Cyber Battles

The World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) says cyber squatters are increasingly encroaching dot coms and country code domains, all over the world.



The World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) says cyber squatters are increasingly encroaching dot coms and country code domains, all over the world. According to WIPO cyber squatting, or the illegal use of names or trademarks as domain names is on the rise worldwide.

"WIPO continued its efforts to combat the abusive registration of trademarks as domain names, or cyber squatting, in 2004, when it received 1,179 cases, or a 6.

6 percent increase, over the number received the previous year," said a statement from WIPO.

In Sri Lanka however, complaints of cyber squatting are rare, with local companies still not standing up to defend their trademarks in cyberspace.

"We receive less than one complaint on domain names, per year.

Over the last 10 years there would have been about two such cases," said the domain registrar of the .

lk domain registry, Gihan Dias.

But in other parts of the world domain names are becoming increasingly contentious with celebrities and corporates demarcating their tr