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)

3. History:

 

4. The Anticyberquatting Consumer Protection Act

5. ICANN's UDRP:

 

6. Other ICANN Internet Governance issues:

Please read two selections from the following list of six:

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