By Tim Querengesser
Making a quick buck in the domain name game is getting harder, thanks in part to one Centretown lawyer who is helping protect trademarks from cybersquatters.
Jonathan Cohen volunteers his time for the recently formed Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The international group of lawyers is setting arbitration policy for conflicts with Internet domain names.
ICANN also assigns arbitrators to deal with cases online, without bogging down courts.
The need for this came from cybersquatting, says Cohen.
He describes this as someone “without any colour of right,” adopting a domain name and attempting to make a profit.
He says the Internet was rampant with people buying domain names of recognizable trademarks in an attempt to force companies or celebrities to buy them out, often at outlandish prices.
“A lot of people got away with it,” he says.
Madonna recently made headlines in her successful fight to stop a so-called cybersquatter from broadcasting pornography from the domain name “madonna.com.”
Cohen says ICANN has created resolution policies, which all buyers of domain names must now accept to prevent “bad-faith” registration.
But people can still make a profit in the domain name game, without cybersquatting, says self-described cyber-investor Glenn Scott.
Scott says he buys domain names to sell, rent or co-develop with big business.
But rather than buying trademarkable company or celebrity names, he buys generic names. He says they aren’t trademarkable, but are still attractive and catchy.
“Everyday I get offers on my names,” he says.
He owns sites like liquidrocket.com, moreresult.com and musclewire.com. They are all generic site names, that generate multiple hits from Internet surfers.
He says he predicts what people will search for on the Net, and buys it before a company has, or sometimes even before a company exists. He says he then makes a tidy profit by selling, renting or co-developing the site.
“All of my names generate money for me,” says Scott.
One of Scott’s sites, chit.com, garnered an offer of $5,000. He says he didn’t like the price and chose not to sell. Scott says he doesn’t feel the new ICANN polices are impeding his progress.
He says he isn’t breaking any of the rules, but he doesn’t support celebrities having outright control of their name on the Net.
Others in the dispute feel there are problems with the new resolution process.
Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, says some in the Internet community are concerned there will be a bias in decision making. They worry it could have effects on freedom of speech.
“Trademark holders tend to be on the winning sides of the decisions,” says Geist.
He says he supports cracking down on bad-faith cybersquatting, but feels anti-corporate Internet sites could fall victim to new regulations.
This would work against them in impeding their freedom of speech on the Net.
Cohen says he doesn’t worry about detractors and says he feels what he’s doing is important for the future of the Internet.
“I felt it was extremely exciting to give something back, to be on the bleeding edge,” he says.
Cohen says ICANN has devised an online process, which keeps courts from getting bogged down with an increased number of Internet disputes, which costs very little.
He says he hopes ICANN can develop conflict resolution procedures to deal with an even broader range of issues on the Internet.