(22 February 2010 – USA) A US District Judge has ruled in favour of Bank of America over web addresses acquired, by a cyber-squatter, in an effort to cash in on the bank’s merger with Merrill Lynch.According to Reuters, J Taikwik Yung used his business, Webadviso, to register the domain names ‘bofaml.com and mlbofa.com on the same day that news of the Merrill Lynch acquisition became public.
Denny Chin, US District Judge, barred Mr Yung from using the addresses, finding that he registered them in bad faith.
The judge read from an email from Mr Yung that claimed he could earn ‘near seven figures’ from the registered addresses.
The Bank of America/ Merrill Lynch take over is not the first instance where cyber-squatters have jumped at the opportunity to make money from domain names following emergency mergers. Also in 2008 the names barclayslehman.com and jpmbearstearns.com were acquired by non-bank businesses.