link to on line article

As the Internet blossomed into a global phenomenon in the mid-1990s, domain name disputes became one of the first legal issues to emerge. Designed as an easy and effective method to locate Web sites and route e-mail, speculators quickly realized the value in registering domain names — particularly those matching trademarks — and reselling them to the highest bidder.

The policy has since resolved thousands of domain-name disputes and at the same time attracted considerable controversy. While supporters point to the fact that the system is fast, global and relatively inexpensive, detractors note that the system has been plagued by allegations of bias and inconsistent decision-making. In the rush to stop cybersquatting, critics fear that the policy harms free speech interests; many criticism-oriented Web sites have been shut down under the guise of domain-name dispute claims. Most troubling have been studies that point to regular "forum shopping," where complainants select the arbitration provider most likely to rule in their favour.

When the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, which administers the dot-ca domain, sought to create its own dispute resolution policy, it took note of the dispute resolution policy's good and bad features and crafted a policy designed to resolve clear cases of cybersquatting, protect free speech, and avoid forum shopping. (In the interests of full disclosure, it should be noted that I currently sit on the registration authority's board of directors and assisted in the development of the current policy. The opinions expressed herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the board.)

The policy, known as the Canadian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, was launched last year. Although the sample size is admittedly relatively small and therefore not statistically significant (some might argue that the sample size is likely to remain small as the Canadian policy will always attract dozens, rather than thousands, of cases), there is some cause for concern as an analysis of the 13 decided cases reveals divisions in both interpretation of the rules and in outcome between arbitration providers.

On a substantive level, the most contentious issue appears to involve questions around the meaning of "confusingly similar." The Canadian policy requires the complainant, invariably the trademark holder, to prove that the contested domain name is confusingly similar to the name in which they have rights, known as the mark. While some panelists believe that the domain name and the mark must be virtually identical, others are satisfied with mere resemblance.

These different interpretations have yielded a series of decisions that are difficult to reconcile. For example, in cases involving airproducts.ca, cheaptickets.ca, and acrobat.ca, the panelists all found that the complainants did not show confusing similarity since their marks, such as Air Products Canada Ltd., were variations on the domain. Conversely, the Government of Canada successfully argued that a range of domain names, including weatheroffice.ca and ecgc.ca, were likely to cause confusion even though they merely resembled marks in which the government had rights.

Panelists have also disagreed on the importance that is attached to multiple domain name registrations. That issue may be relevant when the complainant tries to prove bad faith on the part of the domain name registrant. In several cases, panelists have expressed no concern with hundreds of registrations, while in another case, only three registrations was seen as sufficient to demonstrate a pattern of bad faith.

These differences in substantive interpretation constitute a setback for the dispute resolution policy, since it was hoped that the tightly drafted document would yield consistent decisions that address only the most obvious cases of cybersquatting and eliminated differences in policy interpretation.

Even more troubling is an unmistakable trend in outcome results between arbitration providers, a development that is likely to lead to forum shopping. When Canadian registration authority launched the dispute-resolution policy, it accredited two Canadian dispute resolution providers — the British Columbia International Commercial Arbitration Centre and Resolution Canada. Since complainants launch the action, they are entitled to select their provider.

With 13 cases now decided, the B.C. centre has decided eight of them, resulting in a domain name transfer in all but one decision. Resolution Canada, meanwhile, has handled five cases, transferring the domain name on only two occasions. While this is a very small sample, it has not escaped notice of the legal community who may well advise clients to select the provider with the more favourable track record.

Although these early developments raise concerns, the good news is that the dispute resolution policy is still its infancy and there is opportunity to tweak it. Much like the current ICANN review of its resolution policy, the Canadian registration authority should also consider an early review and contemplate amendments to ensure that the policy meets its goals of fairness for both domain name registrants and trademark holders.

link to html archive

GENEVA—The story of Internet governance typically focuses on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California, non-profit corporation. Established by the U.S. government in 1998, its mandate is to administer issues such as the allocation of new top-level domains and the implementation of a domain name dispute resolution policy.

Since its inception, ICANN has been at the centre of a storm of controversy. Internet users have bemoaned their lack of influence as the promised nine seats on the board of directors dwindled first to five seats and, more recently, to zero. Commercial interests have complained about hesitancy establishing new top-level domains.

While these criticisms have played out in the public eye, there has also been a hidden side to Internet governance. That side revealed itself in Geneva last week as delegates from around the world participated at an International Telecommunications Union workshop devoted to the interplay between national governments and country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs).

Various presentations revealed that the ICANN model of Internet self-regulation is treated with a healthy dose of skepticism at the national level. Rather, in the world of ccTLDs, the role of national governments is far more pronounced than is generally appreciated. Many governments eschew a purely self-regulatory approach in favour of actively administering their domain, or retaining ultimate control through legislation or contractual controls.

In domain-name parlance, the Internet is divided between two types of top-level domains. Generic top-level domains (gTLDs), which include dot-com, dot-net and dot-org, are generally considered international domains without an attachment to any specific country or government.

Operating alongside the dozen or so generic top-level domains, are nearly 250 country-code top-level domains representing countries and territories from every corner of the globe.

Within Canada, for example, the dot-ca domain name has become increasingly popular in recent years as organizations seek to establish an online presence that is clearly Canadian.

National governments tend to play an active role in their national domain due to public interest concerns. In many countries, the country-code domain is viewed as a national resource, with governments anxious to preserve at least a small slice of the Internet that reflects local values and policies.

This approach frequently manifests itself by limiting domain name registrations to individuals and businesses that meet local presence requirements. This in turn ensures that local law will apply should a dispute arise, and enshrining local privacy and free speech laws within the national domain name policy framework.

Not all countries have chosen a public interest model. Some have adopted a more market-oriented approach, competing directly with the generic top-level domains by opening their domain name to registration by anyone. The two largest country-code top level domains — dot-uk (United Kingdom) and dot-de (Germany), which both have millions of registrations, have adopted this approach.

At last week's Geneva meeting, it became increasingly clear that many country-code domains are now struggling to reconcile commercial success with the public interest. Some fear that as their domains pursue a market-based orientation, the public interest priorities may be cast aside in the hope of garnering ever more registrations and commercial success.

For example, representatives of the tiny Pacific Island of Niue attended the meeting and reported how the island government had granted the rights to sell dot-nu domains to a foreign company in return for Internet access throughout the island and a share of the resulting revenue. With the company firmly in control of the domain, the government lamented that the country had seen few of the promised benefits. In response, it has now passed national legislation seeking to re-affirm control over its own name.

The challenge of balancing commercial and public interest concerns resonates particularly loudly in Canada. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the agency responsible for administering the dot-ca (I currently sit on the CIRA board), has admirably held two open elections and has so far retained Canadian presence requirements that limit registration to those who reside in Canada or with a Canadian connection. At the same time, commercial success has come at a price as CIRA faces the challenge of achieving an effective governance balance that limits conflicts and adequately reflects the views of all stakeholders including Internet users, commercial enterprises and governments.

With ccTLDs growing faster than gTLDs in most countries, the tension between governmental and self-regulatory models of Internet governance is bound to increase. National domains can clearly compete with gTLDs on a commercial level or promote the public interest by placing limitations on the commercialization of the domain. Whether both goals can be achieved remains an unanswered question, one that may well determine the role of governments within Internet governance.

link to html archive

Last week an Ontario court issued a landmark judgment involving the domain name Canadian.biz. Effectively, it overruled a domain name dispute resolution decision that had called for the transfer of the domain from the original registrant to Molson Breweries.

The court's decision does much more than just reverse a plainly wrong initial outcome -- it provides one of the clearest examples of the absurdity of a domain name policy that grants trademark holders (such as, in this case, Molson) rights that extend far beyond those traditionally associated with trademark law. Following years of debate, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided in the fall of 2000 to establish seven new generic top-level domains, including dot-biz and dot-info. When it became clear that most of those new domains were to be allocated in either a random or first-come, first-served basis, trademark interests expressed concern that the new domains would provide fertile ground for a fresh round of cybersquatting. Their fear was that speculators would snap up domain names matching their trademarks and then demand sizable payments in return for transferring the domain names.

To alleviate those concerns, several approaches were adopted. For dot-biz domains, the Start-Up Trademark Opposition Policy, or STOP, was instituted. It allowed trademark holders to register an intellectual property claim in a particular trademark before Neulevel, the dot-biz registrar, began allowing registrations. The premise was simple: By registering an IP claim, trademark holders were entitled to later seek the transfer of the domain name if it was registered in bad faith.

