AOL embroiled in domain name wrangle
By Jiang Jingjing (China Business Weekly)
Updated: 2004-08-24 15:15

Web surfers searching for net pals on a well-known website have been surprised by something entirely different -- a directory of Chinese companies.

For the web address www.icq.com.cn is not the Chinese version of AOL's (America Online) successful e-instant messaging service-- but a staid business page owned by a Chinese web solutions company.

And a commission has ruled HiChina Solutions may keep the domain name as it acted within the law when using the ICQ acronym -- which stands for "I seek you" in Web-speak --in the address.

China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) ruled AOL failed to provide enough proof to support its possession rights and therefore it has no right to demand HiChina refrains from using the domain name.

AOL attorney Shao Wei disagrees with the arbitration result.

ICQ is a world famous brand with 150 million users worldwide. It registered the trademarks in China in 2000, said Shao.

"According to the principle of related effect, no domain with 'ICQ' should be registered by other firms," Shao claimed.

AOL registered www.icq.com in 1998 in the United States.

However, HiChina argued there is no proof to support that ICQ is a famous brand, although it has a large number of users.

"AOL is a well-known firm globally, but that does not mean its single software could be a famous brand all over the world," argued Shen Liang, HiChina's public relations chief.

Shen added their "ICQ" stands for "Internet Common Questions,", a term used by the Beijing Magic Internet Technology Co Ltd to name a website to popularize the Web technology in China.

HiChina acquired Magic in 2000.

In addition, Magic registered the domain name on September 29, 1998 -- three months earlier than the registration of www.icq.com in the United States, and 18 months before AOL registered its trademark in China.

"How can they say we stole their name?"asked Shen.

AOL still has the right to put the dispute into lawsuits said attorney Shao, but so far he has not received any notice from the client.

In 1998, AOL spent US$287 million on acquiring an Israeli firm Mirabilis Ltd, the founder of ICQ.

Since then it has spent several millions US dollars each year on promoting the brand all over the world.

Industrial insiders say AOL, which so far has no representative offices in China, has made two mistakes on the issue.

First, being an Internet company, AOL should have been aware of the importance of the Internet resources, and secondly the firm should not have ignored the .cn on domain names, which represents the market of the world's most populous country, said Qi Lin, a customers service staff with China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), the authorized issuer of .cn domain names by the world's Internet co-ordination body, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

International firms should realize the importance of registering a local domain name while they are busy localizing their products and personnel, he said.

He pointed out many firms, both domestic and foreign, ignored the importance of .cn names, thinking .com is enough for their global business e-needs.

"They forget about the faster and more stable service that .cn can offer," he added.

It is unavoidable that if some incidents happen, .com access would be at the risk. Only those with .cn would not suspend their business in China, Qi said.

Currently, there are 380,000 domains ending.cn while 27 million with .com.

Close