Domains from dead businesses

[martin-s]

Really interested to hear people's thoughts on this one.

In a couple of weeks time, bradford-bingley.co.uk drops with a really nice link profile. They no longer exist as a trading business, having been absorbed into UKAR.

Where do people stand on reusing a domain like that? It would be very much trading on another company's brand - but that other company is dead, so are there any losers?

Not planning to register it myself, but really interested in it as a talking point.

 

[wonder_lander]

I would guess that trade marks would be the biggest issue.

There are a fair few still registered but I'm not sure who has the legal ownership over these.

 

[WealdDomains]

There's a whole theoretical spectrum from a genuine, innocent, regional Yorkshire geodomain (where the historic links would be 99.99% irrelevant) to a shabby and arguably illegal attempt at maybe-fraudulently trying to pass yourself off as being related to a former financial instituion for the purposes of spoofing regulated activity in areas such as banking, payments, credit, investments or advisory services (coupled with hijacking legacy traffic, amplified by the legacy links). Whereabouts on that spectrum do you intend to operate ?

 

[diablo]

You are mistaken in thinking Bradford & Bingley is "dead". It is currently a publicly owned PLC following its nationalisation and continues to trade (it has a mortgage book).

Its trademarks are owned by Santander who purchase Bradford & Bingley's branch network through Abbey National.

 

[martin-s]

Whereabouts on that spectrum do you intend to operate ?

As in my original post, I don't intend to operate anywhere. It's just an interesting discussion point.

Begs the question that if the brands are still owned by another bank, why on earth are their tech department so naive as to let the domain drop.

Similar thing with barcelo-hotels.co.uk today. Their main website appears to be barcelo.com, but in the UK they've dumped their hotels back to the owner, Puma Hotels (pumahotels.co.uk) and let another domain with a great link profile get picked up.

http://www.bighospitality.co.uk/Bus...er-of-hotels-to-revive-Paramount-Hotels-brand

Is it just poor education, or something else?