Douglas Black, a University of Toronto graduate, registered Canadian.biz with plans to use the domain for an on-line business. Molson Breweries holds a controversial trademark in the word Canadian in association with beer and when Mr. Black refused to surrender the domain name, the brewery launched a STOP action, having previously registered an IP claim.

The STOP decision, which reads much like the dispute resolution cases involving dot-com domains, was decided by Robert Merhige, a retired U.S. judge who began practising law in Virginia in 1942. He determined that Molson indeed had a trademark in the word Canadian and that Mr. Black has no such rights in the name. He did not find Mr. Black's contention that he intended to create a business site persuasive, ruling that this was a case of bad faith and the domain name should be transferred to Molson.

It is important to note that this decision is actually fairly typical. In recent months, panelists have ordered the transfer of such generic-sounding domains as airport.biz, brands.biz, huge.biz, monopoly.biz, paint.biz, parents.biz, switchboard.biz, and taxman.biz. In fact, the Canadian.biz case is not even the only dot-biz case with a Canadian connection. Ottawa.biz was recently transferred to Kalmar Industries USA Inc., a Texas company that owns a trademark in the word Ottawa in connection with truck tractors. In its case, Kalmar Industries argued the fact that Ottawa is also the capital of Canada was irrelevant and the presiding panelist agreed.

What makes the Canadian.biz case unique is that Mr. Black decided to challenge the decision in a Canadian court. Once there, the silliness of these decisions was left behind, while the judge was left to wonder how Molson, which had no stated plans for the domain, could assert that it was solely deserving of owning the Canadian.biz domain when thousands of businesses use the word Canadian in their names.

In a direct challenge to domain name dispute resolution policy, the judge concluded that "simply because a domain name is identical or similar to a trademark name should not result in the transfer of the domain name to the trademark owner. In my view, unless there is some evidence that the use of the domain name infringes on the use of the trademark name, a person other than the owner of the trademark should be able to continue to use the domain name."

Trademarks are important rights that enable holders to establish brand awareness and loyalty while protecting consumers from marketplace confusion. What they typically do not do, however, is grant trademark holders a complete monopoly over the use of a word.

In working through the panelist's bad-faith analysis in the Canadian.biz case, the judge noted that if it were correct, the only person who could register Canadian.biz without bad faith would be Molson, an approach that would in fact grant the company a complete monopoly over the word Canadian for all domain name purposes.

While the judge ended that outcome in this case, the extension of monopolistic rights in words to trademark holders is precisely what has happened in hundreds of domain name cases. Trademark holders now commonly argue that any domain name that includes their mark is likely to cause confusion in the minds of consumers (never mind that few people seek out Web sites by guessing the domain), was registered in bad faith (never mind that domains such as vivendiuniversalsucks.com were to be used as criticism sites yet were still regarded as bad-faith registrations), and should therefore be transferred.

In further stretching the boundaries of trademark law, recent domain name decisions have even suggested that registrants have a positive obligation to search for possible overlapping trademark registrations or even past domain name dispute resolution cases involving the trademark holder.

It is ironic that while global e-commerce legislation has been focused on ensuring equality between on-line and off-line rules, domain name dispute resolution policy has granted trademark holders far more rights on-line than off-line and in the process effectively created a new super-trademark. Perhaps this decision will begin to put a stop to policies that left traditional trademark norms behind long ago.

link to html archive

An update to a controversial 2001 study that questioned the fairness of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers' domain name dispute-resolution policy suggests that things have gone from bad to worse.

The update, being released today, indicates that, over the past seven months, forum shopping has continued unabated, claiming its first arbitration provider victim -- Montreal-based eResolution Inc. -- which closed its doors for good in December because it could not compete with rivals that tended to favour complainants.

Meanwhile, case allocation trends have grown even more pronounced, with a small group of panelists deciding an ever-increasing share of cases.

The original study reached several major conclusions. First, it found clear evidence of forum shopping. Complainants, who are invariably trademark holders, tend to select the two arbitration providers -- the World Intellectual Property Organization and the National Arbitration Forum -- who rule most consistently in their favour.

