OK, this is a question for advice. My friend runs and has been running a head shop in the south of England for the past few years. He has always traded under the same name but never copyrighted it. About 3 years ago registered the domain name of his business and set up a simple business card website. However about 1 year ago he had to relocate his business and the domain name expired, only to be bought up by an individual from London. This individual has subsequently told my friend that he would have to pay several thousand pounds to get his domain name back again. The domain name currently lies unhosted, and it is our belief that this individual bought the name in order to ransom it. Is this legal? What options does my friend have to legally retrieve the rights to the name without costly court battles? Edited.... I have just realised that the advocacy part of this thread is more about buying than general consumerism. Although technically my friend is a consumer buying the rights to the domain name. Not too sure where it falls.
It's legal, from what I understand. Your friend needs to make a new domain name. Perhaps something that is close enough to the old one so that the change is not that big of a deal.
Actually here in the states some action has been taken to prevent that. Your friend should first off trademark his business name, I doubt the squatter bothered to do that. Once you have a valid trademark you have much more power to negotiate. http://www.houstoninternetlaw.com/trademark/trademarking-domain-names.html
Not necessarily if he familiarizes himself with the statutes of his country and trademarks his name. Many of these squatters are just looking for an easy buck and when you face them with statutes they will back down.
Be aware that here in the states trademarking a url is almost impossible. You have to trademark your name/product first. That should be your friends first concern. Your trademark should be more than a url.
