Proceedings under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) can be heard by either a one- or three-member panel. Here are eight important facts that every complainant (trademark owner) and respondent (domain name registrant) should consider when deciding whether to select one or three members... Either party - complainant or respondent - has an opportunity to select a three-member panel... more
A German appeals court has held a German domain name registrar (Key Systems) responsible for issuing a domain name to H33t, a torrent-tracking site. The case was appealed, but the appeals court upheld the lower court ruling. more
As of January 1, the delivery of ransomware is illegal in California as per Senate Bill 1137 going into effect. more
Large Language Models (LLM) like GPT -- 4 and its front-end ChatGPT work by ingesting gigantic amounts of text from the Internet to train the model and then responding to prompts with text generated from those models. Depending on who you ask, this is either one step (or maybe no steps) from Artificial General Intelligence, or as Ted Chiang wrote in the New Yorker, ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web. more
"Past performance does not necessarily predict future results." That's what the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires mutual funds tell investors. But it's also true about domain name disputes. Cases in point: In four recent proceedings under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), the operator of a large bank won two decisions but lost two others, despite a track record of having won more than 30 previous UDRP disputes. more
In a recent article published by WIRED Magazine, a significant shift in international law regarding cyberwarfare has been brought to light. The International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague has signaled its intention to investigate and prosecute hacking crimes that breach existing international law without the need for new regulations. more
Reporting further on the recent Bodog.com domain name seizure case based on gambling charges, Michael Geist writes: "In the Bodog.com case, U.S. officials targeted a site with limited connections to the country as the site had licensed out the bodog.com domain name in 2006 and stopped accepting U.S. bettors late last year. The legal issues surrounding its operations will be played out in court, but the manner in which the bodog.com name was seized could have a lasting impact on Internet governance." more
The sharing economy is a challenge for local communities. On the good, it creates economic opportunity and reduces the price. On the bad, it circumvents public safety and welfare protection. Such is the clash between Airbnb and local jurisdictions. San Francisco implemented a local ordinance that permits short-term rentals on the condition that the rental property is registered. In order to register the property, the resident must provide proof of liability insurance... more
Time to brush the dust off your Computer II notebooks. Are voicemail, electronic fax, and call forwarding enhanced services or telecom services? Today's case: FTC v. American eVoice, Ltd... The FTC brought an action against Defendants claiming that they were engaged in cramming, adding unwanted voicemail, electronic fax, and call forwarding services to consumers bills to the tune of $70 million. more
I attended a conference last week on Data Protection and one of the prime issues that cropped was that on the immanent complexity of legalese that prevents users from understanding the Terms & Conditions for which they're signing up when they join a social network, use an app or visit a website. This led to the Users being disinterested in understanding the T&Cs. This had a huge impact on Data Protection Policies since Users were ignorant about how their data was being used... more
Reported today on BBC: "Police chiefs are urging people looking for work during the recession to be alert to online scams that trick them into laundering money. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) says websites are currently being used to recruit 'money mules'. The 'mules are ordinary people who send and receive payments through their bank accounts to facilitate business." Neil Schwartzman has also informed us of a related report by RSA FraudAction Research Lab based on several months of tracking various reshipping scams engineered by online fraudsters. more
Here's a question: If 47 USC 230(c) (the Good Samaritan provision of the Communications Decency Act) says that online services are not liable for third party content, then can you even sue the online service? Shouldn't the online service be immune from lawsuit? Because, after all, what would be the point of being sued for something for which you cannot be liable? more
On November 16, the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, inadvertently released a policy brief entitled "Three Myths About Copyright Law" which was quickly withdrawn. Of course, as a work of the U.S. government, this document does not itself enjoy copyright protection, so it is widely available on the internet through groups like The Internet Archive project. more
The first element of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) requires a complainant to prove that the disputed domain name "is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights." It's unusual for a complainant to fail on this first of three prongs, but one recent case demonstrates just how uncertain the UDRP can be sometimes. more
The newly released handbook applies the practice of international law with respect to electronic warfare. The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare -- named for the Estonian capital where it was compiled -- was created at the behest of the NATO Co-operative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, a NATO think tank. It takes current rules on battlefield behaviour, such as the 1868 St Petersburg Declaration and the 1949 Geneva Convention, to the internet, occasionally in unexpected ways. more
A World-Renowned Source for Internet Developments. Serving Since 2002.