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WIPO To Loosen Domain Names Transfer Standards
ethereal writes "According to Brian Livingston's column on C|Net, WIPO is considering some new rules which would make it easier for plaintiffs to get domain names which are '"geographical terms," individuals' personal names and "tradenames"'. The story also discusses how WIPO now gets the lion's share of the domain name disputes because they rule for the plaintiff the most often (surprise surprise) and have even transferred domains away from defendants who were acting in good faith (read: cybersquatting). WIPO is accepting comments on these new rules until Aug. 15."
The fault is mine as the submitter, rather than due to one of the /. editors. It figures that after several well-thought-out but rejected submissions, this one that I dashed off in haste got accepted. Thanks for good clarifications.
I think that's what I said - I was trying to summarize the article rather than repeat it in the submission box. This is a complicated topic which is tough to explain in a few words.
IANAL, but this is the case for many other kinds of law - it makes more sense than letting the defendant pick I think. What would be most fair would be to only have one arbitration system (so that both plaintiffs and defendants know what they're getting into) but subject it to much closer oversight. WIPO is in the process of rewriting international trademark law without legislative approval or control as we speak, which I find very disturbing. Unless some balance and consideration for the individual/small business is brought back into the discussion, WIPO could very easily eclipse NSI and the U.S. Congress as the major threat to the Internet as we know it.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Don't blame the UN. Lobby YOUR congressmen about this. After all, it was they who voted the US to become a member of the UN, and applied their citizenry under it.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
When going through list, bare in mind trademark law. They had NO RIGHT to take these, as generic words have to be disclaimed:
...etc.
video net, roller blade, best locks, nitro fuel, tonsil, north face, marketing mix, 0xygen, edentist, state-farm, new-gig, video direct, iphones, open mail, traditions, open view, unicode, southern company, pc gateway, ultra pure water, time keeper, click here, current, beauty co, sound-choice, e-auto-parts, eresolution, body and soul, talk about, esquire, office specialists, crew, praline, the total package, faith net, buy PC, home interiors, big dog, euro consult, music web
If anybody tried to introduce libraries today, WIPO would stop them - claiming copyright infringement.
My protest site WIPO.org.uk is nothing to do with power mad WIPO.org.
This leads to a much bigger question - Whom do you trust? Do you trust the FDA to keep your personal health as the highest priority... above that of a corporation's pressure to get their product on the market in a hurry. Or the political pressures of congressmen representing their district?
Do you trust your software to be free from defects, or if defects are found that the vendor will respond in a timely and effective manner?
Do you trust that your government and it's law enforcement are acting in your best interests - to protect you from harm and allow you to excercise the maximum freedom afforded to you under the constitution?
Is the WIPO the problem... or a symptom of the problem?
--
You are a fucking moron.
Here are some of the decisions from the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center:
Decisions (in English)
Décisions (in French)
Resoluciones (in Spanish)
| Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
He states that the crew.com case involved a "small business" and not a squatter, yet the company that registered it had 50+ domain names of registered companies it was selling. Seems to be a squatter to me.
Likewise, the montyroberts.com dispute involves a person using it for negative commentary about the actual plaintiff. This would be considered misuse under most arbitrators review.
I agree with his concerns, just wish he used more appropriate examples of the abuses WIPO has performed.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
Art. VI, Section 2. See http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.ht
And no, I'm not psyched about that part any more than you are.
IMHO, the real problem is that people expect that domain names should be guessable. No one would ever dream dialing 1-800-FORD-CAR and expect to be able to purchase a Ford car that way, but for some reason, every legal body in this planet thinks that Joe Six Pack is going to sit down at his computer, and instead of looking up the address, he's just going to type ford.com.
This whole problem with domain names would go away if people just stopped expeting them to be obvious, because that's just not going to happen. That's what directories are for. Yahoo is really good at that sort of thing - in addition to being a normal web search engine, they have an index which is manually created, with descriptions and categories. Some web browsers even have this capability built-in.
The courts don't protect phone numbers and street addresses, so why should they protect domain names? I can petition to my street changed to "Ford Lane" if I wanted, and Ford Motor Company can't do squat about it, even if I lived in Detroit.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Procter & Gamble Co., the largest U.S. maker of household products, has bought thousands of domains. They have been sitting on many for five years. Are they squatters also?
Depends on your definition of squatting. Usually a cybersquatter is someone who registers a name with the intent of selling the registration for profit. Are they registering these names with the intent of selling them? Do they plan to use them at a future date? Are they trying to prevent anyone from using them? I think that if you register a name, it should have to point to some sort of content within a reasonable amount of time (say 2 months). I'm very much against the idea of allowing people to register names with the intent of selling them for profit without providing any sort of content. I'm also disgusted with the practice of registering names, not paying for them, and snatching them up again the moment they go back into the pool. Since the squatter knows exactly when that will happen, they can hold onto their "property" indefinitely for free. Registration services usually give you first and second notices over a few months, so the honest people have plenty of opportunity to pay for it. If you don't pay for a name, you shouldn't be allowed to register it again for at least a month .
>Likewise, the montyroberts.com dispute involves a person using it for negative commentary about the actual plaintiff. This would be considered misuse under most arbitrators review.
You do not believe in free speech?
There's a fine line between free speech and slander. Free speech (in the U.S. anyway) doesn't mean that you can say anything you want. There are restrictions.
-Jennifer
Not to be a nitpicking editor, but the slashdot writeup of this article is a bit confusing.
I think it would be clearer to say that WIPO is considering some new rules that force people to give up domain names which are geographical terms, individuals' personal names, and fall into the loosely defined catagory of "tradenames".
I think you mean to say that WIPO is forcing people to give up their domain names even when they are NOT cybersquatting.
What the poster is trying to say is that people who bring domain disputes get to choose which organization hears their case. WIPO has a track record of finding for the defendent 84% of the time, much more than competing organizations, so they are the favoured choice of people bringing such suits.
I personally don't understand how this ludricrious idea of letting the plantiff pick the court ever got off the ground! What kind of f*cked up legal system works this way?!?
-OTPolite, well worded comments are useful. Abusive, ungrammatical or threatening comments actually hurt the cause.
Railing against the WIPO for even considering such changes are off topic. Wail here. Write purposefully there.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
In the US court system, both the plaintif and the defendent have to agree to the jury members. This is done so that neither side can choose people that are obviously bias for them. However, according to the CNet article, when you have a domain name dispute, only the plaintif chooses the "jury" (the group that ends up settling the dispute), so of course they are going to choose the group that is most likely to rule for them!
Doesn't this give more power to the plaintif than the defendent? If I created a group of /.ers, and some how got ICANN accredited, then if any one of you sued Microsoft, saying that you make small software and therefore deserve the domain microsoft.com more thant MS, you would just need to choose the /. dispute resolution to win! Is it just me, or does that seem silly? Of course you shouldn't win, but you would!
I am a bad speler. Please ignore speling meestakes in me poast.
if you put wipo through babelfish (Russian to English), it translates as "shaft"
:)
Seems quite appropriate really
Regardless of the content WIPO's final decision, I hope that WIPO will document carefully all the arguements for and against their decision so that the process may be as open to critical review as possible. Domain names are a very valuable commodity and many people have invested significant amounts of time, money, and more importantly, hope into developing web presenses. Do not let this historical effort, these "sunk" costs to become ignored.
Thanks,
Mishkin.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
However, by my understanding, *both* sides get a say in which arbitrator is used, ususally by submiting a list of sealed names of acceptible candidates from a master list. With this arrangement, ICANN has effectively given away the store. I think one of the few cases they ruled for a defendent was in the sting.com affair.
I worry about this with my own domain name. There are a .com and .net, though they don't seem to be particularly worrisome now. In fact, I've not talked to either of them. But, say the .com gets a wild hair and says I'm infringing on their trade name? We registered about two months apart. I've managed to keep a working site for two years, they will disappear for a bit as they jump bandwidth providers. Would my constant activity and the fact that I don't do anything like they intend to do matter?
Three years ago, a company wanted a domain because they were late to the party, and they paid money to get it. Now, they seem to be quite willing to sue or "arbitrate" when the deck is clearly stacked in their favor. "Not only aren't we going to pay you, we are going to make your life a living hell. Screw you for not having the foresight to know we want this domain."
Makes me nervous.
--Humpty Dumpty was pushed!
My years of living in the amazon have paid off. Good-bye Jeff Bezos!
