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Name Does Matter!

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VoicenData Bureau
New Update

alt="https://img-cdn.thepublive.com/filters:format(webp)/vnd/media/post_attachments/70cca3854dba463c7bfee5400177add699af41840d44a42b7b3d270049473827.gif (39264 bytes)" align="right" border="0" hspace="4" vspace="4"> COLOR="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="2">Increasing presence of companies on the

Net makes domain names very important. Because corporate names or trade marks—as

Internet addresses—make it easy to get identified on the Net. And domain names are

rapidly becoming part of the corporate address. For e.g., typing www.amul.com will take

you to your favourite Amul; Similarly, www.wipro.com to Wipro. However, type

www.reliance.com and you go to Reliance Electric and not to our Reliance Group. Similarly,

there are a host of other names that can mislead. This is because someone has registered

the companies’ trademark or corporate name as an Internet domain name. Nothing

illegal, as domain names were assigned on a first-come first-served basis. They were

treated as characters and adequate significance was not attached to trademarks or brand

names.

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This system of registration led

to another phenomenon. Certain entrepreneurs registering a variety of trademarks or

corporate names as Internet domain names, in order to force the legitimate owners of these

to "buy" them back. But probably, not anymore. Thanks to the efforts of Internet

Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organization set up to

administer Internet activities.

The board of ICANN, in its first meeting held on

4 March 1999 in Singapore, moved forward on two important decisions. The requirements for

accreditation of domain name registrars in the .com, .net, and .org domains and a

structure for a proposed Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO). The underlying

principle for this is to protect the legal rights (including Intellectual Property Rights)

of the parties and of third parties wherever applicable and that the registration process

should embrace standard principles of good business practice, including legally

enforceable commitments by the parties to the registration agreement. Undoubtedly, it is a

significant step towards resolving the issue relating to misuse of intellectual property

rights in cyberspace. But hope this will not force people to vacate their names on

commercial grounds in favour of corporates in a big way.

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