One for Hansen
September 13, 2009
Yevgen Kudashov is not a bright man. He is a poker player who disguised
himself for months using the name of professional poker player Gus Hansen.
Kudashov tried to pass himself off as Hansen, as he played poker throughout
the Internet. He created a website and e-mail address, using Hansen's name
and likeness, and tried to make people believe that he was in fact, the
great poker player himself.
Hansen, soon found out about the scam and hired a company that specializes
in domain dispute services to get his name back. SafeNames Limited went
after Kudashov and determined that he had registered the site GusHansen.com
in bad faith and took it away from him.
This has become a problem for many celebrities where an individual will try
to take their likeness and create a webpage based on the celebrity
pretending to be them. Hansen just so happens to be the latest victim from
this kind of scam. The poker player said that he felt that the win was not
just a win for him but also for any celebrity who has had this perpetrated
upon them.
Hansen did not have a registered trademark on his name at the time of the
filing, but was still able to reclaim his identity. There is no word on what
the fake poker player has moved on to, but someone of this ilk will shortly
be planning their next scam. Suffice it to say that you never know who
you're actually playing poker with when on the Internet.
