The (dis)harmony of opinions regarding domain names in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The Internet is a key venue for business conduct in the 21st century and the address on it, the domain name, has a potential to satisfy a myriad of functions and to become a valuable intangible asset. Domain names are not only vital for business conduct regarding practically all types of goods and services, but they themselves can become commodities to be marketed. A research, meta-analysis and critical comparative re-assessment of the already published data was confronted with information extracted from a unique target questionnaire survey completed by a homogenous poll of respondents from the Czech Republic with a superior knowledge about the intellectual property and with a potential to be domain name adviser or even registrant. The principal objective was to assess the understanding and perception of domain names by such a homogenous group, based on their answers to questions targeting five critical hypotheses. The outcome was highly surprising and with an extremely low level of reconciliability. Plainly, intellectual property specialists from the Czech Republic fully endorse the importance of domain names and recognize their in rem regime, but they are incapable to identify domain names with the highest potential and to calculate their price. The asymmetry of information by Czech specialists in this arena is not sustainably acceptable.