(fwd) Important new web site discusses risks of loss of domain names

[Damaged Justice <frogfarm@yakko.cs.wmich.edu>]

[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]

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