The ProBlogger.com domain has expired and is up for auction on Go Daddy’s TDNAM site. Bidding is up to $95 with eight days to go. There have been seven bids already, and the domain appears to get about 3,000 visitors a month, despite no real content at the site. There’s been a lot of interest in blogging domains, and even with the failure of some of the blog networks, there could be strong interest in this domain.

Apparently someone registered Google.de before Google did. The registar did/does not check its registerations and that is why someone was able to register the domain Google.de. But after Google did a check realised what had happen, reported the incident and got the domain back in their hands.It appears that the .de/Germany registar let ebay.de be registered by someone else and not the company.

You may follow up with more info at Spiegel.de

So do you think that the person who registers such names is kidnapping such companies names? or do they have a legit hold on such a name?

Yup you read it right, Google lost the Gmail Trademark suit in Europe.

Apparently the suit has been going on for quite some time. It appears that a German born capitalist Daniel Giersch has had the trademark for 6 years. And Google only launched Gmail in 2004. Gmail offered Giersch $250,000 for the trademark, but he turned it down.

If you want more on the story you may read at: The Register.co.uk