Cyber squatters take to new domain names

Cyber squatters take to new domain names
P SURESH IYENGAR

MUMBAI, JAN 21: Even as new business-specific domain names are embroiled in legal battles, cyber squatters have embarked on a fresh offensive to rake in moolah. Cyber squatters are using best of their imagination to register domain names in different categories and combination to put them for auction at a later stage.

It is estimated that there will be over five million new domain names. ICANN, an association to which the federal government of the US has transferred technical administration of the Internet, has been dragged to court by Atlantic Root Network Inc claiming that it will have the rights for assigning domain extension in the new format. Domain names are the gateway to communication on the Internet.

Atlantic Root has claimed that it has already started registering domain names in the new format since May 2000. From around 70 companies which have got the go-ahead from ICANN to register domain names in the new format, there are only three Indian companies - HDFC WebNet Services Ltd, Hitech Information and Marketing Pvt Ltd and Polar Software Ltd, said a government official.

However, cyber squatters have already started queueing up for registering domain names in the new format: .biz, .info, .name, .pro, .museum, .aero, and .coop. “One can expect another round of cyber squatting cases in the near future. Squatters are everywhere,” said an infotech expert.

Not to be left behind in the rat race, Indian corporates too have begun registering domain names in the new format. Industry grapevine is that the ICICI group has already booked over 500 domain and the Tatas 160 names in different combinations and various categories. Other corporate houses too are not far behind.

More than company-specific domain names, cyber squatters are making a killing in top-level generic domain names like dhirubhaiambani.com, ratantata.com etc. “The doyens of Indian corporate world have to fight a prolonged battle before wresting back their legitimate domain names,” said Girish Motwani, a lawyer, who is familiar with cyber crime cases.

Even today, dhirubhaiambani.com doesn’t belong to the chairman of Reliance Industries. Interestingly it is an auction-cum-web hosting site. To deal with the case of disputes arising over registration of domains, ICANN appointed four international Dispute Resolution Service Providers (DRSP)- World Intellectual Property Organisation, National Arbitration Forum, eResolutions and CPR Institute. For wresting back a domain name the complainant has to prove that the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to the complainants trademark, the respondent has no right or legitimate interest in the domain name and the name is being used in a bad faith, says Motwani.

The verdict in most of the cases are given within 45 working days and the judgement is implemented within 20 days. Of the 4,385 domain disputes came up with the DRSP till November end, 2,198 names have been transferred to the complainant, 421 were allowed to retain by the respondent and 24 were cancelled.

Register.com was the first ICANN-accredited website for registering new domain names. But now there are numerous websites which have taken up the business of registering domain names and putting them for auction at their websites. The rates on these websites are directly proportionate to the popularity of the person or the company names.

At present there are about 10-15 million domain names registered with ICANN which are occupied by cyber squatters. Among them a good number of 8 million names are up for grabs at various auction websites like yahoo.com, auctiondealz.com, bidderscove.com.

Recently, Nicholas Phiramal put over 100 domain names, which it had registered for future use, for auction as they found these names are no more worth holding, informed sources said.

Other than dotcom domain names, there are country-specific names like .in for India, .de for Germany and .fr for France. These addresses are assigned by ICANN authorised agencies for that particular country. In India, the National Centre for Software Technology (NCST), a scientific R&D institution under the ministry of information technology has been registering .in domain names ever since 1995. Interestingly, NCST has registered only 2,545 addresses since inception in spite of the charges being as low as Rs 1500 per address.

An indication of how messy the world wide web is shaping up can be guaged from the fact that the registration for new domain names is growing at the astronomical rate of one million per month and are estimated to pierce through 50 million-mark by 2002.

Among the many reasons for the astonishing growth are low charges of just $8 per domain name and the e-commence activity. The creation of new domain extensions will not only generate potentially millions of new domain names but also likely to create additional value for consumers and businesses.

However, the new domain names will not be available until at least early spring 2001 as ICANN has to work out contract terms with the groups that will operate the registries. The Commerce Department of the US must also approve the domain names.