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Domain Name News
Kid-Friendly Internet Domain Bill Heads to House Floor (Reuters)
An effort to create a kid-friendly Internet zone free of violence,
pornography and other adult material cleared another hurdle on
Wednesday when a House of Representatives panel gave its unanimous
stamp of approval. 

http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=internetnews&StoryID=797118
 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-880288.html
 http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175785.html

Commission and WIPO get tough on cybersquatters (EuropeMedia.net)
The European Commission and the World intellectual property
organisation (WIPO) have announced plans to crack down on
cybersquatters.  
 http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=9915

Hong Kong Net Names Body Ready For Debut (Newsbytes)
A new non-profit body that will assume the management of Hong Kong's
dot-hk Internet domain will be inaugurated on April 22.
 http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175799.html

From The l.i.n.k.
The .CO Is A Public Interest Matter
The domain .co, although administered by a private entity, has an
outstanding character of public interest.
Consequently, the Universidad de los Andes, its administrator since
1991, cannot, independently, define the conditions under which the
domain ".co" must be administered, nor change its character of domain
of the country for transforming it into a generic domain for
identifying activities.
Last year the Universidad de los Andes initiated a process of bidding
for delivering the administration of the .co and convert it into an
identifying name for commercial activities.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Council of State prevented such
transaction from taking place and explained that "only the Colombian
State may regulate the conditions that favour and protect the domain
.co, in the public interest aimed at guaranteeing that all Colombian
citizens and the Internet community benefit from it and to avoid
actions that may generate monopolisation thereof."

From The l.i.n.k.
Germany - Federal Court Rules On The "Right To A Name"
According to a final decision of the German Federal Court of Justice
(Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) in November 2001 the use of a domain name
that is identical to the name of an existing company may infringe
this company's right to do business under a name.
The court was called on to decide a lawsuit in which Deutsche Shell
GmbH, a German subsidiary of the Royal Dutch Shell Group, sued a man
named Andreas Shell in order to prevent him from using the domain
www.shell.de.
The defendant had registered the domain name first and used it for
private purposes as well as for doing business on an avocational
basis which the Shell GmbH alleged to be an infringement of its right
to the name. The Federal Supreme Court has now decided that the right
to use a domain name, generally belongs to the person first
registered according to the principle of priority (citation of the
Court: "The early bird catches the worm"). This principle shall apply
whenever there is a legitimate interest in the use of the domain name
such as the identity with the private name, regardless of whether it
is claimed by a private person or a company.
However, this principle does not apply if one of the parties has an
outstanding interest in the use of the domain name. In the case at
issue the judges were convinced that due to the high profile of the
company Shell, a multitude of Internet users would expect
www.shell.de to represent that company rather than someone unknown to
the public. This exception must especially be considered if there are
no other means of informing interested customers of a differing
domain name used by the company. In such cases there exists a
legitimate interest to prevent the use of the name by anyone else. In
the court's opinion it would be reasonable to expect the defendant
Andreas Shell to use the domain name only with an appendix to
differentiate it clearly from Shell GmbH. As a result of the suit
Andreas Shell was ordered to stop the use of the domain www.shell.de
but did not have to give up his right to the domain registration in
favour of the Shell GmbH.



See http://www.alfa-redi.com/noticia/ for the web version of the
news, along with an archive.


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