NZ Post reiterates intention to act against Yellow for Localist 'squat'

Departing Yellow CEO Bruce Cotterill says media heard about legal action before he did

A NZ Post spokesman says the company still intends to proceed with court action on against Yellow, owner of the Yellow Pages directory service over alleged “typo-squatting” tactics against Post’s new rival operation Localist.

Legal documentation is being prepared, says the spokesman, though the intention to proceed “may change”, depending on further developments.

Yellow registered several URLs close to localist’s name, including localists.co.nz and locallists.org.nz. The former still leads to Yellow’s site, while the latter now registers as a “parked” domain — though Domain Name Commissioner records give the contact address for the URL as “domains.yellow.co.nz”.

“Typo-squatting” is the practice of registering a domain close in spelling to a rival’s, so an error in typing the competitor’s address will lead an inquirer to the wrong company.

Meanwhile Yellow’s CEO Bruce Cotterill has resigned, but he says this is nothing to do with the Localist controversy.

Having completed a restructuring of the company’s debt at the end of the year, Cotterill says, and with new owners and a new board of directors in place, “the time is right for me to move on. I feel like my job is done,” he says in a media statement.

“I told the board of my decision on 28th January,” Cotterill tells Computerworld, “so it has nothing to do with that other nonsense.”

He will be replaced temporarily as CEO by director Scott Pomeroy.

Cotterill declines to comment on the Localist matter, since he understands it is shortly to come before the courts. However, he suggests, the fact that the media were made aware of the proposed legal action before his company received the papers “speaks volumes” as to the possible motives of those involved.

Localist did have the foresight to register “locallist.co.nz”, with two ls, but overlooked the .org.nz domain.

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