While Carlos Slim Helú may not be a household name here in the UK, the tycoon was placed second in Forbes 2008 rich-list and owns a major chunk of the Mexican telecommunications industry.
Recently his name fell prey to an Indonesian cyber-squatter who demanded $55 million (c£37.6m) from Helú to buy the name back.
If he didn't the cyber-squatter threatened that the site would be used as a forwarding address to a hardcore porn portal. In retrospect, this probably wasn't the most sapient of decisions.
The name game
The money may have been pocket change for the billionaire, but he declined the modest proposal, and took the man to court and got the United Nations involved.
Copyright agency WIPO decided that the name was registered in bad faith and have ordered that www.carlosslimhelu.com be given back to its rightful owner.
Ahmad Rusli of Jakarta was registered with the domain name, and told courts that he only made the porn threat to bring Helu's attention to the fact that he could buy the domain name for a mere $55 million.
For some unknown reason this excuse was thrown out of court and Carlos Slim Helú is now in total control of his own web name to do whatever he wants with it.
Rumours that he may set it up to be a forwarding address to a hardcore porn portal are unfounded.
Your comments (3) Click to add a new comment
marybranscombe
January 30th 2009
3. Expect to hear more of Carlos Slim Helu: he's backing the New York Times, which should help it compete a little more robustly with the Wall St Journal than Rupert Murdoch might have expected when he bought it...
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gigaplex
January 16th 2009
2. @rttech82
I got the impression that this guy never owned the domain, but that the squatter just picked the name of some rich guy to try to extort. The rich guy wasn't too happy and took the guy to court. He probably wasn't interested in owning it, but decided owning it was better than having his name registered to a porn site.
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rttech82
January 16th 2009
1. Dont you just hate moron judges and kangaroo courts! The rich prissy should have not let his domain expire! Im sure this kangaroo court judges pockets were lubed accordingly!
RT
www.Privacy-Center.net
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