Internet Domain Names Research Articles

A Jurisprudential Approach to Governments and Other Actors Attempts to Control the Internet Root Zone

In today’s world, no treaty regulates the Internet. Moreover, no international court has ruled over the Internet infrastructure. Despite this situation, governments (on behalf of their nation-states) and government bodies have tried to assert sovereignty over the Internet and stop or compromise the transmission of the Internet packets. Although the multi-stakeholder model of the Internet has been successful of keeping the Internet from a single point of control, many scholars and non-scholars have suggested the application of the rules of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) over the Internet. The purpose of these claims is solving controversies when multiple jurisdictions are involved (Barcomb, 2013; Kalpokienė & Kalpokas, 2012; Schmidt, 2017; Steven, 2001). However, as previous research suggests the application of the UNCLOS rules is also a call to apply the Westphalian model of sovereignty over the Internet (Vargas-Leon, 2017; Vargas Leon & Badiei, 2017). The application of the rules of UNCLOS into the Internet Root Zone is an example of governments’ traditional practice to exercise their jurisdiction beyond their territorial borders. This practice is characterized by the “coexistence” of spaces where nation-states keep for themselves different levels of sovereignty. Similarly to the rules of UNCLOS over the territorial sea and the high sea, when it comes to the application of sovereignty rules into the Internet realm, governments developed the following practices: (1) leave spaces where no sovereignty claims exist (at least theoretically), like the Root Zone itself, (2) exercise some level of sovereignty over some of the elements of the Root Zone, such as the country-code-top-level-domains (ccTLDs) and (3) leave spaces where their jurisdiction is exclusive, like in the delegation of the ccTLDs (Vargas Leon & Badiei, 2017). By using a multiple case study approach including the Iranian registry case and the .Amazon and .Africa controversies, this paper is an attempt to analyze, from a jurisprudential point of view, how the coexistence of different levels of jurisdiction exist within the Internet realm and how different actors, like individuals, court systems and government bodies get involved. As we should remember each one of the proposed case studies represents a scenario where the involved actors attempted to control some elements of the Internet Root Zone. The case Ben Haim vs. the Islamic Republic of Iran was an attempt of U.S. terrorist victims to seize control of the .ir Internet domain name, which is also Iran’s national country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) (Rabkin, 2014). The case .Amazon pits U.S. Amazon against the government of Brazil and Peru. Although the final decision belongs to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) (formed only by governments) backed Peru and Brazil claim (Segal, 2017). Finally the case .Africa controversy involves DotConnectAfrica (DCA) vs. ICANN; in this case, a Los Angeles court refused a preliminary injunction that prevents ICANN from adding .Africa to the Internet (McCarthy, 2017). This paper is an attempt to answer the following questions: What are the governments and governments’ organizations legal arguments to justify extending nation-states’ sovereignty into the Internet Root Zone? What are the non-governmental actors arguments use to try to control the Internet Root Zone? With this purpose in mind, our aim in this paper is to illustrate how the classic arguments governments used in the international domain affect the Internet Root Zone and the Internet infrastructure. Alongside with governments’ claims, we will attempt to look at the arguments non-governmental actors have used for the same purpose. Finally, we want to clarify that this paper does not advocate for any governance model for the root zone. Findings expect to explain the diverse legal opinions this matter has generated in the legal field and how they can influence the Internet governance debate.

A Survey on Web Mining Techniques and Applications

Information on Internet and especially on Web sites increasing rapidly day by day, Web sites play an important role in this manner where a lot of Web users are always upload, download and brows a lot of contents based on their needs. Web server provide a way to browse these contents that scattered in many Web sites that reside in it by assigning an Internet Protocol (IP) address or Domain Name System (DNS) to be accessed around the world. Server log the requests that made by users to access their interesting content then store this information in the form of log file. Log file size can be growth from some kilobytes to several megabytes in few days depending on data traffic and the popularity of Web sites. With the fast growth of the data and information in Web environment made a necessity to use sophisticated techniques that have never used in other domains to extract knowledge and significant Web patterns. Web Mining is an extension of Data Mining that integrated various technology in research fields including Artificial Intelligence (AI), statistics, informatics, knowledge discovery and computational linguistics. The aim of Web Mining is to provide a algorithm or technique to make data accesses more efficient and convenient. Web Mining techniques are categorized into three classes depend on which part to be mined which are: Web Content Mining (WCM), Web Structure Mining (WSM) and Web Usage Mining (WSM), in this paper a survey of Web Mining techniques and application are discussed briefly.

SZANSE ARBITRAŻU W ROZWIĄZYWANIU SPORÓW NA TLE DOMEN INTERNETOWYCH

The Chances of the Arbitration in the Solutions of Disputes Regarding Internet Domain NamesSummaryThe paper deals with the Polish alternative dispute resolution (ADR) for internet domain names, which was introduced in January 2003 together with the establishment of a special Court of Arbitration. The Court acts within the Polish Chamber of Informatics, Technology and Telecommunication and it is based on a procedure drawn upon the well known UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy). The latter is actually applied by the main international organizations, e. g. such as Worldwide Intellectual Property Organisation.The analysis focuses on the main procedural issues, such as type of conflicts that can be an object of the court examination, claims to be raised by the plaintiff, legal validity of the verdicts. Similarly to UDRP, the Polish proceedings provide only to the domain name’s cancellation or its transfer for the benefit of the entitled person. The decision rendered by the Court acquires its full juridical force only after the ascertainment of its enforceability by an ordinary civil court. This means, that theoretically each proceedings concluded with a decision of the Court of Arbitration, should be followed by a compulsory formal examination in front of an ordinary court. Due to this, the Polish ADR seems to bring more juridical safety than the above-mentioned UDRP, yet the proceedings might be in practice protracted. In addition, such „enforced” decision would possess validity in law, in respect of the establishment of all facts, which could be further used as a ground to potential claims for damages or unjustified enrichment.

HOW TO EFFICIENTLY PROTECT A DOMAIN NAME?

Cybercrime rates are increasing in Poland and throughout the world. There are many types of offences concerning internet domains, among others, cybersquatting, typosquatting, cyber smearing, and cyberwildcatting.The following article is a comparative study of the settlement of disputes concerning internet domain names taking as an example the Domain Name Court of Arbitration at the Polish Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications (PIIT) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center. Between the two processes of recovery of the domains there are many similarities. During the study legislation was sought in the Polish legal system, which is related to internet domains. In Poland, there is no particular legal regulation regarding internet domain names. One may search for protective measures in the Act on Combating Unfair Competition [o zwalczaniu nieuczciwej konkurencji], Industrial Property Law [Prawo własności przemysłowej], and the Civil Code [Kodeks cywilny]. This article commends the settlement of disputes through arbitration and describes them in detail.

O NATURZE PRAWNEJ DOMENY INTERNETOWEJ

LEGAL NATURE OF AN INTERNET DOMAIN NAMESummary The paper reviews a legal nature of an Internet domain name, in both technical and commercial aspects. Technically, a domain name can be re- garded as an Internet communication address related to the Website and can be treated like a traditional telephone number or a post address. The equivalence between a domain name’s commercial function as an intangible asset and a trademark is analysed. The domain name hardly matches full legal characteristics of a trademark. The basic function of a trademark, i. e. identification of the source of goods or services is an example. Another example is a discrepancy between the distinctive character of a trademark and descriptive or generic character of most of domain names. Alternatively, the similarity of a domain name to a trade name is analysed as apparently more appropriate as its notion is drawn up by the Polish doctrine and jurisprudence rather than defined by the law. Furthermore, similarity of a domain name to a work protected by Copyright is also indicated. It appears inappropriate when domain name’s lack of original character is considered. An issue whether every domain name can be considered an object of moral rights provided by article 24 of the Civil Code is also indicated. It is concluded that no unambiguous definition can be applied to a domain name as well as no similarities to already existing rights protected by Polish law can be drawn up. Its definition depends on the domain name’s commercialfunction with which it is used in a particular case.

ICANN New gTLD RPMs: Caveats of Intermediary Liability in Domain Name System

With the implementation of the ICANN’s new gTLD Program that is making the Internet domain name system (DNS) slate grow from 22 to thousands of top-level domains (TLDs), ICANN builds a series of right protection measures (RPMs) that require all new gTLD registries offer multiple safeguards, primarily, for intellectual property rights. The comprehensive and somewhat unprecedented RPMs include both the preventive measures as the Legal Right Objection (LRO) procedure, Sunrise and Trademark Claims and the curative measures as Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS), Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (PDDRP) and Public Interest Commitment Dispute Resolution Process (PICDRP), covering both the top-level strings and sub-levels names before and after any new gTLDs are delegated by ICANN to the registries.

