NEW APPROACH TO DOMAIN NAME DISPUTES

With the rapid expansion of the Internet, domain name disputes have been occurring with increasing frequency. One of TWNIC's tasks is to establish an environment for resolving such disputes at minimum cost and speed and within a legal framework. To this end, the Domain Name Committee set up the "Domain Name Dispute Handling Research Group," with Professor Hsieh Ming-yang of National Taiwan University's Department of Law as the Group's convenor. The Group is to review and research methods of handling and implementing solutions to domestic domain name disputes in the spirit of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy of ICANN.

On March 9, 2001, the Domain Name Committee authorized two independent, non-profit organizations, the Technical Law Center of the Institute of Information Industry and the Taipei Bar Association to handle relevant cases of domestic Internet disputes. The two organizations officially began operations on March 29. The Technical Law Center is currently investigating its first case (http://www.m-ms.com.tw), and a decision is expected in August.

It is hoped that in future the domestic Internet environment will continue to develop in a positive direction with a speedy and effective mechanism for the resolution of such disputes.