Second, the study found a significant difference in case outcomes when comparing single-panel versus three-member panel cases. Since arbitration providers alone assign panelists for all single-panel cases (unlike three-member panel cases, where the participants themselves largely determine panel composition), they have the power to influence case outcome based on their case-allocation practices.

The data suggested that WIPO and NAF may have used that power to assign cases in a less than random manner. NAF assigned 53 per cent of its single-panel cases to only six panelists, who collectively ruled in favour of complainants 94 per cent of the time. WIPO, meanwhile, failed to assign any of its 1,629 cases to two panelists who are generally viewed as more sympathetic toward domain-name registrants.

Critics argued that there was a simple explanation for the findings, noting the study did not distinguish between cases where the registrant responded to a claim and those where no response was received, referred to as a "default" case. Critics claimed that focusing on the non-default cases would reveal no difference between providers.

The updated study now accounts for all 4,332 UDRP decisions released before Feb. 18, 2002. WIPO and NAF continue to rule in favour of complainants 20 per cent more often than their competitors, and have been rewarded with a market share near 95 per cent.

The differences between single- and three-member panel cases also remain unchanged. NAF's six busiest panelists have decided 56.4 per cent of all of that provider's single-panel cases, with the complainant-win percentage in those decisions over 95 per cent.

Most interesting are new data comparing default and non-default cases. Default cases constitute 54 per cent of cases, with complainants prevailing 94 per cent of the time. There are differences between providers, however -- complainants win 98 per cent of NAF default cases, 92 per cent of WIPO cases and only 79 per cent of eResolution cases.

In fact, the default track records of some of NAF's busiest panelists might lead observers to conclude that the UDRP has reversed the traditional maxim of innocent until proven guilty. Three of its busiest panelists have never ruled in favour of a registrant in 324 default cases.

The data on non-default cases, meanwhile, suggests that, contrary to some critics' claims, differences between providers, as well as between single and three-member panels outcomes, do not change. Complainants win 70 per cent and 69 per cent of the time with WIPO and NAF respectively, but only 50 per cent of the time with eResolution.

Similarly, the exclusion of defaults does not affect the difference in complainant win percentage when comparing single and three-member panels. While complainants win 68 per cent of single panel non-default cases, they win only 46 per cent of contested three-member panel cases.

In short, defaults don't make a difference. Rather, with eResolution in bankruptcy court and allocation trends growing worse, the need for UDRP reform has become more critical.

link to html archive

Although most domain name disputes are primarily a matter of trademark law, recent experience suggests that cases are increasingly moving beyond issues of trademarks toward fundamental questions of freedom of speech.

The different approaches are highlighted by comparing how the dispute resolution processes for dot-com and dot-ca domains names handle protest domains such as errorplan.com -- a new Web site criticizing Air Canada's Aeroplan program -- and the multitude of "sucks" sites, such as vivendiuniversalsucks.com and Wallmartcanadasucks.com.

The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers' uniform domain name dispute resolution process (ICANN UDRP) has addressed at least a dozen protest domains over the past two years with maddeningly inconsistent results.

In a few instances, panelists have taken care not to transfer a domain simply because it is irritating to an established trademark holder.

In a decision involving Wallmartcanadasucks.com, for example, a UDRP panelist ruled that Ken Harvey, a Canadian, was entitled to retain the domain since the "sucks" domain was not confusing with the target trademark, and the domain wasn't considered to have been registered in bad faith.

A significant number of cases have reached the opposite conclusion, however, employing tortured reasoning to squeeze "sucks" domains into the confines of the UDRP.

In one recent bizarre case, a panelist ordered the transfer of vivendiuniversalsucks.com to Vivendi Universal, concluding that some Web users might confuse the "sucks" site with the corporate site.

How might consumers mix up the two sites? According to this decision, appending "sucks" to the domain did not remove the potential confusion, since some entities might actually want to include the word sucks in their domain name. As support for this conclusion, the panelist argued that a vacuum cleaner maker such as Electrolux might want electroluxsucks.com, or that a rock band might employ the word suck in the title of a song and proceed to register a "sucks" domain.

