You know, we only ever mentioned Apple's legal tussle over the itunes.co.uk domain name briefly in passing last December, and we never had a chance to tell you that the matter was settled recently. Mostly. Nominet (the UK's registry bigwigs) ruled just a couple of weeks ago that 22-year-old "Internet entrepreneur" Benjamin Cohen was, in fact, "abusing his registration" by "offering to sell the domain name and by continuing to re-direct people from itunes.co.uk"; thus, says Nominet, Cohen is "taking advantage of, and being unfairly detrimental to" Apple, who is therefore entitled to the domain name bearing its trade mark. So Nominet is apparently transferring the domain name to Apple, and Cohen the cybersquatter is left with, well, squat.

Now, of course we say this issue is only mostly settled, because it seems that young Ben feels he's been hard done by; faithful viewer Neil Winton tipped us off to a BBC News article which reports that Cohen "has applied to the High Court for a judicial review," on the basis that Nominet is "biased against small businesses." See, his claim isn't entirely without merit; apparently Cohen registered the itunes.co.uk domain name in 2000, a bit before Apple's iTunes 1.0 was even announced, so chronology, at least, is on his side-- even if he is currently using the domain name to pimp off of Apple's well-known trade mark.

Cohen evidently thinks that, as long as he registered the name before Apple had started using it himself, he should be allowed to do what he wants to with it, regardless of whether he might be causing customer confusion and diluting Apple's brand. Naturally, he's steamed over Nominet's decision, and petitioned the Court because he feels that "the procedure that Nominet utilizes to settle disputes is unfair and biased towards big business at the expense of legitimate small British companies."

"Legitimate small British companies," hmmm? Well, let's take a look at how Mr. Cohen is using www.itunes.co.uk right now, shall we? It's a series of redirects that lands your browser at QuickQuid.com (gosh, that sounds both British and legitimate!), where you're entreated to sign up for some hinky scheme by which you patronize other sites, such as 888CasinoOnNet.com (still more legitimacy there), and accumulate points which you can allegedly then trade in for free MP3 players, CDs, or TV sets-- while you're also hit up to register to "win a trip to the Bahamas" (nothing but legitimacy, natch) or "win £1,000,000 with the Free LoopyLotto draw" (which is clearly drenched in so much legitimacy it's practically the Pope).

Gee, in the "Where Did You Hear About Us?" section of the signup form (right under where they ask for your PayPal address-- which, if the whole venture weren't so clearly a "legitimate small British company," might have set off a few warning bells), the list of choices doesn't seem to include "News Coverage of Your Doomed But Publicity-Friendly Legal Action Against Apple." Presumably that falls under "Other." Pity there's no "Other" either.

So it'll be interesting to hear what the High Court has to say about all this... assuming it can extricate itself from the diabolical grip of 888CasinoOnNet.com long enough to render a decision. Never hit on 18, fellas!