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Last week, the House and Senate both passed a joint resolution that prevent's the new privacy rules from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from taking effect; the rules were released by the FCC last November, and would have bound Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the United States to a set of practices concerning the collection and sharing of data about consumers. The rules were widely heralded by consumer advocates, and several researchers in the computer science community, including myself, played a role in helping to shape aspects of the rules. more
DataPrivacyBR and the Internet Integrity Task Force, IITF, in collaboration with CircleID and IGF recently held 2 online events focusing on digital citizenship, governance, and a digital bill of rights and responsibilities. A diverse group of high-level presenters and speakers spanning all stakeholder groups, addressed questions such as: What are the foundational principles that define and protect the rights and responsibilities of digital citizenship? Do existing internet governance models take digital rights sufficiently into account? Are there alternatives to business models that are based on digital exploitation and servitude? Why do we need a digital Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and how can it be created? more
The first element of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) requires a complainant to prove that the disputed domain name "is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights." It's unusual for a complainant to fail on this first of three prongs, but one recent case demonstrates just how uncertain the UDRP can be sometimes. more
The general run of Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy (UDRP) decisions are unremarkable. At their least, they are primarily instructive in establishing the metes and bounds of lawful registration of domain names. A few decisions stand out for their acuity of reasoning and a few others for their lack of it. The latest candidate of the latter class is NSK LTD. v. Li shuo, FA170100 1712449 (Forum February 16, 2017)... It is an example of inconsistency in the application of law. more
The Senate Appropriations Committee just reported out on June 5th its version of the Commerce-Justice-State Departments Appropriations bill for FY 15. In the course of its deliberations it added a consensus amendment on the IANA transition offered by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE)... Parsing the amendment's language, the requirement that NTIA conduct a thorough review and analysis of any proposed IANA transition plan amounts to telling it to do its job properly; implicit in this requirement is that the analysis be shared with Congress. more
History, it has been said, repeats itself. The same can be said of domain name disputes, as demonstrated by a pair of cases involving the same trademark ("Panavision") filed more than 20 years apart with remarkably similar facts. I can't hear the name "Panavision" without thinking about the origins of domain name disputes, so a decision involving panavision.org - coming more than two decades after litigation commenced over panavision.com - immediately made me nostalgic. more
The Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) is designed to get a domain name suspended, but in some cases this dispute policy can be used to help get a domain name transferred. It's an uncommon result but one that trademark owners may want to keep in mind. The suspension remedy is often viewed as the greatest limitation of the URS. Trademark owners that want to have a domain name transferred typically file a complaint under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) instead of the URS - but, the UDRP is more expensive and time-consuming. more
Panels appointed to adjudicate domain name disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) have written in the region of 50,000 decisions involving over 75,000 domain names (minuscule of course when measured against the number of registered domain names). What may surprise some parties, their representatives, and counsel is that these publicly accessible decisions have fueled the emergence and development of a jurisprudence of domain names. more
The term "counterfeit" is defined under U.S. trademark law as "a spurious mark which is identical with, or substantially indistinguishable from, a registered mark." 15 U.S.C. § 1127 (Lanham Act, Sec. 45). Used as a noun, domain names ultimately found to have been registered in bad faith make their registrants cybersquatters by definition. But more commonly we encounter counterfeiting as an adjective as it applies to spurious goods (counterfeit goods) -- "made in exact imitation of something valuable or important with the intention to deceive or defraud." more
Another domain name dispute decision -- this one for '24hour.fitness' -- has highlighted the increasing (potential) relevance of the top-level domain (TLD) under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). As I have written before, the proliferation of new TLDs is having an impact on whether and how UDRP panels consider the TLD in their decisions. more
In the past seven years, the number of people online has essentially doubled, from 1.7 billion in 2009 to about 3.4 billion today. New and innovative services have also emerged and people and companies around the world are using the Internet in ways barely imagined at the turn of the decade. Looking ahead to the next five to seven years, there are many forces at work that could have a significant impact on the Internet. more
The long-waited cybersecurity executive order expected to launch sweeping reviews of the federal government's digital vulnerabilities, was signed today by President Trump. more
The Communications Decency Act has been described as the greatest Internet law. The first major Internet law designed to censor the Internet actually enabled the interactive Internet. While the censorship provisions of the Communications Decency Act went down in unanimous supreme court flames, a separate provision remains standing. The Good Samaritan provision of the CDA (47 U.S.C. § 230) declared that networks and online services are not publishers and therefore are not liable for the content of third parties. more
As promised at an end-of-the-year (2015) announcement, the U.S. Copyright Office has now launched a comment submission process about the "safe harbor provisions" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA is often used by copyright owners to get infringing content - images, text, videos, music, even software - removed from problematic websites. more
A typical proceeding under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) consists of a complaint and, sometimes, a response. UDRP Rule 12 makes clear that "further statements or documents from either of the Parties" are appropriate only if "the Panel... request[s], in its sole discretion." In practice, however, such supplemental or additional filings are not uncommon, with the leading UDRP service providers - WIPO and the Forum - issuing guidance about when they may be appropriate. more
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