[ItisaReligionofPeace]

"The ruling Tuesday said the registered owner of the name — Alberta Hot Rods of Alberta, Canada — had no rights or interests in the name."

And how exactly does the U.N. have jurisdiction over a company in Alberta, Canada?

[Lil'freeper]

It's a disturbing precedent.

[Poohbah]

If you purchase an InterNIC-supplied domain name, you agree to arbitration by this agency regarding these kinds of disputes.

[B Knotts]

The U.N. cannot dictate which root DNS servers I use.

That's the funny thing about all this ICANN stuff. It only affects the DNS system that happens to be en vogue.

It's simple to switch to another system entirely, which is wholly unaffected by the decisions of ICANN, the U.N., or anyone else.

I guess my point is that you can never truly "own" a domain name. If I want to edit my /etc/hosts file, and point michaelcrichton.com at an IP address for a webserver that is actually serving up the weather for Timbuktu, there ain't nobody that can stop me.

Granted, it would only affect users on my network. :-)

[eggman]

And how exactly does the U.N. have jurisdiction over a company in Alberta, Canada?

WIPO - All your domain are belong to us.

[eggman]

And how exactly does the U.N. have jurisdiction over a company in Alberta, Canada?

WIPO - All your domain are belong to us.