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ARTICLE · 12 MAY 2000

Protecting Dot.com Brands

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CanadaMedia, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment
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By E. Susan Vogt , [email protected]

Published 1/1/00

One of the biggest obstacles to electronic commerce is domain name regulation. In a perfect world, the owner of a well-known brand would have presumptive rights to Famousbrand.com or Famousbrand.ca. Not so in cyberspace. A domain name can be pirated by a cybersquatter or by an innocent third party who shares the famous name. The ca. domain is so problematic that some Canadians have taken to registering in the U.K. (Which is perfectly legal in cyberspace).

".ca" is the top-level domain for Canada. Every country has its own top-level domain identified by a two-letter suffix. As the Internet evolved, the U.S. regulators, a quasi-governmental group, delegated temporary authority for the .ca domain to a University of British Columbia professor.

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