The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the body that adjudicates in disputes over the rights to internet domain names, ruled that the site, www. ryanaircampaign. org did not infringe on the airline's trademarks.

Ryanair claimed that the website's address was "confusingly similar" to the company's own site, Ryanair. com and that the site's owner, Londoner Michael Coulston, did not have its authority to use Ryanair's name.

On the site Coulston prints complaints, apparently posted by Ryanair customers, about the airline's service.

He also offers advice to those who feel they have been unfairly treated by the company and has begun lobbying Ryanair to improve its channels of communication with customers by, for example, opening freephone customer service lines or online support services.

In its complaint to WIPO Ryanair alleged that the website had been registered in bad faith, for the sole purpose of disrupting its business, and that it did "not amount to fair and honest criticism because it includes unfair criticism and untrue, misleading and defamatory remarks".

Earlier this year Ryanair successfully shut down a site operated by Coulston, Ryanair. org. uk, on similar grounds. On this occasion, however, WIPO's arbitration and mediation panel sided with him and denied Ryanair's complaint.

The panel found that the company had not established that Coulston was acting in bad faith or that the site was disrupting its business and denied the company's claim that he was improperly using its trademark.

Ryanair keeps a very careful eye on how its brand is treated on the web and takes a dim view of any criticism it perceives to be unfair. Earlier this year it commenced a High Court action against pilots' unions in Ireland and Britain in an attempt to force them to disclose the identities of members who had anonymously posted messages on the Ryanair European Pilots Association website.