George:

Under the rules for Internet protocols, James Madison University, being an education establishment, is entitled to use, and is expected to use, the EDU classification for its web site. The COM classification is for 'commercial' enterprises. So if JMU wishes to contest the evil squatter who has claimed www.jamesmadisonuniversity.com, the legal issue will be more cloudy than first glance suggests.

For example, evil squatter can tell the judge that:

1. JMU's web site is found at www.jmu.EDU

2. That www.jmu.COM is owned by yet another evil squatter, REGISTER4LESS.COM, who registers every useful domain name he can think of in hopes of growing rich selling it. Among the Internet's mind-boggling flaws is that this is permitted.

3. That www.jamesmadisonuniversity.EDU is unclaimed by anyone.

On JMU's side is the argument that people get these things confused, as indeed they do. A glance at http://www.geocities.com/rambo3060/ is an example of the common confusion.

Since January 27, 2003, the young sports fan who maintains that site has been promoting as his "Cool Link:" Go Dukes http://www.jmu.com. Not only did he, a web designer, get it wrong, but even after three months no one told him that clicking on his URL brings up, not James Madison University, but REGISTER4LESS.COM, a thoroughly uncool link.

It's not the least unusual that he posted links without testing them. While he's an amateur, shoddiness is commonplace even among professional webmasters. The care and thoroughness given to your pages at http://george.loper.org/ is way above average for the Web. The more one knows about web hosting, the more one appreciates what you do.

Rey Barry (electronic mail, April 30, 2003).