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Wayback Archives Paid Dividends in Quest for Browns.com

You might ask yourself, why would the Cleveland Browns be awarded the domain name Browns.com? After all, with how it could be related to the color brown or people with the last name Brown, why is a sports team able to wiggle their way in and acquire the domain through court? Well, when you try to make money off of someone else's brand, then it becomes an issue.

In the case of the Cleveland Browns UDRP for Browns.com in May of 2011, the team shared results from the Wayback Machine from 2005, which showed links to football related links and merchandise. This was one major factor that seems to have doomed the domain owner.

If you have never used the Wayback Machine, it is very fun tool to use. You check out the old Dawgs By Nature pages in the Wayback Machine; the oldest available archive is located here. The website referencing the suit case thinks that this provides a reason for companies to block the Wayback Machine from archiving their pages.