There has been a lot of consideration of the rights of trademark owners in domain names, both in general and on this list. I haven't seen the corresponding consideration given to the rights of non-commercial individuals; in fact the latest version of the ICANN UDRP that I can find (http://www.icann.org/en/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm) is silent on this issue. Yet it seems that 15 USC 1129 (see http://www.bitlaw.com/source/15usc/1129.html) offers some protection to (some) individuals. (Some references say this only applies to "famous" individuals; and U.S. law is restricted to the U.S.) I can see where this can be made a complex issue - e.g. family names, not to mention variations thereof are hardly unique. Although in the trademark cases, "first come first serve" has been a successful tie-breaker some of the time. Here's a concrete example that (re-)piqued my interest. I own and have used example.net for some years, and would like to also have example.com. (Where 'example' is actually a variation of my family name.) It turns out that the .com address is held by a cybersquatter. That is, someone WHOIS says owns many, many names, has been on the losing end of many UDRP commercial arbitrations, has changed the name of his company several times, and has an address that google earth shows to be an apartment over a Mailboxes ETC store in England. Oh, and who doesn't respond to e-mail, even though there is a website on www.example.com that says "this domain may be for sale". So it would seem that the provisions of 15 USC 1129 would apply. But that requires a civil action - hardly reasonable for an individual. Especially since I'm in the U.S. - so unless there's equivalent law in the U.K., there's really no protection at all - at any price! I think NCUC should advocate for some reasonable set of rules that define and protect individuals' rights in domain names that parallel those of trademark owners. I'm not saying that the rules must produce a favorable outcome for my example (though it would be nice). But it does seem to me that ICANN's current omission of any provision for individuals' rights in domain names is a real issue for this group. Individuals are in our field of membership, and can not obtain a trademark unless they intend to use that mark in commerce. (Not to mention the cost.) Other opinions? Anyone care to take a stab at what "reasonable rules" might be? I also wonder whether there is a public policy argument that (a) domain names are a public resource and (b) a registrant who's sole purpose for registration of a name is to re-sell it represents an inferior use to that of a registrant who has a direct use for it. (Not necessarily a website, by the way.) That's probably a larger can of worms, but it might be an approach to consider when discussing whether cybersquatting has redeeming social value... By the way, I don't mean to restrict my comments to family names - among others, boat names, pet names, personal slogans, political statements are all reasonable things for individuals to want as their domain names. Timothe Litt ACM Distinguished Engineer (Previously used [log in to unmask] for e-mail on this list.) --------------------------------------------------------- This communication may not represent the ACM or my employer's views, if any, on the matters discussed.