In the past decade, the rapid growth of the Internet in recent years and the proliferation of Information Technologies (IT) are making a dramatic and profound impact on the way humans communicate, conduct business, and sell their goods and services. The new technology and techniques have transformed the business world, have generated new commercial models, and have presented the world economy with new challenges. Businesses, individuals and governments have all rushed to try to gain from the potential profits that the Internet offers. Although this rush has slowed down, after the burst of the (.Com) bubble enterprises, the endless possibilities are still there. In a survey conducted by the Nua Internet in November 1, 2002, more than 600 million people have net access. It is expected that this figure will increase dramatically. This growth will continue to have an indelible impact on trademark owners who are facing daily trademark infringement threats from cybersquatters.
But to every day there is a night, and no blessing comes without a curse. The new technology has and still is presenting us with daunting tasks to change with the technology that is changing our world. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the slowness, and in some cases paralysis, that the law, on both the local and international levels, is dealing with these changes. Information technologies have affected the world of law by posing difficult and complex questions related to this new medium of communication. Many remain unanswered.
Let us deal with the issue from the outset. To promote themselves through the new medium, and (later) to conduct business online through e-commerce, companies sought to register and reserve domain names that tend to be simple to remember. The best example of such domain names would be their famous trademarks or brand name of which customers are familiar with. So, the end result for most companies has been (www.name.com).
And so, we had domain names that are user-friendly addresses and that facilitate navigation of the World Wide Web. When domain names were developed, their function was purely technical and the economic value of domain names was not recognized at that time. Soon, however, and as businesses started to use domain names and establish websites, domain names performed an identifying function.
Soon enough, there was an unprecedented growing demand by the business community to establish simple domain names and design attractive websites to promote and sell products/services. Furthermore, the Internet facilitated communication around the clock with their clients. This led cybersquatters and other domain name pirates to rush to register and reserve famous trademarks and trade names for a few dollars. Those cyber outlaws took advantage of the “first come first serve” rule that domain name registrars tend to abide by. In essence, these cyber outlaws would hijack a domain name and hold it for ransom, demanding a hefty sum from famous companies for its return to the owner of the trade name or trademark. In short, we find that there is no established international law to protect trademarks in cyberspace, as is the case in the real world. This clearly shows that a new set of challenges to the established trademark system has risen as it collided with new domain name system (DNS).
But why do these two system collide? There are many logical answers. The first is that there are always criminals who will take advantage of any situation where a new technology emerges. It happened to audio-tapes and CD’s. This conflict occurs because of the philosophies of each system trademarks may be used by different persons to distinguish different products or services in different countries. Each domain name, however, is based on a real name and that name is unique to only one person who is allowed to register it in cyberspace. This will raise a difficult question about who is entitled to register the disputed domain names; Is it the person who has registered it? Or is it the company that already owns the trademark or trade name corresponding to the domain name? Conventional Trademark wisdom favors the latter, while domain name practice gives priority for the domain name registrant.
As awareness of the problem increases, concerned parties have taken measures to decrease Cybersquatting. The primary of counter-cybersquatting tool has been the adoption of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and numbers (ICANN). In other cases, WIPO and other dispute resolution providers, such as the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), Institute for Dispute Resolution (CPR), and Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Center (ADNDRC) are resolving many of the clear-cut cases of cybersquatting.
Still new forms of cybersquatting has emerged and cyberpirates still found a way to harass companies by registering the misspelled domain names, the derogatory domain names that tend to harm severely not only trademarks associated with the products that the company produces but also reputation of the corporations depending on the ease that anyone can browse the internet and find these websites.
Finally, the adoption of multilingual domain names or Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) has given rise to a new form of cybersquatting once again. Multilingual cybersquatters have found another way of infringing trademarks and harassing well-known firms by registering the translation and the transliterations of their well- known famous trademarks as multi-lingual domain names.