New publications

James Grimmelmann, The Google Dilemma (July, 15 2008), New York Law School Law Review, Forthcoming, SSRN link. On the legal and political questions raised by search results. Quote:

Google isn’t the only one facing the Google Dilemma. Lawyers, judges, and legislators deal with it, too. There have been dozens of lawsuits against search engines; each of those lawsuits requires the court hearing it to confront the Dilemma. In order to say that a search engine did something wrong, there must be a plausible alternative: something it could have done that was right. To say that a search engine was irresponsible, we need some baseline, some way to say what would be responsible.

Mark Bender, Domain Name Disputes Involving Trademarks in Australia, Monash Business Review, Vol. 3, No. 3, July 2007, SSRN Link. A survey. Abstract:

The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of the law in relation to domain name disputes involving trademarks that applies in Australia. Generally the focus of this paper will be confined to consideration of domain names ending with the .au suffix. An overview of the rights associated with domain names, registered business names and registered and unregistered trademarks is provided, as is an outline of the domain name dispute resolution processes and some some summary statistics and key cases in relation to domain name disputes.

Cheryl Preston & Brent Little, ICANN Can: Contracts and Porn Sites - Choosing 'to Play Internet Ball in American Cyberspace', Global Business & Development Law Journal, Vol. 21, pp. 79-110, 2008, SSRN link. This paper argues that ICANN may provide some assistance in fighting against online pornography. Quote:

Although ICANN has resisted involvement in enforcement of some kinds of Internet regulations, ICANN and other entities in the DNS that ICANN supervises, known as registrars and registries, and the contractual obligations among those entities, may provide a means of enforcing national laws regulating online conduct.

I fully disagree with the conclusion - "[The] language in [the] ICANN-mandated contracts is sufficient to require suspension of a website upon receipt of a court order arising from the violation of an antipornography law" - as there is an obvious difference between a domain name and a website.

[UPDATE, Nov. 3, 2008: see also, by C. Preston, Internet Porn, ICANN, and Families: A Call to Action, [2008] Journal of Internet Law (Oct-Nov) 3]