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Can i go out and litigate whoever has graham.com because i've been called graham since 1980?
If it applies geographically then we'll soon have a bunch of tribes people taking over the worlds largest bookstore?
In fact I believe i've seen a place called AltaVista, cant remember where though.
But then can the british frozen food store take iceland.com from the country?
Surely if we had a first come first served policy then all these disputes would be easily solved.
At the end of the day if company X want X.com then they can set up their own domain servers and ask people nicely to use them... that way they can have their domain as can everyone else that wants X.com.
Now as for IP addresses they are more of a problem, can I get 131.47.73.33 to match my phone number?
WIPO supplies arbitration services. ICANN undertakes to abide by the decisions of its accredited arbitrators. WIPO just happens to rule in favour of claimants a lot, and so gets a lot of that arbitration work because claimants naturally select the softest tribunal.
As it happens, whatever that arbitration tribunal decides, it ought in theory to be reviewable by a court of competent jurisdiction (there are some wrinkles to this one in the UK following the Arbitration Act 1996), a fortiori if the Defendant didn't submit to the jurisdiction of the arbitratori and absolutely if the defendant can demonstrate reasonable grounds for suspecting bias.
Your hypothetical /. members' arbitration panel, if it were to take a decision like the one you mention, would not only be making a decision that most courts would laugh themselves silly over, but would probably be exposing itself for liability on the grounds of bad faith.
Essentially, what I'm saying is that these arbitration mechanisms work a bit better than a cursory examination would suggest: there are checks and balances even if they aren't immediately obvious from news reports about the thing.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
I would ignore any judgement from WIPO or any other UN-related organization. But, I have to admit, just the suggestion of the UN making judgements and having authority over individual's personal property scares me just a little bit; and I am not even one of those black heliocopter loons!
And although I can ignore the UN, (heck my country, the US, does not even pay their bill to them), that does not preclude ICANN or some other organization choice to abide by WIPO's rulings which may leave some of us in the cold. I mean, who knows what this UN's bodies motivation may be?
By the sound of the crew.com debacle, they may only side with corporations and not with individuals, for instance.
Scary.
The complaintant ( the company that wants to take over a domain for example ) gets to choose the arbitrator.
The implications of this are very serious. If WIPO makes it very easy for corporations to "take back" domains they want, think what happens to the little guy ( worse than what already has happened... ). This is generally not good news.
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Segmentation Fault ( core dumped )
The fact of the matter is, fraud laws are nearly enough to avoid any abuse of words requiring trademark. The trademark system -- and now, its absurd, surreal extension into domain namespace -- is merely a front for a crooked scheme, an attempt to carve out pieces of our common ideaspace. It should probably never have been allowed; it certainly should not be enshrined and expanded.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
A competing body, eResolution, found for the plaintiffs only 47 percent of the time.
The answer is don't accept WIPO as a binding arbitration - use eResolution. I don't think you have to use a specific body, but if someone takes you to arbitration, don't both sides get to pick the arbiter?
Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another
There isn't a work-round for Companies-House filings. It's first-come-first-served for limited companies' (equivalent to US Incs) names and there's jack you can do about someone getting in first.
Your only remedy is in trademark infringement if the company trades under a name you're using, or, if it's a squatter company, waiting until dormancy forces it off the register.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
e.g. UN Human Rights Charter thingy, IIRC (i.e. I'm probably just making it up) the US signed this, some judge found it unconstitutional, now it isn't recognised as law.
~ppppppppö
If you don't like how ICANN operates, what alternatives do you have? Does ICANN have a government-granted monopoly on com/net/org addresses?
.ocm domains, but that's just me) they do cooperate with other alternative DNS heiarchies (e.g. alternic) and are compatible with ICANN. They are also very democratic about how TLDs are given out, and are compatible with ICANN.
I strongly urge you to use and support opennic. While not as subversive as I would prefer (I would have relegated all ICANN domains to domain.com.icann, rathar than respecting their
This means you can still resolve all ICANN names, but in addition you can resolve alternic, opennic, and various other competitor's TLDs as well.
