The microsoft NZ story

Well, I know I’ve promised alot of you to scan the documents about this domain dispute between microsoft new zealand limited and myself. To make a long story short.. My name is Marcus and I run a irc linux shell provider, I provide irc hosts to users who wich to run bouncers or bots in their irc channels, having hosts from different countries is a good thing so you can connect to servers from different countries.

In february 2001 I registered the domain name micrososft.net.nz, because, well I could, and that it would make a neat irc host for my customers, the domain was however never used as a public host for any customers.

In march 2001 Russell Brown from the news site IDG.net.nz emailed me and asked about the domain. This was during Microsoft’s introduction of their .NET. I don’t know how Russell noticed I’ve registered the .net version of Microsofts name under the New Zealand top level domain, but he did and we sent eachother a few emails, he informed me that he intended to write an article about me and the domain.

Russell interviewed Carol Leishman at Microsoft and asked why they didn’t register the domain name before I did. You can read three articles by Russell Brown here:

The result of IDG’s article was that Microsoft hired a law firm in Sweden to get the ownership over microsoft.net.nz

I got a letter sent to me from the law firm Albihns Stockholm AB where they threaten with legal actions. You can read the letter in swedish here: Page 1 and Page 2 (english translation).

After agreeing to hand the domain over in exchange of Microsoft keeping my out of the court room they sent me a new letter (english translation) with some papers to fill in to hand the domain over to Microsoft. You can see the forms here: Page 1, Page 2 and Page 3 (the images is copies sent to me by Domainz).

Register.com removed the domain from my account so i no longer could modify it. However, I still had my domainz login name and could switch name servers, seemed Microsoft never took the domain from me.. I had no idea why..

Until the end of May 2002.. that day I got a letter from Domainz claiming Microsoft failed to provide Domainz with the requested information. So domainz gave the Domainz back to me. Here is the letter.
A small update to the story, Microsoft failed to send in all details to New Zealand DomaiNZ to transfer the domain to them so it was returned to me. Earlier this year MS hired a new lawfirm in NZ to try get the domain back, I signed all papers once again faxed them and mailed them to MS lawyers.. The domain was about to expire anyway and I was planing to let it expire, I’ve had my little fun.. but it seems like Microsoft once again failed to get all papers in to domainz in time, the domain expired and it seem like someone else got the domain now.. Atleast Microsoft wont bug me anymore now.

Marcus Lindgren | datetime May 5, 2006 3:10 pm

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