Power and Multistakeholderism: The ICANN Experiment

Functioning under the political oversight of the US government, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is considered today as one of the most powerful private corporations in the world. It is an agreed-upon thesis in the literature on ICANN that the corporation derives its potential power from a combination of technical and political factors1 (see Mueller, 2002; Friedlander and Cooper, 2000; Froomkin, 2000; Kleinwachter, 2000; Weinberg, 2000; Holitscher, 1999; Post, 1999a, b). First, ICANN was delegated policymaking authority over the single-root Internet Domain Name System (DNS), which translated into the right to decide how many and which top-level domains would be authorized, and who would benefit from the intense user demand for registration services in the most lucrative top-level domains. And, second, ICANN enjoys the unfading US Department of Commerce’s (DoC) support, which culminated, in the context of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) debate (2003 - 2005), in sustaining the US unilateral control over ICANN2. This paper focuses on the rationalities and practices of policy-making for the Internet DNS as they emerged in the late 1990s and up to 2002, when ICANN was reformed. In this sense, it is an exercise in unraveling “the history of the present” (Michel Foucault).

Monocentric Cyberspace: The Primary Market for Internet Domain Names

Cyberspace is no different from traditional cities, at least in economic terms. Urban economics governs the creation of new space on the Internet and explains location choices and price gradients in virtual space. This study explores registration dynamics in the largest primary market for virtual space: Internet domain names. After developing a framework for domain registrations, it empirically tests whether domain registrations are constrained by the depletion of unregistered high quality domain names. Estimations based on registrations of COM domain names suggest that the number of domains expands substantially slower than the growth in overall demand for domain space. Supplying alternative domain extensions can relax the shortage in domains in the short term.

A Critique of WIPO's RFC3

The World Intellectual Property Organization’s plan to restructure the way Internet domain names in .com, .net, and .org are assigned and adjudicated is deeply flawed. The WIPO plan’s flaws include: bias, enabling censorship, zero privacy, intimidation, a tilting of the playing field, and a smorgasbord approach to law. This paper proposes an alternative, fairer, reform plan. The key elements of the plan are: Reduce speculative registration: Require advance payment before registration; Penalize false contract details: De-register domains with fake contact information; Create special rules to penalize mass speculation; Trust courts to continue to clarify relevant law; Understand that rapid changes in technology may make domain names less important; Create differentiated commercial and non-commercial top-level domains.

Trademark Trends and Brand Activity in Higher Education

Trademarks figure prominently in college and university brand formation efforts. Trademarks are intangible rights that allow institutions to define and protect aspects of their identities important to them as they engage in markets. This multiple-method study, grounded in legal and policy research, provides a first look at how institutions are harnessing the power of trademarks in service of brand initiatives in three understudied areas: promulgation of institutional slogans, engagement in contentious arbitration actions over Internet domain names, and the coining and adoption of new names by university offices of technology transfer.

Irene Calboli and Edward Lee (eds.): Trademark Protection and Territoriality Challenges in a Global Economy

In the eighth and latest volume of the ‘‘Elgar Intellectual Property and Global Development Series,’’ Irene Calboli and Edward Lee have gathered distinguished experts in the areas of trademarks, Internet domain names, and traditional knowledge for a discussion of a variety of issues that continuingly intensified globalization presents for trademark law. The volume, entitled Trademark Protection and Territoriality Challenges in a Global Economy, is a welcome contribution to the Series, edited by Peter Yu, which is designed ‘‘to undertake a critical inquiry of issues lying at the intersection of intellectual property and global development.’’ It might seem that trademark law should be immune to the pressures of globalization because trademarks are, in a sense, the most transnational of all types of intellectual property: The primary role of trademarks is unequivocal; they are designed to guide consumers in the marketplace and support fair competition among businesses. With minor exceptions, countries recognize the same types of protectable subject matter for trademarks, and this high degree of consensus ensures relative consistency in the protectability of marks in most countries. As indicators of the sources of goods and services, trademarks seem to fit perfectly into the globalized marketplace, including the digital superhighway on which they should serve as reliable direction signs. Despite the seeming suitability of trademarks for the worldwide marketplace, globalization has posed arguably greater challenges to trademark law than it has to copyright law and patent law. Trademarks are expected to serve their role in an

Are We Getting Good Decisions by Top - Level Domain Name Dispute Resolution Providers?

