Ola, indeed domain name hijacking is a problem. The question however is one of how to solve it. My *personal* current answer is that there are established ways of solving this, i.e. trademark and intellectual property laws and jurisprudence (precedents) for deciding similar cases. If one party is using a name it should not be using according to another party, they can solve it between themselves, in the courts if necessary. This *works*. Of course it is made complicated by the fact that the Internet transcedes locality: which law is applicable, what is the scope of a domain name. In this respect the sysem of country toplevel domains has advantages! Technically speaking this is all he consequence of the lack of a real directory service on the Internet. If we had that the focus would shift to that rather than the names which are not intended to be overloaded with so much meaning as they currently are. Now we do not have that (although WEB search engines are quite a ways in that direction). None of this is *any* reason for those with particular interests to succeed in establishing Internet regulation or even rushed legislation anywhere. THIS IS THE REAL DANGER! Again *personal* opinions. Daniel
Ola Johansson <ola@tip.net> writes: shaw wrote: <snip>
European position. DNS issues are impacting public interests especially within an intellectual property context. For one example of domain name hijacking, see the attached message.
IMHO, I think it might be in RIPE's interest to cooperate a little more with them since the issues are clearly impacting outside a normal "Net" technical context. <snip>
For your information, the same have happened in Sweden, by the company Control Alt Delete. There are perhaps more occurances of this in other countries? There was a TV show last night on the Swedish TV Channel 4 covering this issue (!), showing that this has (at least in Sweden) some public interest.
The domains registered below are companies, names, events and common expressions in Swedish (and English).
Cheers, //Ola Johansson, Telia TeleCom Telia Internet
Whois Search Result from server rs.internic.net:
Control Alt Delete (NOBELPRICE-DOM) NOBELPRICE. COM Control Alt Delete (ORIENTALHOTEL-DOM) ORIENTALHOTEL. COM Control Alt Delete (POLITIK2-DOM) POLITIK. COM Control Alt Delete (POSTBANKEN-DOM) POSTBANKEN. COM Control Alt Delete (PRILOSEC-DOM) PRILOSEC. COM Control Alt Delete (PROCTERGAMBLE-DOM) PROCTERGAMBLE. COM Control Alt Delete (PRODUCENTHUSET2-DOM) PRODUCENTHUSET. COM Control Alt Delete (RAUSING-DOM) RAUSING. COM Control Alt Delete (RENTANAME-DOM) RENTANAME. COM Control Alt Delete (REXONA-DOM) REXONA. COM Control Alt Delete (ROYALVIKING-DOM) ROYALVIKING. COM Control Alt Delete (SALMING-DOM) SALMING. COM Control Alt Delete (SEBANK-DOM) SEBANK. COM Control Alt Delete (SEMBAWANG-DOM) SEMBAWANG. COM Control Alt Delete (SKANDIABANKEN-DOM) SKANDIABANKEN. COM Control Alt Delete (SPEJSAT-DOM) SPEJSAT. COM Control Alt Delete (SPENDRUP-DOM) SPENDRUP. COM Control Alt Delete (SPINTAB-DOM) SPINTAB. COM Control Alt Delete (SPRIT-DOM) SPRIT. COM Control Alt Delete (STENBECK-DOM) STENBECK. COM Control Alt Delete (SVENSKADAGBLADET-DOM) SVENSKADAGBLADET. COM Control Alt Delete (SWEBUS-DOM) SWEBUS. COM Control Alt Delete (SWEDISHMATCH-DOM) SWEDISHMATCH. COM Control Alt Delete (BANGOLUFSEN-DOM) BANGOLUFSEN. COM Control Alt Delete (VAL3-DOM) VAL98. COM Control Alt Delete (VINGRESOR-DOM) VINGRESOR. COM Control Alt Delete (VIRTUALBONDS-DOM) VIRTUALBONDS. COM Control Alt Delete (WALLENBERG-DOM) WALLENBERG. COM Control Alt Delete (WASABANKEN-DOM) WASABANKEN. COM Control Alt Delete (X35-DOM) X2000. COM Control Alt Delete (BONNIERS-DOM) BONNIERS. COM Control Alt Delete (BOOZE3-DOM) BOOZE. COM Control Alt Delete (BRAATHENS-DOM) BRAATHENS. COM Control Alt Delete (CHINALIGHT-DOM) CHINALIGHT. COM Control Alt Delete (CITYMAIL-DOM) CITYMAIL. COM Control Alt Delete (CLOETTA-DOM) CLOETTA. COM Control Alt Delete (CONTROLALTDELETE-DOM) CONTROLALTDELETE. COM Control Alt Delete (CYBERBONDS-DOM) CYBERBONDS. COM Control Alt Delete (CYBERFRIEND-DOM) CYBERFRIEND. COM Control Alt Delete (DAGAB-DOM) DAGAB. COM Control Alt Delete (DAGENSINDUSTRI-DOM) DAGENSINDUSTRI. COM Control Alt Delete (DAGENSNYHETER-DOM) DAGENSNYHETER. COM Control Alt Delete (DEO-DOM) DEO. COM Control Alt Delete (DIGIBONDS-DOM) DIGIBONDS. COM Control Alt Delete (DOMAINTRADE-DOM) DOMAINTRADE. COM Control Alt Delete (ELLOS-DOM) ELLOS. COM Control Alt Delete (EMATELSTAR-DOM) EMATELSTAR. COM Control Alt Delete (ENATOR2-DOM) ENATOR. COM Control Alt Delete (EUROPOLITAN-DOM) EUROPOLITAN. COM Control Alt Delete (FASTIGHETER-DOM) FASTIGHETER. COM Control Alt Delete (FOLKSAM-DOM) FOLKSAM. COM Control Alt Delete (FRITIDSRESOR-DOM) FRITIDSRESOR. COM Control Alt Delete (GLOBEN-DOM) GLOBEN. COM Control Alt Delete (GODJUL-DOM) GODJUL. COM Control Alt Delete (GODMAT-DOM) GODMAT. COM Control Alt Delete (GRATTIS-DOM) GRATTIS. COM Control Alt Delete (GUD-DOM) GUD. COM Control Alt Delete (HEJ-DOM) HEJ. COM Control Alt Delete (HONSHUPAPER-DOM) HONSHUPAPER. COM Control Alt Delete (HURRA-DOM) HURRA. COM Control Alt Delete (ALLNIPPONAIRWAYS-DOM) ALLNIPPONAIRWAYS. COM Control Alt Delete (ITOYOKADO-DOM) ITOYOKADO. COM Control Alt Delete (ITPRO-DOM) ITPRO. COM Control Alt Delete (JULREA-DOM) JULREA. COM Control Alt Delete (KAMPRAD-DOM) KAMPRAD. COM Control Alt Delete (KANSKE-DOM) KANSKE. COM Control Alt Delete (KONSUM-DOM) KONSUM. COM Control Alt Delete (KURABO-DOM) KURABO. COM Control Alt Delete (NEJ-DOM) NEJ. COM