Moreover, free speech concerns involving the UDRP are not limited to protest sites. In a decision released late last monthJan, a panelist considered the applicability of the UDRP to several domains that bore the names of German government ministries. The sites in question contained Nazi content that is illegal in Germany but legal in the United States. Although the sites were U.S.-based, the panel transferred the domains to the German government, illustrating how domain name dispute resolution can actually trump free speech rights.

In marked contrast to the UDRP, the newly established Canadian domain name dispute resolution policy expressly protects good faith, non-commercial uses of domain names, providing that criticism, review, or news reporting is interpreted as a legitimate interest in the domain.

The inclusion of this provision is critical, since a domain name owner can win a dispute by proving they have a legitimate interest in the domain, even if the domain is confusingly similar to a trademark or if there is some evidence of bad faith at the time of registration.

The difference between the two approaches is made plain when considering the status of errorplan.com.

When the site began generating publicity several weeks ago, Air Canada quickly launched an investigation, and indicated that it planned to pursue all available legal remedies against the site and its owners.

While a UDRP action against the domain name would be a close call, there is little question the domain would be protected had the owners used errorplan.ca instead.

Until recently, trademark law rarely entered into the realm of free speech issues. That is clearly no longer the case as trademark and speech considerations come into conflict with increasing frequency.

On this issue, it is good to see that it is Canada that is consistently siding with speech.

link to html archive

A
is for antiterrorism legislation,which dominated public debate throughout the fall. The 171-page bill, known as Bill C-36, raised numerous cyberlaw concerns including its impact on privacy rights and cybercrime. Somewhat overlooked was the announcement that Canada will ratify an international cybercrime treaty, which will provide law enforcement with greater cross-border power to combat on-line criminal activity. 

B
is for the Domain Name Baron,who lost 31 of 32 government-related Web domains after Ottawa successfully launched a cybersquatting action under the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers' uniform domain name dispute resolution policy (UDRP).

C
is for the copyright reform process,which was launched in early summer. A four-month public consultation drew hundreds of individual submissions expressing fears about the potential for a U.S.-style approach to digital copyright in Canada.

D
is for the dot-ca domain name dispute resolution policy,finalized in late November after nearly two years of drafting and public debate. The Canadian Dispute Resolution Policy is modelled on the ICANN UDRP, yet contains several provisions that distinguish it, including more clearly defined criteria for bad-faith registration and legitimate interest in a domain, express protection for Web site criticism, and the use of three-member panels to adjudicate disputes.

E
is for the expressvu.org domain name,the subject of litigation between Bell Expressvu and Ted Edmonds, a retailer of grey market direct-to-home satellite services. An Ontario court refused to transfer the dot-org domain to Bell, citing its prior ownership of the dot-com version of the expressvu domain.

F
is for the Fair Practices Branch of Canada's Competition Bureau,which in May released its perspective on Internet advertising in draft guidelines detailing the government's requirements for on-line advertising disclosures including the use of disclaimers, links, and the proximity of consumer information to product claims.

G
is for Guillot v. Istek Corp.,a Federal Court decision released in late July, involving a copyright infringement claim over articles and links posted on a Web site. Although the court acknowledged that the articles may have been copied, it declined to issue an injunction to force the material off the Web, ruling that material freely posted on the Internet may include an implied licence to make copies for personal use.

H
is for the harmonization of Canadian on-line consumer protection law. The Consumer Measures Committee, a federal-provincial-territorial body that works to develop harmonized consumer laws in Canada, approved the Internet Sales Contract Harmonization Template in May. The template will serve as a model for provinces across the country seeking to enact on-line consumer protection legislation of their own.

I
is for iTravel.ca,the first dot-ca domain name dispute to land in Canadian courts. The court proceeded to issue an injunction prohibiting the name from being transferred or sold, mistakenly fearing that the potential transfer of the domain to a foreign party would leave it beyond the reach of the Canadian legal system.

J
is for JumpTV,the Montreal-based Webcaster that angered the broadcasting community by promising to pick up where iCraveTV left off by retransmitting television programs on the Internet. Unlike iCraveTV, however, JumpTV first sought to establish an Internet retransmission tariff and promised to deploy "bordering" technologies that would ensure that only Canadians could access its broadcasts.

K
is for Kazaa,one of several new file sharing programs that filled the void left when Napster was ordered off the Web in the summer. The recording and movie industries proceeded to sue this new crop of services as well, ensuring that digital copyright litigation will continue to garner headlines next year.

