A New Anticybersquatting Coalition

Apple’s iPhone is barely out and there are apparently 22,000 domain names that are copycats or imitations. Cybersquatting has become such a big problem and legal issue. There is a new watch group or coalition called Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) which plans to combat cybersquatting. The most common legal right infringed by cybersquatters is Trademark and Service mark rights. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) was signed as an amendment to the Lanham Act and it took effect on November 29, 1999. This domain name dispute law was intended to give trademark and service mark owners legal remedies against defendants who obtain domain names “in bad faith” that are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark.

We will have to wait and see how CADNA is different and effective from other such coalitions and how they plan to combat this huge problem of cybersquatting.