I believe companies usually claim back 'stolen' domains with trademark claims. I wonder if the his claim that it's "Michel in Guides" will do anything to hold this claim at bay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Pro...
In the UK a trademark is only valid for a nominated category, so two different companies can legitimately have the same trademark if used for different purposes, but I don't know how the rules works in France.
They have at least 14 days to save "their" domain and then it entered the general pool and became someone else's domain entirely.
"On appeal in 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the earlier decisions, ruling that there was not a "likelihood of confusion" between Lamparello's and Falwell's official site; that there was no trademark infringement based on "initial interest confusion" for sites that were non-commercial and critical of the trademark holder; and since Lamparello's site was non-commercial, there was no "bad faith intent to profit" and it was not cybersquatting."[1]
Im not sure Michelin Guides has standing in this case, at least not under trademark law...
Just because a 'big' company missed out - its not his fault.
I'm not saying he's a bad guy. Instead, I believe that the domain would serve a better purpose if it pointed to something that met the expectations of people who blindly type nissan.com into their web browser looking for an auto. Which in my case is exactly how I found out about it.
That doesn't make sense.
Sounds like you, and several other people, think that anyone who is under-utilising a domain is automatically "squatting." That the biggest user of a property is entitled to it...
He runs a business, the business is called "Nissan Computer(s)." That to me is the furthest thing from squatting...
Where is he advertising the business on that web site? I see it mentioned in the header but that's not even a link. Instead he's running adds for insurance on it.
In my mind it comes down to what visitors of the website expect to see. I believe that the only possible expectation for someone visiting nissan.com is to see Nissan Motors. (At least in North America, I'm aware that Nissan is a popular name etc)
I'm not saying that he's even a bad guy here. If I was in his shoes I'm sure I'd feel exactly the same, he had the name first, even before Nissan Motors existed. But, times change. Leaving aside the legal questions, I believe that there would be less confusion caused if nissan.com pointed to Nissan Motors, therefore it would be in this case a social good thing to have it be so.
Until then, I (and the law) fully support his right to the domain.
However, a really stupid part of domain law is that Nissan Motor's can't convince him with money. If he had offered to sell to Nissan Motors or attempted to negotiate a price in response to an offer by them, that could be considered evidence of squatting and he could have lost the domain in court. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticybersquatting_Consumer_Pro...
$ whois z.com
Domain Name: Z.COM
Name Server: NVS001.NISSAN.NE.JP
Name Server: NVS002.NISSAN.NE.JP
Name Server: SJ000030.NISSAN.CO.JP