People register domains pretty frequently. If you have a good idea, or just some name you want to reserve before anyone else can get to it, it’s smart to just pick up the website and hold on to it for dear life. Someone living in the UK apparently did that with both XboxOne.com and XboxOne.net, leaving Microsoft in an odd predicament. The company failed to register the domains before the May announcement of the next-generation consoles for fear that the sleuths of the internet would discover it before the name became official. Instead, the whole issue has led to a legal battle that Microsoft just won.
After filing a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum just days after the Xbox One was introduced to the world on Spike TV, Microsoft now officially owns the domains XboxOne.com and XboxOne.net. This news comes from Fusible, which discovered that the original use of the websites were for Xbox-related news. The aspiring blogger will no longer be able to update the website, though, as Microsoft is now in control of its own brand.
This makes the Xbox maker the only console manufacturer to own domain names related to its next-generation console. Neither Sony nor Nintendo were able to snatch up Wii U or PlayStation 4 websites, so it’ll be Microsoft who will be able to advertise its products in the most representative fashion. As long as the NSA has no hand in this particular website, everything should be good in the world of XboxOne.com.
