In a recent decision of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, the domain name “seguridadsocial.es” (translated “Social Security”) has been awarded to the Instituto Nacional de la Seguridad Social (translated “Social Security National Institute”). The said Institute is the public body dependant of the Spanish Employment and Immigration Ministry that manages and administers the economic subsidies granted by the Spanish public social security system.

The domain owner and respondent was a US citizen based in Florida.

The claimant alleged that, according to a certain Spanish act (Ley General de la Seguridad Social, or “General Social Security Act”), the term “seguridad social” can only be used by the governmental agencies that run the social security system in Spain.

Furthermore, the claimant stated that “seguridad social” was well-known in Spain, and that the respondent was obtaining an unjust profit using a technique known as “click-through-revenues” (the owner of the illicit domain name was paid click-through advertising revenues from having visitors to a website subsequently click on banner advertisement which leads visitors to a second site, unrelated with the parties).

The sole panellist found that the domain name was registered in bad faith, and that “seguridadsocial.es” in alien hands could mislead and cause confusion amongst the Spanish public – especially since the Spanish government is actively fostering the use of Internet in the dealings between citizens and the Administration.

Full decision (in Spanish) is available here.