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Ron Paul asks UN to strip RonPaul.com domain ownership away from supporters

Ron Paul asks UN to strip RonPaul.com domain ownership away from supporters

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Ron Paul wants ownership of his namesake domain, and he's not willing to pay for the privilege. Instead, the former Congressman and presidential candidate has forged a complaint with the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization asking the agency to grant him ownership of both RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org. "Ron Paul's name and his associated Ron Paul mark have become synonymous with the Complainant and his books, articles, public appearances, and political commentary," reads the complaint. "Ron Paul has no relationship with the Respondents and has not authorized the Respondents to use the Ron Paul name."

Currently both URLs are owned by Paul supporters; RonPaul.com has gained over 100,000 Likes on Facebook since it launched in 2008. The site's operators have offered to give RonPaul.org to the former politician at no cost, but are asking Paul to lay down $250,000 for the more popular .com domain. That price tag would bring with it a mailing list of 170,000 members, according to the site. Considering Paul has bowed out of Washington, however, it's unclear what value such an email list would offer over his existing contact database(s). "We are getting our mailing list appraised right now but we are confident it is easily worth more than $250k all by itself," the site's owners say. "Claims that we tried to sell Ron Paul “his name” for $250k or even $800k are completely untrue."