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has offered unique solution to deal with disputes regarding the registration of internet domain names (so called trademark dilemma) in 1999. Uniform domain name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) delimits procedural rules to solve such disputes and to create non – binding decision (binding between involved parties) which approves / rejects the transfer of the domain name to new (trademark) owner.This paper has to focus on the question whether we are getting good decisions or the decisions in similar cases are decided more or less randomly. It is necessary to focus on such question also because of the fact that ICANN is planned to be transferred to the global multi - stakeholder community this year. Is the decision making process ready for such a big change or is it easily suggestible? To try to answer this question it will be necessary to go through the history and activities of ICANN and to focus mainly on UDRP process. Comparison of the convenient trademark dilemma cases or statistics will try to show defects of the rules, which are pointing at problems not only recently but already for quite a long time.The conclusion then is to articulate possible future development and to offer some recommendations of what is necessary to pay attention to.

Convergence of Trademark Law and E-Commerce: Overview of US, EU and China Regulations on Trademarks and Domain Names

This comment outlines the significance of the relations between trademarks and information technology from a comparative law perspective. It further affirms the indispensability of an interdisciplinary approach for consistent theoretical and legal framework with regard to trademarks and domain names in the context of e-commerce policy and practices. The comment also highlights the importance of intellectual property rights for economic development. Key words : Industrial property, cybersquatting, internet domain names, metatags

The Battle for Critical Internet Resources: South America vs. Amazon.com, Inc.

Purpose – To analyze the controversy about the allocation of critical Internet resources generated by ICANN's new gTLD program with a particular focus on the .AMAZON TLD.
 Methodology/approach/design – This article presents an exploratory case study about the .AMAZON controversy. The initial analysis of this ongoing research is based on data collected from various reports and media coverage on ICANN's new gTLD policy. The article draws from political economy theory to analyze disputes about critical Internet resources.
 Findings – This article discusses preliminary findings of the .AMAZON case, a contested prime example in ICANN's efforts to extend the Internet's domain name space.
 Practical implications – The findings may inform related controversies in the gTLD program and contribute to a differentiated understanding of CIR allocation in Internet governance, and respective policy-making.
 Originality/value – The value of this article is the specific discussion of the .AMAZON case in the larger context of ICANN's new gTLD program, and its analysis that describes the controversy from a property rights perspective.

인터넷주소자원에 관한 법률 제12조에 규정된 부정한 목적의 해석 : 대법원 2013. 4. 26. 선고 2011다64836 판결을 중심으로

Abstract Submitted：July 15, 2014 1 st Revision：September 12, 2014 Accepted：September 16, 2014* 명지대학교 법과대학 부교수Generally, the Internet Address Resources Act is intended to pr otect the public from acts of Internet “cybersquatting”, a term used to describe the bad faith, abusive registration of Internet domain names. In determining whether a person has a bad faith intent, a court may consider factors such as, ① the trademark or other intellectual property rights of the person, if any, in the domain name, ② the extent to which the domain name consists of the legal name of the person or a name that is otherwise commonly used to identif y that person, ③ the person’s prior use, if any, of the domain name in connection with the bona fide offering of any goods or services, ④ the person’s bona fide noncommercial or fair use of the mark in a site accessible unde r the domain name, ⑤ the person’s intent to divert consumers from the mark owner’s online location to a site acces sible under the domain name that could harm the goodwill represented by the mark, either for commercial gain or with the intent to tarnish or disparage the mark, by creating a likelihood of confusion as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the site, ⑥ the person’s offer to transfer, sell, or otherwise assign the domai n name to the mark owner or any third party for financial gain without having used, or having an intent to use, the domai n name in the bona fide offering of any goods or services, or the person’s prior conduct indicating a pattern of such conduct.

