Wayne Rooney sees red over domain namesake

Prepares to stamp on cybersquatter

By Kieren McCarthy • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 21st July 2006 08:53 GMT

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Football star and petulant pug-face Wayne Rooney is seeing red again - this time over his internet domain namesake.

The English striker has taken the owner of WayneRooney.com - a Mr Huw Marshall from Wrexham - to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva in order to get the name back. Following in the footsteps of a slew of other celebs - most recently Jeffrey Archer, who won back his dotcom, and Tom Cruise, whose case is still under review - Our Wayne appears to have come a bit late to the internet party but is prepared to make up for that by using his fortune to hire expensive lawyers.

How far he is willing to go will have to be seen. So far, WIPO has only been approached over WayneRooney.com (see case number D2006-0916) but there is barely a WayneRooney that hasn't been taken. WayneRooney.co.uk is also registered to Huw Marshall, who bought both in April 2002. And .net, .org, .info, .biz, even .org.uk have gone.

If you thought messing with easily riled Wayne was not a good idea though, pity Moniker Privacy Services in Florida who are sitting on ZinedineZidane.com. When it comes to vicious attacks, Zidane is not to be bettered in the world of football at the moment. ®

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