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By Shreya Deb
The internet has brought a massive revolution in the 19th century which can be equated with the industrial revolution. It has provided the opportunities for the millions of people and brought liabilities in the field of intellectual property, data privacy, etc.
The challenges that the law has faced in recent years is, how to foster the development of intellectual property on the Internet while preventing its unauthorized use. We have addresses for our homes and offices. In the same way, domain names are nothing but simple forms of addresses on the internet. These addresses enable the users to locate websites on the net in an easy manner. Domain name corresponds to various IP (Internet Protocol) numbers which connect various computers and enable direct network routing system to direct data requests to the correct addressee.
Cybersquatting:
Cybersquatting is a type of domain name dispute which is prevalent in the world. It is a practice where individuals buy domain names reflecting the names of a existing companies, with a sole intention to sell the names back to that company to attain profit when they want to set up their own website.
There are various types of cybersquatting. Most commonly used is the typo squatting where a cyber-squatter registers domain names containing variant of popular trademarks. Typo squatters believe that the internet user will make the typographical errors while entering the domain names into their web browsers.
Examples of typo squatting:
- The omission of the “.” in the domain name: wwwexample.com;
- A common misspelling of the intended site: exemple.com
- A differently phrased domain name: examples.com
- A different top level domain:example.org
Internet domain name is a combination of typographic characters used to describe the location of a specific location online. It is known as the Uniform Resource Locator or URL. It is considered the identity of a Web site. The Internet domain name is very important for the small businesses who want to establish their name on internet. The two organizations cannot have same domain names.
Example – www.google.com ; www.yahoo.com, etc.
- ‘WWW’ means that site is linked to World Wide Web.
- ‘google’ is the name you choose to your site, and ideally is readily identifiable with your organization name or core business.
- ‘.com’ is known as top-level domain name and it indicates that your organization name or core business.
- Sometimes ‘.in’ is being used in place of ‘.com’ that means that company is registered in India (For e.g. – ebay.in, olx.in, airtel.in, etc.)
The last two or three letters of a domain name or URL (e.g.- .com, .in, .org ) are known as its top-level domain. The top-level domain which are used earlier are for Example ‘.org’ generally describes a non-profit, charity, or cultural organization site; ‘.gov’ indicates a governmental site; and .net, which is most often used by network-related businesses.
Domain name registration system started on the basis of the “First come First serve” basis. When the internet became popular, large popular companies wanted to enter the internet with their own websites and often found that the domain name they were seeking had already been booked. So companies which wanted the same domain name had to pay a price, which were sometimes unimaginable. This increasing cost of buying back of domains resulted in ‘Meta society’ trade mark owners coming together and claiming that their intellectual property rights on a registered trade mark should be extended to “domain name”. This has resulted in considering “Registration of Domain Names without the intention of using them” as cybersquatting.
Relation between domain name and trademark:
In today’s world Domain name serves as an on-line trademark. A Domain name serves the same purpose online, which a trademark serves in the offline business transactions. It helps the customers identify the source of goods/services provided by the owner of such goods and services.
The reason of the increase in the incidence is the growing importance of domain name in the e-commerce trend. Domain name hold a good importance as there can be only one user of a domain name unlike the trademark law where there can be two or more users of a same or similar trademark for various classes of goods and services under the honest concurrent use if such use does not amount to infringement or causing confusion or dilution. But this kind of provision is not applicable in the case of domain names. Since, the domain registration system follows the “first come, first served” policy. So, once a person registers a domain name similar to a trademark, any other person using a similar mark is denied registration of another domain name similar to that trademark. That means only one user is allowed to use a particular domain name and any other application for the same domain name will be refused. This is the main reason as to why trademark owners prefer to get their trademarks registered as their domain names for business.
Law relating to domain names and cybersquatting:
Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) is an internet-based system that resolves complaints made by owners of trademark when facing trademark conflict. Being neither a court nor an arbitration authority it controls deletion/ transfer of domain names. According to the policy, a complainant can bring action on grounds including a domain name being identical/ confusingly similar to a trademark/ service mark, domain name owner has no rights/ legitimate interests in the same or the domain name so registered is being used in bad faith. After the approval of all these stipulations the registration is proved, or domain registration cancelled/ transferred to complainant. However, no financial remedies are a part of the UDRP mechanism.
UDRP is defined as an “expedited administrative proceeding”, and under it the trademark holder complaints to the approved dispute resolution provider. UDRP may also be referred to as a legally qualified specific contract term. For country-code top-level domains like .uk and .de, UDRP applies only if the country administrator voluntarily adopts it. Generic top-level domains like .com and .org are under UDRP’s scope. It is a cheap, fast and easy alternative to complex court procedures and long hours.
WIPO is the most important dispute-resolution service provider under the UDRP, accredited to ICANN for domain names. It provides skilled panelists, thorough administrative procedures and complete credence. It takes about two months for a WIPO case to be resolved, with a small fee to be made. A case with higher complexity may be heard in person.
A person may complain before the administration dispute resolution service providers listed by ICANN under Rule 4 (a) that:
- A domain name is “identical or confusingly similar to a trade mark or service mark” in which the complainant has rights; and
- The domain name owner/registrant has no right or legitimate interest in respect of the domain name; and
- A domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
The cases of trademarks and domain names conflict mainly involve issues related to the use of goodwill of a trademark by an infringer in the domain name to divert the potential customers of the owner of the trademark to a website not associated with that trademark, or use of meta-tags resulting in dilution of trademark or unauthorized registration of the trademark as domain name with the intent to extort money or to prevent the owner from using the trademark. The Cyber squatters quickly sell the domain names to other non-related entities, thereby enabling passing off and diluting of famous trademark or trade names.
