Cybersquatting on the rise

There were 2,156 complaints about cybersquatting in 2007, an 18 per cent rise on the previous year, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Cybersquatting is the practice of illegally buying up domain names that are similar to a well-known brand with a view to drawing traffic away from that company to your own website.

"The increases confirm that 'cybersquatting' remains a significant issue for rights holders," said Francis Gurry, WIPO's deputy director general.

WIPO said that many people registering the domain names were hiding behind privacy laws to conceal their true identity. It also said that the changing nature of the DNS (domain name system) played into the hands of cybersquatters.

The DNS is the system used to match domain names to IP addresses to send you to the right website when type in a URL or click on a link.

"This is not just an issue of protecting rights of trademark holders, but also an issue of the reliability of the addressing system of the internet in matching interested parties with authentic subjects," continued Gurry.

Cybersquatting complaints are made under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) procedure, set up in 1999. Some of the complaints made in 2007 involved social-networking sites Facebook and MySpace as well as the 2010 World Cup.

www.wipo.int