Madonna Squabbles Over Dot-Com Name

Sept. 14 -- What do Madonna, a Nebraska hospital, and a New Jersey pornographer all have in common (besides working with a lot of naked flesh, that is)? A hotly contested dot-com domain name.

The World Intellectual Property Organization is expected to rule later this month on a complaint registered by the new mother against New Jersey entrepreneur Dan Parisi, owner of Madonna.com. The WIPO, the specialized United Nations copyright and intellectual property agency, runs an arbitration system that gives the heave-ho to Net users who have registered famous names in the hopes of profiting from reselling.

Not-for-Profit Name GameParisi says he never tried to peddle Madonna.com to the singer and claims he was in the process of donating the domain to Lincoln, Neb.’s Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital — which currently owns Madonna.org — when the superstar filed her complaint. His only stipulation is that the facility agrees not to transfer the domain to the singer.

Representatives for the Nebraska medical facility originally said they didn’t want to get in the middle of a dispute between Parisi and the pop star, but on Tuesday, hospital spokeswoman Teresa Harms was singing a new tune. “We’re hoping to get the name,” she told The Associated Press.

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Attorneys for the chart-topping artist had reportedly threatened to sue the hospital if it accepts Parisi’s offer, but Harms said Tuesday that the Madonna Rehabilitation Center has had no contact with the singer.

The WIPO has ruled in favor of celebrities including Julia Roberts and John Tesh in the past. However, in July, Sting lost his battle to wrest the domain Sting.com from a Marietta, Ga., man who registered it first, after failing to prove that it had been obtained in bad faith.

87 Madonna Wannabees OnlineParisi originally used the domain, which he purchased in 1998, to post pornography but has since turned it into a clearinghouse for information concerning his battle with the singer christened Madonna Louise Ciccone.