The two cases out have not yet been resolved. Despite a growing number of decisions on "-sucks" registrations, domain name watchers say it is too soon to tell whether arbitrators are biased against parodists, noting that no clear-cut precedent has come down for or against the right to register spoofs of trademarks. "There just hasn't been a really totally clear-cut case yet where someone registers a protest name without any commercial interest," said Dan Tobias, who runs a Website that follows legal and policy developments involving domain names. Tobias said ICANN's dispute procedures have tended to favor parties that challenge domain name registrations, which are usually corporations. But, he said many defendants lose because they do not bother to oppose the action. In the first "-sucks" dispute decided under the new dispute policy, an arbitration panel on May 31 ordered respondent Kenneth Harvey to transfer five variations on the Wal-Mart name to the company, including "walmartcanadasucks.com" and"walmartpuertoricosucks.com."

In his defense, Harvey cited two domain name lawsuits in which the courts refused to order defendants to take down "-sucks" Web pages: Lucent Technologies vs Lucentsucks.com and Bally Total Fitness vs Faber. But, arbitrators hearing Harvey's case found that neither applied, reasoning that the judge had rejected the Lucent case on technical grounds, and that the Bally case did not involve a domain name registration but simply the use of "ballysucks" on a Website. In the decision, the arbitrators emphasized that their findings were not meant to serve as broader precedents on the validity of "-sucks" domain names. "The Panel stresses that this decision does not address legitimate freedom of expression sites established by parties critical of trademark holders," the decision reads. "This decision is directed to a blatant case of abuse of the domain name registration process-no more, no less."

New strategies
The run on "-sucks" domains comes as corporations are employing new tactics to thwart online critics, including registering potentially offensive domain names themselves. In November 1999, Congress passed the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which made it easier for companies or powerful individuals to assume domain names that include trademarked brands or names.

It made it more difficult for individuals to retain domain names that included references to corporations or brands such as Microsoft, Coca-Cola or Jeep, as well as to celebrities such as Julia Roberts-no matter how much the individual had paid for the name, what they did with it, or how long they had owned it.

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