The article is very informative. It is also very important as it is dealing with an important contemporary issue of cyberspace. It has very clearly pointed out to the problems which are faced by several established companies in the world of domains. It would have been more good if the full form of WIPO and ICANN was written.
The article made a good effort to aware people about the power of cyber criminals and to emphasize on the need of taking precautions on the part of users of internet. It is good that news source link is also given in the article.
A comprehensive and concise article over a pressing issue. The issue of Cybersquatting can incur tremendous financial burden on developing companies. Considering that the E-commerce industry is developing at a very high rate, the issues regarding domain is indeed a serious threat. The views are my personal opinion that are open to criticism.
Very beautifully describe and written
Great Article, very informative
The article is very informative. Until I read this article I never knew what cybersquatting is. But this Article helped me to understand the actual meaning of Cybersquatting and provided me with insights about what are the consequences due to this crime. Thanks for such an amazing article.
The article explains the meaning of the terms like IP address and URL in a very simple manner. It throws light upon the issue of cybersquatting and deals with the laws prevailing against such a practice. It is an enlightening article that even a beginner can understand these complex terms easily.
A comprehensive and concise article over a pressing issue. The issue of Cybersquatting can incur tremendous financial burden on developing companies. Considering that the E-commerce industry is developing at a very high rate, the issues regarding domain is indeed a serious threat. Thanks for such an amazing article.
A very informative and helpful article for students interested in the field of cyber law. It is concise yet understandable as it is written in simple terms.
My eyes are opened to what this cybersquatting is. The problems that different organizations face are given clearly. The domain, trademark all these are new to me but I learned a lot about these from the article below. I couldn’t understand few terms since I’m new to this. However this article really added to my knowledge.
Cybersquatting is one of the very important issue faced by a number of online platforms in today’s internet savvy world. The article provides a comprehensive description of the issue and has also put light on the grievance redressal mechanism available. In short the entire article is an eye opener for a number people who are new to the cyber world.
Thank you for this article. I got to learn new terms and more information. It was quite insightful.
A very informative article describing the important issue of the cyberspace. This article provides lot of knowledge about the cyber squatting and many of the new terms related to it. But it would be more easier to understand if had included some relevant examples.
The article provides the reader with an eye opening view of cyber squatting. The writer must have really worked hard on the article, as it can be clearly seen that such difficult concepts were delivered so easy and precisely, that any layman can easily understand. Though a few minor errors could be spotted. the introduction and the ending are not at par with the rest of the article. The internet is a product of the 20th century, whilst industrial revolution occurred in the 18th century. the writer could’ve even mentioned a few legal provisions to make the article appear better. the writer uses the acronyms WIPO & ICANN, but hasn’t mentioned anywhere what do they stand for. besides these few minor adjustments, the article was drafted really well.
This is a informative article which throws light on a special cybercrime cyber squatting . It’s a difficult topic explained very easily. This article also tells about relation between domain name an trademark and inform us about the laws related to domain name and cyber squatting.
The article is very accurate and provides all the required information cyber squatting. Its a comprehensive article over such critical issue . Cyber awareness is a must in today’s world.
very knowledgeable article about the cyber crime and their precautions.
it was a very informative article about cyber squatters and dispute resolution. The Article though brief, highlights many important concepts.
it was very beautifully written and the tough topic is easily understood by this article .cyber squatting is so much exercised now.
good article about Cybersquatting.great work by Shreya Deb.i suggest everybody to read this article once
The article was informative and concise. It clearly explains Cyber squatting in detail. The author has succeeded in relaying the information to the readers in an interesting manner. The writing style of the author makes it simple for the reader to understand. There were few minute mistakes as the writer did not mention the meaning of WIPO and ICANN other than that this article portrays that the writer is well-versed with the subject matter. Overall, the writer has done an excellent job.
I think it is very important for us to read and educate ourselves about this deeply pressing issues specially in recent times. spreading awareness about the consequences of one’s social media presence needs to be acknowledged and well thought of. This article makes a valid point and makes it easy to get across the different terms that many are unaware of. it is well scripted and major terms that could have been hard to explain otherwise are easily and neatly done.
A topic is of great relevance and not known by many people . Its well written and has covered all the important aspects of the topic from its meaning to laws relating to it, few things were quite difficult to understand and required search in a new tab. Valid points stated and the article was undisputed and informative.
This article very well explains all the informative things required to understand domain name dispute, in simple language, making it easy for the beginners to understand very well..
The writer has focused on every topic mentioned in the article extensively.
The article is really well presented by the author and focuses on a contemporary issue related to cyber space, which is, cybersquatting. He has defined what cybersquatting is in the simplest form one can, which means, it is easy to understand and every person can go through it before getting into something related to domains.
He has also explained the importance and relation of, domain name and trademark.
He also talks about the remedies and laws related to domain name and trademark.
The article is informative and extensive: good to read before getting into any sort of matter related to trademarks and domains.
The problem of cybersquatting is very much common these days and faced by many online platforms and the term cybersquatting is not very often used and known and i think here the author has precisedly discussed with the readers the overall mechanism of a dispute and with the growing number of internet users around the world the problem will severely increase.
The author addresses a lesser known concept but widely prevalent one in a very easy language making a rookie to understand the concept of cyber-squatting. In addition to this, legal aspects are also given precisely. I think all the information required for basic awareness of cyber-squatting is precisely given by the author in this article.
Liked it a lot… easily understandable and quiet interesting..
Cybersquatting was a strange topic for me but the author describes it in an extreme good way by compiling every single fact of it. I got to know about a lot of informative stuff.
The article is well drafted, although, the dispute between the two could have been highlighted a little more. It is otherwise a very comprehensive article.
Very well explained could have been perfect it some examples would have been added but otherwise good content and good article for those who are new to this topic.
well written article.