ICANN has been given a monopoly by our governments, primarilly because our governments cannot (or will not) imagine a system in which there is not some central authority. It is up to us, as individuals and as ISPs, to thwart this powergrab at the grass roots level, by supporting independent, democratic, and popularist efforts to take back control of our internet.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I, as a defendant, don't have any choice in the selection of the arbitrator. I protest, knowing the WIPO only looks at the $$$ of the big company and isn't interested in little guys like me, and ignore the WIPO. As a result, the WIPO orders me to transfer bigcompany.com to the plaintiff and my registrar hands it over to them (according to ICANN rules).
Now, say I have been doing business as www.bigcompany.com for a few years before that big ole company had even thought of the internet. I decide that it's not fair.
Therefore, would I be able to REARBITRATE, and pick my own arbitrator (since I'd be the plaintiff now)... an arbitrator that's a little more partial to the "little guys" and make the same claim on the big company, which is now the defendant?
If so, then I can see a big see-saw happening.
What I would prefer to see is:
Of course, the defendant should be notified by email and snail mail at the addresses in the WHOIS databases as well as postmaster@[the disputed domain]) in order to prevent any mishaps where a defendant that is on holiday may come home to find that he is in default because of a ridiculously short time to answer...!
This would be a little less "quick and dirty" but would prevent looking like either the plaintiff or defendant has any edge over the other except for the merits of the actual dispute.
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
I don't understand why the WIPO has ...
any jurisdiction whatsoever
Anytime a new place opens up. Whether that be the DNS tree, a new patch of land, or the Ultima Online world, there will be real estate speculators. Those who go first will get the prime real estate and will sell it to others who come in later.
Why, when this occurs in the DNS tree is it called squatting? Is it called squatting if someone purchases a lot of land in Silicon Valley, expecting to sell it for 3x the price in 2 years? Is it squatting if someone got into Ultima in the beginning and managed to build a huge castle, something which noone else can do as there's not enough land?
The words you choose *DO* make a difference. This is DNS speculation... The only problem is that instead of a lot of rich people/companies doing it, it's individuals who got in first. The companies don't like it, and call those individuals who thought that 'sell.com' 'clean.com', 'ford.com' domain squatters. That way it's easier to steal their property from them.
If I own ford.com, and I'm not using it for any purpose, or I purchase it to offer to sell it to them, that's NO WORSE than purchasing a lot of land next to a ford manufacturing plant, expecting them to expand a year, and buy it for 3x the price. In one case, it's called 'cybersquatting', and you have no rights. In another, it's called speculation, and stealing it is theft.
The words you use make a difference.. Cybersquatting, Domain Speculation, Unauthorized Duplication, Piracy.
So what about treaties that violate the Constitution? What happens then?
While it makes sense now, wait until it is actually implemented. Corps buy up or sue for net, com and org now. In some cases they play for the country-code TLDs too. What makes you think they won't buy up or sue for beer, music, xxx, biz, parody, and cars?
.sig: Now legally binding!
The most important of these being, "One domain name per entity." The second being, ".com for commercial folk, .edu for education, .net for net-related folks, .org for (non-profit) organizations, and so on."
But no. These people will give 40 addresses from several TLDs to the same people for the same domain. That's bull. If they'd stick to their guns, and tell em, "Uh, no. Pick *one* that you really want, and stick to it." We would not have this problem.
Anyone ready to start up their own Top-Level domain service?
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Normally that would be the case, but apparently not with domain name disputes.
This looks to me like a bug in ICANN, one that should be fixed. Is this the type of kind of thing the ICANN Board of Directors (up for election in October) will have the power to change? If so, then perhaps the candidates should explain where they stand on this issue.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Really, you're almost asking for trouble with any domain name you register.
I really really hope that none of the domains I own get disputed. I really just don't want to put up with some corporate meany conglomerate knocking on my door and threatening me with legal action because they want a domain I'm using.
Think about it this way. Say I have the 1-800 number 1-800-dom-inoe by pure coincidence. Can Dominoes pizza come sue me take that 1-800 number from me? It's just stupid.
I hate corporate America more and more every day...
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet, tasty beer."
A problem with using trademarks in domain name disputes:
.edu, please! Maybe then other groups and people will be on an equal footing
IANAL, but IIRC(enough I's for ya?) trademarks only extend through one commercial domain. So, for example, I could start up a company called Ford's Musical Instruments, Inc. and not be breaking trademark law. However, an attempt to start up a Ford Car Company would result in a nasty lawsuit that I would most likely lose.
