Long story short:
- On December 30th, 2005 Smashing Conceptions, a London-based company, registers freetetris.org using GoDaddy.com
- During 2006 FreeTetris.org becomes grabs the #1 Google ranking for the search “Tetris” using a free flash version of Tetris which grabs the attention of Tetris Holdings LLC – the owners of the Tetris trademark.
- In 2007, Tetris Holdings LLC files a complaint with GoDaddy. All GoDaddy customers agree to resolve domain disputes using the National Arbitration Forum and as such a one-man panel is created to resolve the issue and Peter L. Michaelson is appointed to resolve the dispute.
- At this time freetetris.org is a “non-profit” with seemingly no commercial agenda.
- On September 2007, Peter DENIES the transfer request, claiming that Smashing Conceptions has “Rights or Legitimate Interests”. Full details can be found here
- Sometime during 2009, without anyone noticing, Smashing Conceptions fills freetetris.org with, you guessed it, Google ads! They don’t show up the first time you go there. But the second time, you are redirected to a “welcome.html” page that contains all the ads. If you show up a third time, you are asked to input your e-mail address!
FreeTetris.org still holds the #1 Google ranking for the search “Tetris”, which is searched for 5,000,000 per month according to Google keyword tool. Typically the #1 result on Google gets ~40% of the searches to click which means the site enjoys 2,000,000 visitors per month from Google alone!
I guess a lawsuit is on its way?