It’s been common practice for Apple to fork over large sums of money to obtain desirable domain names. For example, back in 2007 Apple shelled out at least $1 million to get their hands on iPhone.com. More recently the company had to pay $4.5 million to acquire the iCloud.com domain name.

In an interesting turn of events, Apple was awarded the iPods.com domain name – for free.

How did this happen you ask? Well the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ordered MP3Gold.com to transfer the domain over to Apple, on the grounds of trademark infringement. One perplexing question during all of this was… why did Apple wait nine years after the launch of the iPod to go after the iPods.com domain name.

Seeing how they just filed the official complaint with the WIPO at the end of May, this was a very quick victory for Apple. Will we see Apple start taking advantage of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) more often? Or, will they return to their old ways… throw money at the problem until it goes away.