Meg Whitman, former CEO of Ebay, has decided she wants all the domain names that sound like her name. Appears Whitman's yet-to-be-announced bid for the 2010 California governorship has hit a cybersquatter snag.

On October 15th, Whitman filed a petition with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for ownership of five domain names. They are: megwhitmanforgovernor.com,  megwhitman2010.com, meg2010.com, whitmanforgovernor. com and whitman2010.com. Those five domains were registered by Thomas Hall on January 28, only three days after the first news report that Whitman might run for governor.

Margaret "Meg" Cushing Whitman was born in 1956 and her first job in 1979 was with Procter and Gamble. In 1989, she was named a vice president of Walt Disney's Consumer Division.

The 52 year old billionaire, possibly the most successful female tech CEO ever, got into politics at the consulting firm of Bain & Co in the 1980’s where Mitt Romney was her boss. Romney was one of seven Republican candidates ion the 2008 presidential race.

In 1995, Ebay was founded by Pierre Omidyar. In 1997, the company received approximately $5 million in funding from the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital. Whitman became Ebay’s CEO in 1998. She was very successful in growing the company and purchasing 25 companies including Paypal, Craigslist, and Skype.

There has been intense speculation about Whitman's political career since she announced in January her intention to leave Ebay. In March, she was linked to Senator John McCain's campaign as an advisor. Whitman was later named national co-chairwoman of his presidential campaign. She spoke at the Republican National Party Convention on McCain's behalf.

Mitch Zak, a Republican strategist working with Whitman, said that Whitman was focused on McCain’s race. He added that her advisers are “definitely pursuing URLs to give Meg options should she choose to run for governor.” Earlier this year, Whitman settled a longstanding fight for the domain megwhitman.com. She had filed a WIPO action for that domain. The case was settled outside of the arbitration process, presumably with some type of cash settlement, details were not made public.

Whitman's advice comes from the political consulting firm run by Steve Schmidt, former adviser to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schmidt recently ran the day-to-day operations of the McCain campaign until yesterday when the Senator lost that race. Schmidt's firm just might be looking for a new wealthy employer that wants to branch out into politics.

Hall said that in June he was contacted by Whitman's attorneys about purchasing the five domain names he owned. He claims he was treated so shabbily by those same attorneys that he decided he isn't interested in selling. Arbitration and paying a significant fee may still be the best alternative.

Whitman's name is not trademarked. That fact significantly reduces the possibility of winning a legal dispute. Doug Isenberg, an Atlanta-based attorney who specializes in domain-name disputes, said that singer Bruce Springsteen lost a similar case before the WIPO in 2001 when he tried to claim BruceSpringsteen.com.

It would seem to us that a person’s first name along with a year or the name of a political office in the domain would be a very hard case to win. Our advice is just buy off the cybersquatter and be done with it. X