One of the most common bloopers for a celebrity to make regarding domain names is neglecting to register their names. This already has resulted in various court cases in which celebrities had to fight to regain their registered names. The list of court cases have been endless involving legal action.

While some of the celebrities in question may not have a problem with someone else owning the domain, the question is if he or she wants to, is it possible to regain control? The answer is definitely yes. Failing to register it in the first place may be an act classified under classic celebrity bloopers, but celebrities can in fact regain control of the domain names by exercising the common law doctrine of public rights.

For example Tom Cruise won back his domain in a lawsuit against the notorious Jeff Burgar, who is infamous for his “cyber squatting” of celebrity domains. There are many more cases like Julia Fiona Roberts vs. Russell Boyd, Patricia Ford and Online Creations Inc. vs. Damir Kruzicevic, Nicole Kidman vs. John Zuccarini. While these cases are still very common and can range from a dispute between a fan and the celebrity in question, to a business monetising the celebrity’s domain, it seems that celebrities are learning from these domain blooper escapades.

To illustrate this movie actress Angelina Jolie has registered twenty four domain name versions for her daughter’s name, mentioning the motive was due to the lawsuit cases of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. She has learned from past bloopers of other colleagues and has taken great precautions. This seems to be a trend as pop artist Gwen Stefani did the same for her son, but some celebrities have learnt the hard way as Britney Spears had to fight for her son’s domain name because she failed to register it first.

Other celebrities like Julia Roberts and Patricia Fort were also victorious in claiming back their domains too. This was based on three factors, one being the question whether the domain name registration was done in “Bad Faith”. Second factor was if the name was registered with intentions of profiteering or to abuse the name of the person or entity in question. The third was if there was any similarity between the domain and the celebrity’s name. If these three points can be argued in favour of the celebrity, they will be able to re-claim the name.

But not all cases have swung in favour of the celebrity in question. Recently former eBay CEO turned politician Meg Whitman failed to win her case. This was because it was determined that her name was not famous enough to be a brand. The question remains on how a famous name is determined.It is important to have laws against these types of practices, not only to protect celebrities from bloopers like these, but for every domain owner out there. Taking the profitability of such websites into account is also vital in order to protect domain names from being abused for malicious or derogatory purposes.

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