David Weslow Discusses Terror Victims’ Lawsuit to Seize Countries’ Domain Names

David E. Weslow, a partner in Wiley Rein’s Intellectual Property Practice, was quoted today in a Washington Internet Daily article about a lawsuit in which victims of state-sponsored terrorism are seeking to seize country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) from the governments of Iran (.ir), Syria (.sy) and North Korea (.kp).

Efforts to seize a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry “would be unprecedented,” and efforts to seize a ccTLD registry “would be even more so,” Mr. Weslow said.  While the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) can approve operators of gTLD registries, ICANN “generally has no control or contractual relationship” with ccTLD registries, he said.