Stephen Frayne, an MBA student at Northwestern University, is the current owner of the domain name, Chicago2016.com. He purchased the domain back in 2004 from a small Japanese company. The Chicago bid team as well as the United States Olympic Committee has filed a complaint with an international arbitration organization hoping to win the domain (Chicago2016.com) from Fayne.

As I stated before, Fayne purchased the domain back in 2004, 2 years before Chicago was seriously in the running for the 2016 Olympics. But that does not matter to the Chicago bid team who claims the domain is rightfully theirs. Currently, the Chicago bid team uses Chicago2016.org as their official website, but thinks that the most logical domain for Chicago 2016 is the .com version, Chicago2016.com. And so they believe that someone else having control of it is dangerous and misleading.

Fayne also purchased Tokyo2016.com from the same Japanese company back in 2004. Tokyo is also one of the main people in the running for the 2016 olympics, so Fayne my face legal issues regarding that domain as well. If this Chicago case turns out in Fayne’s favor, Tokyo will probably not be able to make any case against him. But if this case end’s up in Chicago’s favor, Fayne’s chances of keeping Tokyo2016.com are quite slim.