Re: Is the .to (Tonga) domain completely rogue and should be removed?

["Steven J. Sobol" <sjsobol () nacs net>]

On Thu, Oct 01, 1998 at 10:59:23AM -0400, Gary R Wright wrote:
> "Steven J. Sobol" writes:
> > > Certainly the legal confusion surrounding the gtld's shouldn't
> > > be used as a rational for not developing a process (which is
> > > what Barry suggested) for attending to problems associated with
> > > the country code domains.
> >
> > What sort of problems?
>
> Trademark/service mark conflicts come to mind.  But in general I
> would say one function of a legal system is to mediate disputes.

That, of course, is what NSI does. They disclaim responsibility for
arbitrating intellectual property disputes, and since they are not a
legislative or judicial agency, I'd have to say that is the correct
decision.

> Barry raised an issue (valid or not, take your pick) and asked if
> we should have a system by which disputes related to Internet
> facilities (such as domain name space) could be handled.

Right.

> To be more specific, an entity utilizing the .TO domain name was
> misrepresenting themselves using Barry's domain in .COM.  Now
> perhaps if Barry's domain was world.std.com.US he would have a more
> obvious legal process by which he could defend his use of
> world.std.com.US because it would clearly be within the name space
> assigned to the United States.

No, I don't necessarily think so. When something is done that is actionable,
either civilly (e.g. forgery of Barry's domain) or criminally (smurf attack),
I don't see how it's possible to judge jurisdiction based on Internet domain.


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