Edible Apple

In early November, Apple filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) seeking take ahold of 7 adult-themed domain names which co-opt Apple product names in an effort to trick consumers and make a quick and dishonest buck. As of this week, Apple dropped their complaint.

As a quick backdrop, WIPO is an agency of the United Nations designed to protect intellectual property rights. As part of its mission, it deals with cybersquatters who often purchase, in bulk no less, domain names extremely similar to established brands and products.

In any event, the domain names in question included:

iphonecamforce.com
iphonecam4s.com
iphoneporn4s.com
iphonesex4s.com
iphonexxxforce.com
iphone4s.com
porn4iphones.com

As of Wednesday morning, all of the above sites still direct users to adult websites (user be warned) but the domains now appear to be controlled by MarkMonitor, an company which handles domain acquisitions for a slew of large companies, including Apple, when the domain owner wishes to remain anonymous.

DomainNameWire, which first reported the story, states that Apple dropped their WIPO complaint after the owner of the aforementioned domains agreed to cede control.

Recently, and perhaps in response to an uptick in cybersquatting, Apple has taken on a more active role in its efforts to ensure that domains referencing Apple products and services don’t wind up in the hands of third parties. This past Summer, for example, Apple purchased 50 domain names pertaining to OS X Lion and iCloud.

And lest you think there’s no money in cybersquatting or misappropriating Apple product names into a domain, a Google search for iPhone 5 yields a garbage site – on the first results page – simply because it has iPhone 5 in the title. What’s more, iPhone6.com all the way up to iPhone10.com and beyond have already been registered.

While that’s understandably frustrating to Apple, things are a lot worse when pornographic content is involved. The last thing Apple wants is a middle-aged woman casually typing in iPhone4S.com as to buy a present for her husband and be subjected to offensive photos.

via DomainNewsWire