Lord of Your Domain, But Master of None: The Need to Harmonize and Recalibrate the Domain Name Regime of Ownership and Control

The world has seen three waves of property. The first hark backcenturies and relate to ‘real and personal property’such as land and chattel, also known as immovable and movableproperty. The second gained recognition around the nineteenthcentury and relates to propertization of the ‘laboursof the mind’ or ‘intellectual property’. Thethird wave came within a much shorter period and starting togain recognition and it is what is known as ‘virtual property’.The law and policy-makers have had to surmount not only a steeplearning curve but also in some cases a foundation that is wroughtwith mistakes when it comes to the treatment that should begiven to virtual property. The Domain Name System (DNS) is thebest example of a form of virtual property that has given riseto challenges in law making and administration. The ‘landgrab’ of domain names in the World Wide Web (WWW) havegiven rise to a virtual tsunami of registrations and this hasled to the subsequent erection of levees in the form of a challengeregime. This paper will identify and consider the problems thatthe DNS is facing and suggest the changes that have to be madeto it in order for it to withstand the forces of what will bean increasingly rising sea of domain names on the WWW. This paper will begin with a look at the fissures in the seabedof the DNS by comparing how the management and policies relatingto domain name registration and challenge have shifted and divergedin different jurisdictions as well as by examining the inadequaciesof the original registration regime (ICANN) and challenge policy(UDRP). After identifying the problem, suggestions will be madeto resolve them in the best possible way, which require a revisitof the stakeholder and policy interests in the Internet andthe ownership and control of domain names that essentially functionas an important gateway to the WWW in order to rebalance theseinterests in an attempt to achieve greatest equilibrium. Amendmentswill be proposed to both the registration and challenge regimesas well as to the structure and hierarchy of domain name administrationwhich should be a globally coordinated effort just as the DNSis a common entryway to the global property that is the WWW.