9:00am Tuesday 4th May 2010
A CANVEY man who was ordered to hand over lucrative websites he owned to the Olympic authorities has claimed he has been treated unfairly.
David Tiley, 49, of Station Road, bought 12 domain names for the London Olympics days after London was awarded the games in July 2005.
Although some web domains can sell for thousands of pounds, Mr Tiley was ordered to hand his web names over to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games for free earlier this week.
He has paid about £1,000 over five years for the rights to the web addresses.
Mr Tiley, who is not involved in other internet businesses, said: “I don’t think it’s fair.
“I bought them on the day it won the Olympic games. I didn’t hear anything then until 2008, when it started saying it wanted them back.
“The Olympics is a massive international organisation.
“You would have thought it would have thought things through and bought the domain names itself.”
The judgment was made by Nominet, the organisation dealing with disputes involving the use of internet domain names.
In her report, Anna Carboni, for Nominet, said: “In view of the timing of the original registrations, immediately following the high-profile public announcement of the successful bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games in London, it is highly likely the respondent registered the domain names with a view to cashing in on the event.”
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