UN panel orders Iranian to hand facebook.ir Web address to social networking site

UN orders Iranian to give up Facebook Web address

GENEVA — Social networking site Facebook has won control of a Web address using its name and the country suffix .ir for Iran.

The U.N.’s World Intellectual Property Organization says current owner Majid Karimian Ghannad of Yazd, Iran, has to transfer the domain name — facebook.ir — to the U.S.-based site.

The Geneva-based U.N. agency says Ghannad registered the domain in bad faith and had no right to the name.

According to the ruling published Tuesday he claimed to want to use it for selling books.

Facebook is among a number of social networking sites blocked by Iranian authorities. Internet users are still able to access it by using anti-filtering software.

The company recently launched a Farsi language version of the site.