International Domain Name Disputes Analyzed

An anonymous reader writes "Interestingly, there's a new article on Domain Name Disputes, from an international perspective, at the Oklahoma Journal of Law And Tech. It specifically looks at protest or 'sucks' sites."

Comments

Arbitrators and companies both think strangely

[belmolis]

The strangest thing reported in this paper is that some arbitration panels have awarded critique domain names to the companies criticized on the grounds that non-native speakers of English may not understand American slang like "sucks" and so not realize that a site is a critique site. Aside from the fact that this ignores the fact that the site content will soon make it clear that it is not the company's own site, these panels seem not to understand that slang of general usage is probably the first thing to spread to other parts of the world.

The other striking fact reported is that some companies have attempted to pre-empt critics by registering the domain names that they are likely to use. Chase Manhattan Bank is mentioned as having registered a bunch of domain names, such as chasebanksucks.com. What this says to me is that these companies are overly concerned about criticism and therefore that they probably offer poor service and are unresponsive to complaints. I would avoid companies like that. This doesn't sound like a good way to enhance your company's reputation.