With the Winter Olympics just a warm-up away, the world's sole central clearinghouse for domain registrations has received a steady flow of games-related name requests. But thanks to a little-known US law, Network Solutions Inc.'s InterNIC registry is blocking all attempts to create addresses that use the commercially sacred term "Olympic."
In small letters at the bottom of any official Olympic Web site is this notice: "Pursuant to the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, 36 U.S.C 380, the United States Olympic Committee has exclusive authority over the use of Olympic-related marks, images, and terminology in the United States."
In other words, unless you are an Olympic sponsor or have a special permit from the US Olympic Committee, you can't use the word Olympic. Unless, say, it's in a news story.
Since the InterNIC was apprised of the law, in June 1996, only anointed organizations have been able to register games-related terms (including Olympiad and the phrase "Citius Altius Fortius" ("Faster, Higher, Stronger"). David Graves, InterNIC's director of business affairs, said only a few organizations - the Red Cross, among others - enjoy such exclusivity.
"Certainly people, especially in respect to Olympic words, aren't happy. Where it become a problem is in the Olympic Peninsula region of the Pacific Northwest, where Olympic is part of a lot of names and products," Graves said. "The problem with the Net is that there are no geographic boundaries, and just by looking at the domain names you can't tell what kinds of products or services they offer."
In enforcing the law, the US Olympic Committee often goes after high-profile organizations (such as San Francisco's Olympic Club), but has generally ignored smaller, local companies or organizations (such as Seattle's Olympic Hot Tub). But when those companies go online, they suddenly have a global audience. That concerns the Olympic committee enough to seek strict enforcement of the law.
Both pranksters and unwitting Olympic-named companies alike are now being told that they can get that Olympic domain, but first they'll have to obtain a special permit from the Olympic Committee. Few have bothered - hence, InterNIC's logs are full of "Olympik" or "Olympc" or even "Olymp" sites. Only a few "Olympics" have wormed through.
"We are unique in that we've owned our name since the 1879, before the organization existed. ... But the InterNIC still wouldn't allow us to use it unless we could get permission from the Olympic committee," says Paul Sosa of San Francisco's Olympic Club, which now lives at www.olyclub.com. "It ended up being easier to just use a smaller name."