So who gets the domain name ford.com? Ford Motor Company? Ford Musical Instruments? Betty Ford? Joe Ford, the guy down the street? Why should the one with the most money have any intrinsic right to the name? The internet's not just about commerce for big corporations.
I feel that a decent way to address the problem is to actually hold register-ers to the purpose of the various top level domains. No more corporations in
Visit the
Or, as the page on the other side of the link (not to mention the domain itself) suggests, Companies House...
Computers don't use them, they are purely for the convenience of the human operator. In addition, domain names are scoped. They are NOT necessarily global. That depends on how the DNS servers are configured and on the entry itself.
So, WE, the users of the Internet, are funding several massive, costly organizations who do absolutely nothing than order other massive, costly organizations to move pointers around.
Sorry, but that feels like a bit of a rip-off.
Whilst I like the idea of overseers, the overseers CANNOT be a part of the system they are overseeing, if they are to be efficient, honest and rational.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If I were the ruler of the Internet inestead of that Esther woman, the domain space you could get in to would be much deeper. You'd be forced to use your country code (Even in the US.) So microsoft.com->microsoft.com.us. Et Cetera. Perhaps I'd come up with a .international TLD for companies that are international. ibm.com.international, for instance.
I'd have to think some more on other heavy-handed policies as well. Should it be hard for Normal Mortals to get names in the high level namespace? Perhaps each country should provide some deeper domains for people. So providersofgoatporn.co.us for goat porn providers in Colorado? And bring back the days of having to prove you're a .com, .net or .org to qualify to get into those domains.
Resolving such disputes under my draconian leadership would indeed be much more simple.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I know I'm an old fart, but for future reference, writing in capital letters is considered equivalent to shouting, and is therefore rude. When writing to express an opinion, especially as part of an official consultation, its best to provide emphasis *like* *this*, rather than LIKE THIS. If you have the option of using HTML or other rich formats, you can similarly do this or this.
If the defendant offers no evidence or argument, whatever the claimant says (within reason) has to stand as the finding of the court. That pretty much automatically discharges any burden of proof you care to impose: if the other side declines to raise reasonable doubt, the Claimant sure as buggery isn't going to do it for him. A fortiori where the burden imposed is "balance of probabilities" - if the defendant puts nothing in his side, the tribunal is again stuck with only the claimant's side of the story to go on.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
Apparently use of the tld for actually routing information is completely dead, so there is no technical reason for any set of tlds.
All claimnants can register "a.b" where a and b are arbitrary words. Either a or b or both may be a trademark or other word they own, but the combination a.b cannot be trademarked (if it is they must use a_b.c).
To preserve existing value, browsers will automatically replace 'a' (no periods in it) with 'a.com', to give these existing names much more value.
Entity 'a' can sue anybody using 'a.b' or 'b.a' if: the displayed page is blank, contains or links any kind of indication that the name is for sale, or contains content that can reasonably be confused as actually being from 'a'. Otherwise names can be bought and sold on the open market.
I would expect there to quickly be a lot of 'b' words in common use, like .cars and .movie. Some will be as valuable as .com and will be fought bitterly over. But the individual can just pick random b words.
MicroSoft is free to register "microsoft.sucks" and every other word they want. It costs them and they never will pick all the possible words, since this proposal squares the size of the name space.
If you don't like how ICANN operates, what alternatives do you have? Does ICANN have a government-granted monopoly on com/net/org addresses?
This vaguely worries me. I run pillars.net on my home computer mainly as a permanent place to store my resume. Last week I met somebody whose last name is "Pillars". According to these rules, anybody in that family could petition ICANN for my domain name and probably get it with no recourse on my part.
Do I have to register a trademark to protect my domain name? How much would that cost, anyway?
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
WIPO has jurisdiction in exactly the same way as a mugger has jurisdiction over your wallet when he's pointing a gun at you.
The government, big business, the judicial system and law enforcement are basically all one big protection racket enforced at the point of a gun, and they dish out legal jurisdiction as suits them.
Moral jurisdiction is a different matter of course, but you have to pay lip service to the immoral but legal kind occasionally if you want to retain your freedom. I don't see it changing any time soon.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra