Proper Party Defendant in a Domain Dispute Case

Abstract

The paper, based on judicial practice and statistics of the autonomous non-profit organization «Coordination Center for the National Internet Domain», examines the difficulty of determining the proper party defendant in a domain dispute case. The author associates the reasons for this problem mainly with the lack of legal regulation in the legislation of procedures for registering and administering domain names, as well as the process of resolving domain disputes itself. In order to determine the proper party defendant in a domain dispute case, the author of the paper analyzes the substantive relations that are the subject of domain disputes and proposes to classify the latter into three types depending on their subject. The paper substantiates the opinion about the possibility of involving a domain name registrar as a co-defendant in cases of domain disputes related to the registration of a domain name, or its «reverse cybersquatting». Arguments are given in favor of the optionality of such co-participation. The author discovers that the domain name administrator and the actual owner of the Internet site to which such a domain name is addressed can be different persons, which leads to a conclusion that it is mandatory for these persons to participate in a domain dispute related to the use of a domain name.