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According to a story published on TechCrunch today, Yahoo has filed a trademark for Y.com. Why is this so odd?
First of all, Yahoo does not own the domain Y.com. In fact, no one does. The majority of .com names under three characters are reserved by the IANA and have been unavailable for registration since 1993. Perhaps Yahoo thinks the domain will some day become available?
Finally, even if Yahoo gets the trademark, that does mean the company will ever get the domain. The trademark only applies to search sites. If someone were to register it and develop another type of site unrelated to Yahoo, the use of the domain would be perfectly legal. Not to mention that in arbitration cases, panels do not consider the extension to be part of the trademark.
Photo | Flickr
