LV website operator sues Internet gambling operator

Wednesday, May 16, 2001 | 10:55 a.m.

Vegas.com LLC of Henderson sued to stop a Pittsburgh company from using its "vegas.com" domain name to offer online gaming.

The website operator, which said it owns the domain name "vegas.com," accused Erotic Designs Ltd. of "typo-piracy" when it allegedly "registered variations of the domain names of well-known websites with the intent to capture traffic from web users who inadvertently mistype the domain name of the website they intend to visit."

Monday's suit in U.S. District Court said Erotic Designs intentionally registered the "wwwvegas.com" domain name to capture traffic to its online gaming site from web users who inadvertently failed to type a period between "www" and "vegas" when trying to reach Vegas.com's website.

Vegas.com, which said it receives an average of more than 1 million hits per day and about 600,000 visitors each month, said it wants Erotic Designs to relinquish ownership of the "wwwvegas.com" domain name.

The defendant could not be reached for comment on the allegations.

Vegas.com is a sister company to the Las Vegas Sun. Both operations are owned by the Greenspun family.