WIPO calls for international domain name rules

The Arbitration and Mediation Centre of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is calling for an international set of rules to govern the ccTLDs, the two letter domain names for different countries, such as .ES for Spain, .UK for United Kingdom or .DE for Germany, to help counter "cybersquatting," the unauthorized use of Net addresses. WIPO is concerned that the lack of international rules promotes cybersquatting, which the UN organization has fought through its dispute resolution policy.

WIPO hopes that more individual registrars will conform to using its Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). The UDRP is currently used to resolve intellectual property right conflicts involving .COM, .NET, and .ORG top-level domains, which are controlled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Additionally, 18 countries have committed to the WIPO arbitration system.

Some observers observers are concerned that WIPO may be seeking to protect large companies at the expense of small nations, and consider that the rules each individual country has addresses their own needs and concerns.

Of the 244 countries connected to the Internet, 89 are considered unrestricted, meaning that anyone can register domain names in those country code top level domains.

More information: www.wipo.int

Date of publication: 23/02/2001

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