Wacky WIPO kicked off the new year with its first ruling, and has hardly taken time to draw breath since - dishing out domain name decisions willy nilly, and normally not in favour of the little guy. But celebs soon cottoned on to WIPO's ways, and went running to the organisation with their whinges. Among those to try and use WIPO's muscle this year were Sting, Madonna, Jeanette Winterson, French actress Isabelle Adjini and Sade.
Sting is a pretty common word.
He reckoned he wanted it for a fan site, but as the domain had been unused for two years WIPO branded him a cybersquatter. Here WIPO also interestingly ruled that trademarks could legitimately be used for fan sites. Snippets of WIPO madness can be found here . Sometimes they offered money, sometimes not. In July, power Goliaths Microsoft and Reuters both won domains containing words similar to their names.