Dog Fight Over SPCA.COM Domain Name Dispute

The Montreal, Quebec Court released an interim and partial injunction regarding the domain name SPCA.COM according to CTV News, but the domain name registrant is allowed to keep it, at least for now, pending the outcome of a trial involving other issues such as wrongful dismissal and defamation. The domain name registrant was reportedly permitted to keep the domain name but must direct donations received throught the web site to a trust fund, pending the outcome of the action. Although not a domain name lawyer, renowned Canadian constitutional lawyer Julius Grey is representing the registrant, and I imagine is providing top-not counsel to the registrant.

Canadian Prime Minister Needs A Good Domain Name Lawyer?

Canada's Globe and Mail reported today that "Edmonton-based blogger Dave Cournoyer pointed out on his blog Thursday night that the website stephenharper.com is actually a link to a portal for adult personals, replete with images of women clad in black lingerie and stiletto heels."  *****[The Story seems to have been removed by the  Glober now...weird...Maybe because it was inaccurate or for some other reason??]*****

Upon checking it on Friday morning however, I saw that it is currently just pointed to a standard PPC page. The story also points out that StephenHarper.org is a lampoon web site about the Canadian Prime Minister.

As a domain name dispute lawyer, I would say that the .org domain name is probably beyond the reach of Stephen Harper, assuming he would even be interested in going after it, since it is likely a non-commercial and fair use, e.g. for the purposes of review, critiscism, and commentary, as understood by the UDRP and by trademark law. The .com however, could theoretically be caught by the ICANN UDRP, if the PM brought a case to WIPO or the NAF, for example, if he was able to provide "trademark rights" in his name, and showed that the registrant had "no legitimate interest" in the domain name, and registered it and used it in "bad faith".

In this Jay Leno case reported by the Calgary Herald, one can see a summary of the WIPO's analysis of the UDRP provisions regarding personal names and common law trademark rights. The actual ICANN UDRP WIPO domain name dispute case can be read here.

Facebook Takedowns

I was on Global News (Canadian national tv newscast); interviewed about the recent Facebook take-downs of member pages. You can watch the segment here. Here is an update of the news story...

Interesting Internet legal issue for me considering my recent experience with moderation, as per my below posts.

This is the big issue: Facebook has 300 million members in its "community". Likewise, millions of people are members of other "communities". In tradtional, bricks and mortar communities, governments are supposed to protect member's rights in the "community"; at least in democracies. Has the time come for online communities to employ a "Charter of Rights" for members?