The Swiss-based World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo), the United Nations (UN) agency responsible for intellectual property protection which provides an arbitration service to Icann, the international domain name registration administrator, announced on 10 July that it will be expanding its dispute settlement efforts to combat the practice of ‘cybersquatting’ domain names on the internet.
The last 12 months have seen an explosion in name registration, with the number of registered domains doubling to about 16 million worldwide.
In most countries, domain names are sold on a first-come-first-served basis, leaving companies open to ‘cybersquatters’ who register a name in the hope of selling it to the rightful owner.