L
is for on-line lotteries,whose creation led to litigation in Prince Edward Island after the province became the first to attempt to license a Web-based lottery. The move drew heated responses from other provinces, arguing that the license would violate the Canadian Criminal Code.

M
is for Manitoba,which became the first province to enact specific legislation designed to provide consumers with protection for on-line purchases. The new rules assist consumers by requiring on-line sellers to disclose a wide range of information to prospective purchasers before entering into a transaction.

N
is for Nutrisystem.com,which contested ownership of the sweetsuccess.com domain in an Ontario court and led to one of the more complicated Canadian cyberlaw cases of the year. The judge ultimately refused to rule on the matter, deciding that Ontario was not the proper forum.

O
is for the Office and Professional Employees' International Union, Local 378, a trade union that established a strike Web site, using both bcaaonstrike.com and picketline.com as its domain names. The site led to a landmark B.C. Supreme Court decision that upheld the union's right to maintain the sites and reassured those who use the Web for genuine consumer criticism or corporate protest that legal protections for critical speech exist on-line as well as offline.

P
is for Canada's Privacy Commissioner,George Radwanski. While the commissioner played an important role in the privacy versus security debate following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he was best known this year not for what he said, but rather for what he did not say. Despite a letter-writing campaign from dozens of Canada's leading privacy experts, the Commissioner only disclosed his decisions under the new federal privacy law in mid-December, leaving both companies and individuals in the dark for most of the year about their privacy rights and obligations.

Q
is for Quebec's language authorities,who fined a Quebec couple for maintaining a maple syrup selling Web site solely in English. A lawyer representing the couple claimed they sell only outside of the province and that the language charter should not apply to the Net.

R
is for Heather Robertson,a freelance writer who is suing Thomson Corp. and The Globe and Mail over the different copyright rights of publishers and freelancers in newspaper articles later made available by publishers through on-line databases. An Ontario court in October refused the freelancers' application for an early judgment in their favour, but ruled (in a decision that could be appealed) that they owned copyright in their articles. The court left for a later trial the issue of whether the publishers had obtained necessary consents from the freelancers for the database availability of the articles.

S
is for Sprint Canada,which found itself on the losing end of a domain name dispute involving SprintCanada.com. The Federal Court of Canada ruled that since the disputed domain was never used for a Web site, there was no public confusion and therefore no trademark infringement.

T
is for trademarks and territory,two subjects at the heart of the ProCD v. Computer City case. In September, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned a lower court decision that found a U.S. computer retailer liable for damages resulting from Web-based ads.

The appellate court ruled that the legislation required a "use" in Canada, and that it could not be extended to passive ads from an out-of-country Web site.

U
is for ICANN's UDRP, the target of intense criticism throughout the year. This stemmed from concerns about trademark holders' ability to select their desired arbitration provider. The consequences of this "forum shopping" hit close to home late in the year, when eResolution, the sole Canadian dispute resolution provider in the ICANN system, decided to stop providing its UDRP services, citing cost concerns and perceptions of bias.

V
is for vote,which is what thousands of dot-ca domain name owners did as part of the first Canadian Internet Registration Authority election in June. Conducted exclusively on-line, the election is widely regarded as a model for other domain names around the world.

W
is for the Weir case,an Alberta Court of Appeal decision in July that addressed issues such as reasonable expectations for e-mail privacy. The court upheld a lower court conviction of Dale Weir on charges of possession of child pornography.

X
is for Windows XP,the latest version of the popular Microsoft operating system, which critics argued was left generally untouched by a U.S. settlement of antitrust claims against the company. Despite considerable interest in the case among Canadian consumers and software companies, Canadian competition officials never established an official public position on the matter.

Y
is for yellowbusinessdirectory.com,a Web site scam that led the Canadian Competition Bureau to charge three individuals and two corporations with misleading advertising and deceptive practices arising from unsolicited mailings that billed 250,000 businesses for inclusion in the on-line directory.

Z
is for Zundelsite (http://www.lebensraum.org),a hate Web site subject to protracted litigation under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Provisions contained in Bill C-36 removed uncertainty over whether the Act applies to the Internet, since the bill clearly states that telephonic, Internet, and other communications tools are all covered.