Illegal registration of domain name is a crime, court told

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The illegal registration of a domain name is a crime, not a civil matter, the president of the Singapore-based Asean Intellectual Property Association said on Monday in the first cybercrime trial here.

Murgiana Haq, a Singaporean lawyer, appeared at the Central Jakarta District Court as an expert witness during the trial of Tjandra Sugiono, a former general manager of international marketing firm PT Martina Berto. Tjandra is being tried for allegedly registering the domain name of the company's main competitor PT Mustika Ratu.

Haq told the court that usually, if there was dispute over a domain name, the complainant could file a complaint electronically (via e-mail), complete with the basis of the complaint and evidence, to the domain name administrator, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Name and Number (ICANN).

She explained that ICANN permitted such a cybercrime to be brought before a court, either civilian or criminal.

"There have been such cases brought before the criminal court in the United States," she said without elaborating.

Haq also explained that before registering a domain name, one should state one's agreement with ICANN regulations, including the statement that the domain name being registered would not disturb other parties' rights and that it would not be used for illegal purposes.

She said that there was an indication that Tjandra had acted in bad faith in registering Mustika Ratu's domain name as it was a trademark belonging to PT Mustika, which was popular with the public.

According to Haq, Tjandra had deceived Internet users who had attempted to find the website of PT Mustika through mustikaratu.com, since they would be directed to one of PT Martina's websites, belia-online.com.

"They would assume that belia-online.com was related to PT Mustika. The company would have suffered damage because potential business or contacts through mustikaratu.com would have been transferred to belia-online.com," she said.

Belia is one of Sari Ayu's products.(04)