Microsoft launches suits against alleged 'cybersquatters'

Microsoft Corp. announced a series of legal actionsagainst alleged "cybersquatters" in the United States and the United Kingdom on Wednesday, and called on other companies to tackle what it sees as a growing problem on the internet.

Cybersquatting is the name given to the practice of registering a domain name that either matches a known company or individual's name, or uses variations of those names to drive traffic to sites that generate revenue from pay-per-click-advertisements.

Microsoft contends these websites profit from the company's name illegally and are infringing onits trademark. The company launched or refiled four civil suits in the United States and five new legal actions in the United Kingdom.

"These sites confuse visitors who are trying to reach genuine company websites, which can negatively affect corporate brands and reputations as well as impair the end-users' experience online," said Microsoft senior attorney Aaron Kornblum in a statement.

Microsoft says that in the past six months it has won the rights to more than 1,100 domain names it claimed infringed on its trademark. Kornblum said the company hopes its actions inspire other companies to do the same.

The announcement comes the day after the World Intellectual Property Organization issued a report saying cybersquatting complaints rose 25 per cent in the last year, a sign that companies other than Microsoft are already taking action.

The United Nations copyright agency — which handles more than half of the world's cybersquatting cases — said it received 1,823 complaints in 2006 alleging abusive registrations of trademarks as internet domain names.

The complaints come mainly from information technology, financial and pharmaceutical companies, WIPO said.

"Domain names used to be primarily specific identifiers of business and other internet users, but many names nowadays are mere commodities for speculative gain," WIPO's deputy director general, Francis Gurry, said.

The WIPO report said the number of complaints was the highest since 2000,the year after the establishment of the arbitration process that allowed trademark holders who believed they had a right to a name to claim it without going to court.

WIPO said the rise is due in part to a practice known as "domain tasting," where speculators sample domain names in large numbers and keep only those names that generate enough visitors.

While anyone can register a domain name for a few dollars as long as no one else holds its rights, critics argue the arbitration process favours trademark holders over people who may have legitimate rights to a website name for the purposes of parody or criticism. The WIPO has favoured the complainant in 84 per cent of the cases.