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By Justin Madubuko, 26 September 2001 18:33

NEWS The Financial Services Authority is awaiting an independent arbitration decision on whether it has the domain name rights to fsa.co.uk, currently owned by software provider Findlay Steele Associates. This has arisen due to Findlay not getting rid of a "wildcard" - an application that receives email based on similar email addresses on an email system - after a request by Nominet, the registrar with responsibility for domain names ending in .uk. According to John Heaton, legal assistant at Nominet, the registrar told Findlay if it could reconfigure its system to allow for emails not intended for the company, it was welcome to keep the fsa.co.uk domain name. A Findlay spokesman said the company wanted to set up a system that would cut out specific people and bounce back to the sender, but Nominet did not agree with this. Therefore it suspended Findlay's registration, a decision which Findlay appealed, and the appeal led to Nominet establishing an independent arbitration panel to solve the dispute between the two companies. As it stands the domain name continues to be used by Findlay. The dispute dates back to April 1997 when Findlay registered the fsa.co.uk domain name a month prior to the Financial Services Authority name being changed from NewRo, which had to use the domain name fsa.gov.uk. Shortly after the name change was announced the Authority, which wanted to buy the domain fsa.co.uk, approached Findlay Steele Associates. No agreement was reached and the authority said it would have to "bear the risk of any potential confusion", according to Findlay. After various twists and turns in the intervening years, Findlay received a letter from Nominet, which contained a letter from the Financial Services Authority, which stated there was confusion caused by the use of fsa.co.uk by Findlay. "To this end, we understand that you registration rules... entitle you to cancel a registration or suspend delegation... if that name is being used in a manner likely to cause confusion to internet users, where you are informed that legal action has been commenced regarding use of the name or where you are opinion that one of the last two events is likely to occur," said the FSA letter. According to the Findlay spokesman, the FSA is punishing Findlay for other people's mistakes. As many emails intended for the authority have been sent to Findlay. The "Authority is coming wielding a big stick. The big boys threatening the little boys," said the spokesman. Findlay would be hard pressed to take on the financial muscle of the authority in a court dispute.