Findlay Steele Associates Ltd

Casting the first stone

Our reply to Nominet covered three pages countering the arguments put forward by the other FSA. In our reply we said:

How shocked and appalled we were at the threat of legal action

How we had bought the domain name in good faith prior to the conception of the other FSA

How, on the face of it, we considered the attempt to wrestle the domain from us in this away as an blatant case of reverse domain name hijacking by the other FSA

We pointed out other sites which used the initials FSA, such as the Football Supporters Association (www.fsa.org.uk) and how the Food Standards Agency's website (www.foodstandards.gov.uk) is littered with thousands of instances of the initials FSA

We stated the only reason e-mails are misdirected is because someone types an address incorrectly. This is not our fault and we should not be held responsible for someone else's mistake.

We explained how we handle any misaddressed e-mails which come our way - we politely bounce them back to the sender with a message suggested they try fsa.gov.uk rather than fsa.co.uk.

We also requested, once again, details of the Fergal George e-mail as we believed someone had deliberately and fraudulently used our e-mail address without our permission.

Nominet sent a copy of that letter to the other FSA. The other FSA's reply stated that they hadn't threatened legal action at all - merely that they might consider it. (If that's not a threat, then we don't know what is!).

They also said that the fact we had registered the domain name in good faith is irrelevant. It's the fact they consider there is confusion because people are typing in the wrong address when e-mailing that is relevant.

Nominet procedure then took over and the 'mediation' stage was invoked.

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