Valuable words: The price dynamics of internet domain names

This article estimates the first constant quality price index for Internet domain names. The suggested index provides a benchmark for domain name traders and investors looking for information on price trends, historical returns, and the fundamental risk of Internet domain names. The index increases transparency in the market for this newly emerged asset class. A cointegration analysis shows that domain registrations and resale prices form a long‐run equilibrium and indicates supply constraints in domain space. This study explores a large data set of domain sales spanning the years 2006 to 2013. Differences in the quality of individual domain names are controlled for in hedonic repeat sales regressions.

Hybrid net: the regulatory framework of ICANN and the DNS

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is responsible for the management and coordination of the internet domain name and address space, which are critical resources necessary for internet connectivity. Though international in reach since it cooperates with persons, organizations and governments in many countries, ICANN was set up as a private non-profit organization under California law. This article examines the role, legal nature and basis of ICANN and the domain name system (DNS). It first maps and analyses the various regulatory instruments underlying ICANN and the DNS. What emerges is that, very often several and different modes of regulation, both formal and informal, are required to address a particular issue satisfactorily. The article examines whether and to what extent these different types of instruments co-exist and interrelate as one coherent regulatory framework. To do so, this article draws upon Teubner’s notion of hybrid networks and makes an analogy with modern theories on how various sources of law apply within a legal system. In particular, it follows and builds upon Ost and van de Kerchove’s notion of network or ‘mesh’ regulation. To explain the contractual web at the heart

The Governance of Mutual Rights and Obligations of ICANN and the Registries for ccTLDs on the Example of the .pl (Poland), .lt (Lithuania) and Other Selected Domain Names

The Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)is involved in the cooperation with Top Level Domain Registries, under which the latter are empowered to manage specific parts of the global system of Internet domain names. The function of Registry for the .pl ccTLD is performed by a research institute – the Research and Academic Computer Network, referred to as NASK (Naukowa i Akademicka Sieć Komputerowa) with its registered office in Warsaw. The function of the Registry for the .lt ccTLD is performed by the Kaunas University of Technology.The contractual relationship between ICANN and these Registries is not based on a written agreement, what makes a precise definition of the scope of competence assigned to the .pl and .lt. Registry is highly problematic in practice, because it would have to draw on a peculiar analogy to the content of written agreements concluded by ICANN with other entities, and on a thesis of the standardization of the content of legal relationships between ICANN and the Registries for ccTLDs. It seems, however, that this observation should not be linked with the existence on the part of ICANN contractor the right to perform the function of the specific domain Registry on the basis of exclusivity and the consequences arising from this fact, as the entitlement to perform the said function and correlated to it obligation of ICANN to respect this state of affairs is central to the legal relationship created between the said entities.In light of the assumption that the management of a ccTLD should be effected in the interest of the community of the country (autonomous area, a territory) a given domain pertains to, it is desirable for the content of the contractual relationship underlying the administration of .pl and .lt domain names to be strictly defined, unambiguous and publicly available to the community members. Establishing in detail and describing the content of such an obligation relationship is currently impossible, and an attempt at its reconstruction made in this article as based on the assumptions and the texts of the agreements on the administration of other ccTLDs seems to be a stopgap measure, running a high risk of error.

Elements for a successful gTLD: Lessons from the .cat experience for new community gTLDs

‘.cat’, the generic top level domain (gTLD) designed to fulfil the needs of the worldwide Catalan speaking community on the Internet, has been praised as a success in the Internet domain name sector after seven years of operation. So much so that some long established TLDs have started to develop a similar community approach and use language as a market segmentation tool to engage new registrants. It has been also an inspiration for new geographical and community based gTLD applications. This paper discusses what led to .cat’s success, including its governance arrangements, and how some new gTLDs that will soon be delegated by ICANN could benefit from its business strategy.

Can Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms Become the Default Method for Solving International Intellectual Property Disputes?

This essay explores how the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms can be promoted to solve international IP disputes. It presents the case of internet domain name dispute resolution and focus particularly on the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the way in which this policy has been adopted as a model by legislators. On this basis, it analyzes how, and under what conditions, other types of IP ADR systems can be developed in light of the UDRP, and will explore whether ADR systems can become the default method for solving international IP disputes.