The National Arbitration Forum (www.arb-forum.com) announced on March 22 that it has ruled in favor of Hillary Rodham Clinton regarding rights to the domain name hillaryclinton.com (www.hillaryclinton.com), which was registered by Michele Dinoia on October 22, 2001. Senator Clinton filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum on February 1, 2005, asserting legal rights to the website bearing her name.
Tyrus Atkinson, Jr., a National Arbitration Forum arbitrator, ruled that Dinoia did not have legitimate rights to the Web address and that it was confusingly similar to Clinton's trademark rights in her own name. He also found that Dinoia was using the site in bad faith by presumably profiting from the use of it. The website www.hillaryclinton.com has been directing Internet users to a generic search engine, links to commercial websites and exposes users to pop-up ads and pay-per-click search results.
