[Original article has been snipped to save space. The report will probably be of particular interest to anarcho-capitalists, extropians, and other followers of polylegal systems.]
From: oppedahl@patents.com (Carl Oppedahl) Newsgroups: misc.news.internet.announce Subject: Important new web site discusses risks of loss of domain names Date: 21 Apr 1996 11:41:05 GMT
Three graduate students at the George Washington University Law School (David Pauker, Stacey Halpern, and Jonathan Agmon) have prepared what is surely the definitive and comprehensive resource covering Internet domain name disputes provided, appropriately enough, in the form of a topic-specific web site. The site, called "What's in a Name?", is located at <http://www.law.georgetown.edu/lc/internic/domain1.html>. *Who should visit this site* For anybody who has a domain name ending in COM, ORG, GOV, EDU, or NET, this site is a must-read. It illustrates vividly how vulnerable any domain name owner is to loss of a domain name on just 30 days' notice, without any of the usual legal safeguards against loss of a valuable property right. *What's there* It will be apparent to any visitor that the "What's in a Name?" web site is the result of a prodigious amount of effort. The authors have drawn together nearly everything about the twenty-five publicly known domain name disputes, and provide a synopsis of each dispute as well as links to further information about them. (Because Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) conducts its decisionmaking process regarding domain name disputes in secret, one can only speculate how many other domain name disputes have arisen and how NSI decided the disputes. The authors can't be blamed for not knowing about all of the dispute decisions that NSI has made.) The authors go on to provide helpful background to trademarks and domain names, they discuss in detail the present NSI domain name policy, and they review a number of proposed replacements for the present flawed NSI policy. As counsel for Roadrunner Computer Systems Inc. in its lawsuit against NSI, I was particularly interested in the authors' comments on the present NSI policy, for example: "In the United States, NSI's Dispute Resolution Policy does not take account of common law or state registered trademarks, unfair business practices, dilution, or conflicts with even well known marks. "NSI's Dispute Resolution Policy is an imposed contract predicated on unequal bargaining power, failing to provide a proper mechanism for adjudicating disputes. "NSI, a private company, is acting in a quasi-judicial manner with limited mechanisms for judicial review." [snippage] -- frogfarm@yakko.cs.wmich.edu free market anarchist, natural law advocate, s..O).... You hit the smurf! --More-- male, lesbian, polyamorous, @.../.".. You destroy the smurf! --More-- reader, atheist, chaotic, $$*...].. You feel cynical! free and natural sovereign individual