Fergie's Tech Blog

British insurer elephant.co.uk loses in attempt to capture elephant.com

Via OUT-LAW.com:

British insurer elephant.co.uk has lost an attempt to capture elephant.com from a Canadian who uses it for his web site about elephants and who had indicated that he would sell the name if the offer price was over $1 million.

Elephant.co.uk is a brand of Admiral Insurance Services, fronted at the web site by a cartoon character called Trunkie. The brand makes millions from selling cheap car insurance over the web. But the owner of elephant.com, Adam Dicker from Ontario, told an arbitration panel that he had never heard of the British business.

This wasn't Admiral's first attempt to net elephant.com. Last February, Admiral tried to buy it from then owner Bradford Oberwager, offering him $18,000.

But Oberwager told Admiral that he was already in the process of selling it to Dicker, for the sum of $22,500. He suggested that if Admiral was prepared to up its offer to $32,000, he would ask Dicker if he would walk away in return for some cash. Admiral agreed, but Dicker refused the offer and took control of the name.

Admiral contacted Dicker direct, offering to buy the name. Dicker, a web developer who controls many web sites for himself and his clients, said the name was not for sale. Then, after a second request, he said: “The domain is not for sale for less than 1 million dollars. 3 offers are currently pending”.

posted by Fergie @ 6/16/2005 12:39:00 PM