Newsquest holds URL rights over domain name for new Trinity Mirror Scottish division Media Scotland
Trinity Mirror has announced that it plans to merge the Daily Record, The Sunday Mail and Scottish and Universal to form Media Scotland, but it hasn’t banked on the fact that a competitor already owns the most likely URL address for the new company.
Having registered the company name as Media Scotland, it now appears that Newsquest Herald & Evening Times already holds the ownership rights to domain name MediaScotland.com.
Newsquest is understood to have bought the name in 2004 and holds its rights currently until 23 July 2012.
The alternative address MediaScotland.co.uk is held by Cheshire based company EDOCO.
The Drum has inquired whether Newsquest would be willing to sell the rights to Trinity Mirror in advance, but has yet not received a response.
Craig McGill, managing director of Contently Managed, commented: "Trinity Mirror have a track record of not really understanding Scotland or digital but you would expect that in 2011 they would do the most basic thing of checking if the URL that matches the new company name and branding is available and secure it."