or contain material – for example from organisations morally opposed to the breeding of pedigree dogs – which is hostile to the complainant. I consider the site is thereby taking unfair advantage of the complainant’s rights. The domain name, in the hands of the respondent, is therefore an abusive registration.”
On Tuesday a KC spokesman said: “We were made aware of the website www.thekennelclub.co.uk by our customers, who suggested that it was delivering legitimate traffic away from our official website. The links suggested that a company was operating the website from the UK and links were in place to organisations not associated with the KC and suggested a ‘trading off’ of KC-recognised and accredited services.
“The domain name dispute resolution service, Nominet, was contacted to help resolve the issue. Nominet investigated the case from an independent standing and took into account the KC’s trademark registrations and found in favour of the KC and was able to push through an ownership change of the domain. We are pleased with the result and happy that Nominet was able to resolve the case swiftly and efficiently. The domain name is currently in the process of being transferred to the KC.”
DOG WORLD was unable to contact EDOCO.