The Politics of Domain Names

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is in good company: he joins Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey and Mick Jagger, not to mention lesser celebrities such as one-time federal MPs Don Boudria and David McGuinty. This club can boast of the price that comes with celebrity in an internet age, since they’ve all had their personal names registered by someone else as domain names. In 2000, Julia Roberts fought and won a domain name dispute case over juliaroberts.com, paving the way for other celebrities and politicians to win back their domain names, including Mick Jagger and Kevin Spacey. In those cases, the panelists did not have trouble finding that celebrities have rights to their own names, even though the dispute resolution policy does not specifically say as much.
The dispute resolution procedure for dot-ca domain names (CDRP) is not identical to the UDRP which applies to dot-com domain name disputes. And further, a personal name has not yet been the subject of a dot-ca dispute under the CDRP. This means any attempt to run this dispute through the CDRP will break new ground.
Calgary – 23:30 MST

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