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Dept of Trade and Industry

Answer

Michael Fabricant: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the Government's policy towards the practice of cybersquatting; and what steps the Government are taking to reduce cybersquatting. [187957] Mr. Mike O'Brien: WIPO defines cybersquatting as the pre-emptive, bad faith registration of trademarks as domain names by third parties who do not possess rights in such names. Cyber squatters exploit the first come first served nature of the domain name registration system to register as domain names third parties' trademarks or business names of famous people as well as variations thereof. A common motive for cybersquatting is the intention to sell the domain name back to the trademark owner or to attract web traffic to unrelated commercial offers. The Government support the development of affordable alternative dispute resolution procedures by domain name registries. It is ICANN's (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers) responsibility to co-ordinate, at a global level, the internet domain name system. ICANN's board have adopted a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy for all registrars serving the .com, .net, and .org domains. Nominet UK manages the database of .uk domain name registrations. Nominet have a Dispute Resolution Procedure developed in close consultation with UK stakeholders.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

424 c1534W;424 c1532W; 187957

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Intellectual property Internet Misrepresentation Registration Trade marks

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk