In a
column on CNet today, Brian Livingstone reports that the World Intellectual
Property Organization is accepting comments on a proposal to disallow domain
names based on geographical areas, personal names, or tradenames. Of course
this is completely illegal, but the WIPO is a United Nations subsidiary — they
did not want to stop genocide in Rwanda, but apparently they want to make sure
I cannot register briancarnell.com.
The WIPO is a symptom of everything that is wrong with how domain name disputes
are handled. First, the ICANN guidelines clearly say domains should be taken
from users only when they are registered or used in “bad faith.” But WIPO and
others have simply decided on their own to take domain names from people if
they are tradenames. For example, it recently took Crew.Com away from a legitimate
small business and gave it to JCrew.
In addition, the ICANN guidelines are set up so that the plaintiff in a domain
disupte case gets to choose the arbitrator. So if somebody decides I should
not have carnell.com, that person gets to decide which arbitrator to use. Most
choose WIPO, and what do you know WIPO returns the favor by favoring the plaintiff
in close to 90 percent of cases. eResolution, which favors plaintiffs only about
half the time, gets far less business. That is a process that needs to be changed
immediately.
On the other hand, the good news is that if WIPO actually approves this, it
would create a ruckus not only from folks like me but from the big guys too.
They would have to get rid of all domain names that are geographical? The Amazon.Com
folks will just love that move.