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Passenger ordered to take down 'I Hate Ryanair' website after airline complained about 'heavily critical site'
By David Wilkes
Last updated at 9:10 PM on 12th October 2010
A website set up to criticise Ryanair has been shut down by an internet watchdog – because it proved so popular it earned its owner money.
The founder of IHateRyanair.co.uk – whose strapline was ‘The World’s Most Hated Airline’ – was forced to surrender the web address after the budget carrier complained to the domain name dispute resolution service.
Yesterday the watchdog, called Nominet, ruled that the stinging criticism and passenger ‘horror stories’ published on the site were not sufficient grounds for it to be scrapped.
Critical: A passenger who set up a website called 'I Hate Ryanair' has been ordered to close it down after the site displayed commercial links to third party websites... and not because of its content
However it ruled that a small profit made by Robert Tyler from sponsored links on the site meant he abused domain name rules.
Disgruntled passengers’ comments have filled the pages of the website since it was set up three years ago by Mr Tyler, of Walthamstow, East London.
Ryanair complained that the site took unfair advantage of the brand’s name and claimed it hosted damaging and defamatory articles including false comments about its safety, maintenance and operating standards.
It featured free links to rivals British Airways and Virgin Atlantic under the heading ‘Sites we like’.
From January to May 2010 it also displayed commercial links to third party sites offering travel insurance and foreign currency, which earned Mr Tyler a £322 profit.
Adjudicator Jane Seager said nothing in the subject matter on the site breached Nominet policy.
Mr Tyler argued that while Ryanair, whose logo is pictured, has some goodwill and reputation in legal terms, it has also built up substantial dissatisfaction over its services.
It has become synonymous with trying to obtain maximum money from customers using unappealing revenue generating techniques, he added.
Ruling that disruption of Ryanair’s business was not Mr Tyler’s primary intention, Miss Seager said: ‘Any disruption resulting from criticism appearing on a website is merely something businesses have to deal with on a daily basis.’
But she said the links to third party websites that earned Mr Tyler money were ‘problematic’. ‘
[He] only earned money because of the traffic to the website, and such traffic must have been influenced by t he domain name.’
Mr Tyler had ‘effectively taken unfair advantage’ of the Ryanair’s rights in order to gain a financial advantage and therefore should forfeit the domain name, she said.
A Ryanair spokesman said last night: ‘We welcome this ruling and hope in future that this person will confine himself to fact-based criticism of Ryanair, the world’s favourite international airline with over 73.5 million passengers this year.’