To help maintain the overall integrity of the Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS), at the request of the United States Government supported by all Member States, in 1999 following an extensive process of international consultations, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) created the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) to address cross-border trademark-abusive domain name registrations, a practice widely known as cybersquatting. Sometimes heralded as one of mankind’s greatest innovations, for all of its positive attributes, even looking back to its early days the Internet has also provided a platform for a range of bad-faith practices across territorial borders including Intellectual Property infringement. Its ubiquity both as a commercial medium – facilitating trillions of dollars in trade annually – and as a means of disseminating information globally is self-evident. The World Wide Web in 2014 celebrated its 25th anniversary.
