Preventing Cross-Border Domain-Name Disputes

Every ecommerce merchant has a domain name. For U.S. based merchants, it likely ends in a .com, or a .net, or both. But there are over 200 country-specific top-level domains — such as .cn for China, or .co.uk for the United Kingdom. Should a non-resident merchant reserve those domains, too? And what happens if someone in another country steals a merchant’s name, and reserves it the local top-level domain code? To help us understand cross border domain-name issues, we are joined once more by Gretchen Olive. She’s an attorney and director of policy and industry affairs for Corporation Service Company, a trademark and domain-name service provider. She speaks with Practical Ecommerce’s Kerry Murdock.