The Chilean country code registry (.cl) has announced the formal introduction of a legal assistance service for registrants. Obviously they’re not going to get embroiled in all legal disputes, but what they are going to do is help registrants who might be hit with a dispute involving their domains. They’ve been working on this project for over a year, so this week’s announcement does not come as a surprise.
The concept is pretty simple. A lot of individuals and small businesses that register domains don’t have legal expertise nor do they have access to qualified lawyers who can help them navigate complex trademark disputes. There are universities and their law students in Chile who’d like to get practical experience in this area of law. Why not bring them all together?
Margarita Valdés from Nic Chile and Humberto Carrasco from Universidad Católica del Norte gave a presentation on the project last year during the ICANN meeting in Panamá which goes into the entire process in more detail:
It’d be interesting to see if other ccTLD domain registries look at offering similar services. It’s a nice way of levelling the playing field, while also helping mitigate some of the bullying that goes on with some bigger companies.
More details about the new service from Nic.cl is available here (in Spanish only).
