Milanoo claims .CC is third most commonly used domain tld in America

Mianoo who operate in China as an online dress shopping mall has just won the domain name Milanoo.cc however in there press release they quote the following.

The .cc domain name is the officially authorized domain name of Cocos and Keeling islands, located in the Indian Ocean by northwest Australia. As CC is the abbreviation of “Commercial Company,” it has gained popularity among individuals and companies, leading .CC to become the third most commonly used domain after .COM and .NET in America.

Did I miss something? I know being based in the UK I am not in America that often but when did .CC get so big? I think Milanoo need to get some new lawyers or advisors as to my knowledge it would be .com, .net, .org and then probably .us well before .CC – I get why they want to own the .CC for brand protection but why make claims it’s the third most commonly used domain in America?

I am heading to New York on the 30th of November and I am pretty sure I wont see many .CC domain names being advertised…

Here is the full story below.

CHENGDU, China, Nov. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — On November 11, Milanoo successfully regained milanoo.cc. The .cc domain name is the officially authorized domain name of Cocos and Keeling islands, located in the Indian Ocean by northwest Australia. As CC is the abbreviation of “Commercial Company,” it has gained popularity among individuals and companies, leading .CC to become the third most commonly used domain after .COM and .NET in America.

Global B2C foreign trade Milanoo.com entrusted a Washington law firm to place a case on file for arbitration (docket number DCC2013-0003) in July 2013. An American local court accepted and submitted the case to the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). The complainant Milanoo filed the lawsuit against the owner (hereinafter, the defendant) of the disputed domain name milanoo.cc, claiming that the disputed domain name was registered in May of 2011 while the milanoo.com registration was accomplished on December 12, 2007 and its official online operation started from the beginning of 2008. Since the establishment, Milanoo has used milanoo.com to launch its global businesses. After five years’ development, the company now owns English, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian sites covering more than 180 countries and regions. Therefore, the complainant believed the disputed domain name is easily confused with the Milanoo trademark.

Apart from the above, Milanoo provided relevant evidence to prove that the defendant took advantage of the similarity of the domain name to steal an existing number of searches and attention from milanoo.com and misled customers to buy at his site using keyword searches. The defendant transferred a lot of customer complaints to Milanoo at the same time while profiting off of Milanoo.com’s brand recognition. Therefore, the defendant has committed the crime of malicious registration and employment.

In conclusion, WIPO delivered a final ruling that milanoo.cc belongs to milanoo without dissent. At the same time, another disputed domain name milanoo.me was ruled to be owned by milanoo. Milanoo spokesman Xu Yuan said, “The determined protection for intellectual property rights and brand value is our policy all along. With the expansion of foreign trade businesses all over the world, we need to equip ourselves with stronger brand protection awareness and legal consciousness. We will resolutely safeguard ourselves by legal means when facing behaviors which are bad for our brand assets.”

SOURCE Milanoo.com