As I write this, we are coming to the end of the first week of the Paris 2024 Olympics. There’s been drama on the diving boards, in the boxing ring, and in the River Seine. We’ve seen hot favourites miss out on medal chances, and dreams come true.
But away from the thick of the action, CityPure LLC, a US-based tech company, is garnering headlines of its own. One week prior to the launch of the Games, they launched their own website, Paris2024.com, providing a day-by-day schedule, medal info, information about every Olympic sport, and plenty more. To accompany it, they also released a companion app.
The official site for the Olympics is Olympics.com, with a Paris 2024 section covering the current Games. However, the Paris2024.com website is certainly giving it a run for its money.
Now, you might think this would incur a lawsuit of some kind from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). However, at the time of writing, I researched the story and found the CityPure legal team was taking action to ensure they will be able to keep the website running.
A news story back in 2016 saw the IOC attempting to control internet domain names that might be connected to bids to become the host city for the Games in future. Stephen Frayne, founder of CityPure LLC, registered dozens of domain names years ago, relating to potential host cities and the year they may be successful. Paris2024.com was one such example that is now in use. He also registered LA2024.org and LA2024.com, in case that was the host city for this year. As we know, Los Angeles will be the host city for the next Olympics in 2028.
The IOC issued a federal grievance over this. The act of registering city names and years was something that could lead the public to potentially assume the sites were officially hosted by the IOC rather than an external business.
It was this earlier case that has led CityPure LLC to be proactive about the Paris2024 website, ensuring that their legal action may be able to head off any action from the IOC. At the time of writing this article, the Paris2024.com website was still live, so it looks as though they might be able to continue offering this source of information and live updates throughout the Games.
According to Frayne, they want to give fans another source of information to access during the event. The information I’ve found on the subject indicates that the website will be a free resource, and CityPure LLC will not profit from it. I can confirm there were no ads on it when I explored its many pages prior to writing this article. They are looking to profit from their app, however.
If the website remains up and running for this Olympic Games, it will be interesting to see what happens in time for the LA Olympics in 2028. Or perhaps, the Paralympic Games in Paris before that, which begin in just a few weeks.