Who_am_I .com: The Anonymous Domain Names on the Internet

The top-level domains (TLDs) on the Internet are the characters that one sees after the last dot (.) in an internet address or universal resource locator (URL). Examples of TLDs are .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov and recent inclusions of info, .biz etc. The country domain names also fall under the TLDs; e.g. .bt (Bhutan), .uk (United Kingdom), .au (Australia), .in (India) etc.

An individual, company or country can obtain rights to a TLD(s) and hence sell, lease, register etc. all possible domain names under that TLD. Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC) a registered service mark of the U.S. Department of Commerce has been licensed to Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which ensures a global uniformity of domain names and Internet Protocol (IP) numbers or addresses on the Internet. ICANN maintains a list of accredited registrars through whom countries, companies and individuals can register domain names. These registrars, mostly based in the US and Canada are companies and organizations involved with networking, IT, Internet services and web hosting. Most registrars if not all maintain a global network of partners, resellers and wholesalers that provide domain name registration services.

ICANN also has approved providers for domain name resolutions incase of disputes and conflicts. Some of these providers are CDR Institute, New York and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Geneva. Recently another provider for the Asia Pacific region has been approved which is based in Hong Kong. It takes between one to six years to resolve disputes on domain names. Some disputes are also resolved out of court and involve huge amount of money.

Lower-level domain names are easy to acquire from a registrar or reseller with moderate fees, renewable on a monthly, biannual, annual, 5-year and 10-year basis (depending on the registrar or reseller’s terms and conditions). However, the TLDs are more difficult to acquire from the registrars. For example, it took almost four years for Bhutan Telecom to acquire the rights for the country domain name .bt (for Bhutan) from the registrar, Network Solutions, Inc. (US) to whom ICANN has allotted rights for all the country domains along with some other TLDs.

Many registrars and their network of partners and resellers are offering online registration of low-level domain names in real time. This means that as soon as a pre-registered domain name, say, xyz.com becomes available (due to non-renewal or cancellation), someone else can instantly register it. As opposed to the limited number of TLDs and country domain names, the possible combinations of usable low-level domain names are infinite. This has bought about what is known as cyber squatting, domain name grabbing, domain pirating, etc. whereby an individual or a company would specialize in registering available domain names with multiple combinations and then advertise the domain names for sale to the highest bidder.

The available domain names that had been pre-registered and well advertised or used would fetch higher sums as these names can be used as portals and hyperlinks to other lesser-known Internet sites. Mostly, hyperlinks are made to web sites that contain pornography, anti-social and sacrilegious literature.

Normally, these domain pirates, while registering would not reveal their true identity and would register with false information or use aliases and hide behind companies that do not exist.

The following table provides information that is currently on the Internet, on the domain names: kuensel.com (pre-registered), drukair.com (pre-registered) and bhutan.com

Although disputed names in the .com TLD, have been resolved either in or outside of court it would be futile and impractical for an individual or company with a registered name or trademark to register all domain names. This is because of sheer number of low-level domain names that can be generated under different TLDs. The case would be complicated if the individual or company has no registered name or trademark or service name or mark.

The following is an example of a name XYZ that may be used as domain names on the Internet without any alterations.

TLDs: xyz.com, xyz.org, xyz.net, xyz.tv, xyz.info, xyz.gov, xyz.edu, xyz.biz

Country name domain: xyz.com.bt, xyz.net.bt, xyz.org.bt, xyz.edu.bt, xyz.info.bt, xyz.gov.bt, xyz.biz.bt (This could be used for all the country name domains that are available).