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by Linda Harrison

Olympic games bosses have taken legal action against 1800 Web sites it claims are cybersquatters.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the US Olympic Committee, and the organisers of the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002 have joined together to file a lawsuit against these domain name hijackers.

IOC VP Richard Pound said the joint case, filed in the US Federal Court, aimed at halting people duping consumers and raking in profits that did not benefit athletes, Reuters reported.

"These cybersquatters are out there using Olympic properties for their own benefit with no return to the Olympic Movement and are damaging the value of those properties," said Pound.

According to the IOC, the case is the biggest brought so far under the 1999 Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

It targets Web addresses that use the words Olympic, Olympiad or their non-English equivalents. It includes 168 names that falsely claimed to be associated with the games, 69 ticket-selling sites, 43 gambling sites, and 15 porn domains.