Eminent domain is idle

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  richardbollinger · Member · Apr 8, 2008 at 4:00 pm

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  I am interested in creating a blog for discussions meant to help a lot of people. I would be inviting authors and practitioners to comment on current events. It is all intended to center around a philosophy of a great American thinker who was known and respected around the world.

  I find that a blog for his domain is sitting unused for over a year. It also has no posts. It is sitting on a very famous name. Now is the time to implement your policy and put it to some good use. Whoever obtained the domain years ago may have had a good intention. But, they have not followed up. Now, they are standing in the way of their original wishes.

  I don’t want to mention the username or my own email address just yet. I can confirm all of this information. A good place to start would be contacting me via my anonymous email address: (email visible only to moderators and staff)

  Thanks.

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  cornell · Member · Apr 8, 2008 at 4:14 pm

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  Unfortunately, if a blog name is used then unless you can contact the original registrant you aren’t going to get any luck at all.

  WP has a policy of not allowing the re-use of names and will not transfer it. The only way to get hold of the blog name is to contact the person that registered it.

  Good luck!

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  richardbollinger · Member · Apr 8, 2008 at 5:44 pm

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  How, then do I contact the owner? I did not see any way to do so. There was a username associated. Is there some way to contact that person?

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  richardbollinger · Member · Apr 8, 2008 at 5:50 pm

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  Actually, this is not an iron-clad policy. I found this under FAQ:

  A handful of times we have reclaimed names that conflict with our trademarks or products, and a few times for Automattic employees. As it says in our Terms of Service we can delete or reclaim any account for any reason. We call these “eminent domains.” Historically we have never done this to an active blog.

  The blog in question is not active. Certainly the historic figure in question rates at least the treatment of Automattic employees.

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  cornell · Member · Apr 8, 2008 at 6:51 pm

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  Ask support then. Don’t be surprised if they say no.

  See what they say? Let me translate it into English:

  We will re-use or steal a blog name off a user if we want to use it for our purposes.

  As you’re being so elusive as to exactly what you’re trying to achieve wrt the “historical figure”, I don’t believe there’s anything we in the forums can do. You need to contact support.