Law 897: The Law in Cyberspace
Assignment for October 4, 2010
Cybersquatting and ICANN
1. Overview:
The National Science Foundation opened the Internet backbone to commercial use in the early 1990s. Conflicts over domain names arose almost immediately. Domain names had been registered on a first-come, first-served basis, but trademark owners argued that they were entitled to "own" domain names reflecting their trademarks, even in cases in which others had registered the names first. They complained that non-trademark-owners who had registered domain names similar to their marks were "cyberpirates" and "cybersquatters." Trademark owners persuaded Congress to enact amendments to the trademark statute to make it easier to sue the owners of disputed domain names. During the same period of time, the Clinton Administration pursued the then-popular fad for privatizing government operations to spin off governance of the domain name system. White House senior advisor Ira Magaziner midwifed the formation of a California non-profit corporation, named ICANN (for "Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers"), to assume responsibilty for the domain name space. One of the new corporation's early acts was to adopt a domain name trademark dispute arbitration procedure and require all domain name registrants to accede to it. Much of the early criticism of ICANN focused on its imposition of the dispute policy upon unwilling domain name owners. The policy has found wide acceptance, however, because it offers a relatively quick and inexpensive way of deciding disputes. Meanwhile, critics have raised serious and more fundamental objections to the way that the corporation governs and to the concept of entrusting regulation of global communications networks to a private corporation nominally incorporated in the State of California.
2. Quick and dirty legal Background:
(if you've taken Law 760, the Trademarks course, feel free to skip this part)
- Cornell Legal Information Institute WEX definitions:
3. History:
4. The Anticyberquatting Consumer Protection Act
- Read the statute, as codified in 15 U.S.C. § Sect; 1125(d) (scroll down to subsection (d), "Cyberpiracy Prevention")
- Review the Chilling Effects FAQ about the ACPA
- Look at four cases (feel free to skim each case; pay attention to the facts and the ACPA discussion):
5. ICANN's UDRP:
6. Other ICANN Internet Governance issues:
Please read two selections from the following list of six:
- Jonathan Weinberg, Non-State Actors and Global Informal Governance — The Case of ICANN (2010)
- Coalition for ICANN Transparency v. Verisign, (9th Cir 2009, amended 7/9/2010)
- John Levine, The Real Issue about ICANN and .XXX, CircleID (May 8, 2010)
- Peter Gerrand, Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace: The Catalan Campaign to Win the new .cat Top Level Domain, first monday, January, 2006.
- Press Release and Text of the 2009 Affirmation of Commitments Between the Department of Commerce and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
- Internet Treaty Proposed by Europe,Think.co.uk (9/20/10) and Rod Beckstrom's opening address to the Internet Governance Forum (9/14/10)
return to the syllabus