A recent decision of an expert appointed by Nominet, which is responsible for .co.uk domain names, ruled in favour of Ryanair against an unsatisfied Ryanair customer who created and registered a website called ihateryanair.co.uk. It was ordered that the domain be transferred to the airline. The decision clarifies a number of issues surrounding the creation and operation of such criticism websites.

The ihateryanair.co.uk website of Ryanair customer Robert Tyler, contained a number of highly critical opinion pieces and also links to other websites. The Nominet expert ruled that criticism websites can serve a valid purpose and that it can be considered to be the price paid in return for living in an open and democratic society. Even in circumstances where the site links to rival airlines this can be considered to form one of the components of an open discussion on air travel.

However, the case turned because Mr Tyler began accepting payment for links on the site. The expert ruled that the very nature of a criticism website is that discussion should be open and not influenced by commercial concerns. Mr Tyler had argued that the revenue earned from the links was minimal and did not even cover the day to day running of the site and associated legal costs. The expert ruled that the amount earned was irrelevant and that commercial links have no place on a criticism website in circumstances where it was Ryanair’s trade mark that attracted internet users to the website in the first instance. Therefore, the expert ruled that the domain name should be transferred to Ryanair

The Nominet ruling, although in Ryanair’s favour, shows the potential difficulties in producing criticism sites. From the perspective of the subject of a criticism site, consideration should be given as to whether the site is generating traffic through the use of the subject’s intellectual property. If this is the case and the operator is also producing revenue from the site then it may be possible to seek to have the ownership transferred.