A US District Judge has ordered that a cyber-squatter who registered the name www.foxwood.com and then tried to sell it to the Mashantucket tribe was violating the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, and must now hand over the site.

Ray Redican jr is, or was, something of a prolific ‘cyber-squatter’ – someone who registers names similar or identical to the names of existing companies and then tries to sell them back to them. Back in the 1990’s Redican, from Dracut Mass, registered the domain name www.foxwoods.com and many other similar names with the intention of building a network of sites related to Foxwoods.

When customers seeking Foxwoods casinos started accidentally coming to Redican’s sites he tried to sell his domain names for a staggering $19,999,999.

Not surprisingly the Mashantuckets were not impressed, and sent Redican a cease and desist letter – which he ignored. So in 2002 the tribe filed a law suit against Redican for trademark violation.

This victory may be a landmark case for other similar lawsuits, and it is certainly a result for the Mashantuckets. They merely have to reimburse Redican for registering the site and maintaining it, and that’s it.