British cybersquatter Richard Conway and his business partner Julian Nicholson recently lost their appeal on a court ruling that said they must surrender the domain names of trademarked company names and cough up some serious cash to pay for their opponents' legal costs. The judge did not buy the defense argument that the two were just "silly young men" who thought they could make money by registering domain names like bt.org and virgin.org.

The case has been watched closely, and its outcome furthers the trend toward giving strong legal rights to trademark holders on the Web.

John Borland spoke to Conway earlier in the year about his business venture gone awry.

(Recorded Jan. 26, 1998)

» read interview
» hear interview

Job
Freelance Internet consultant; principal, One in a Million, Ltd.

Home
London, England

First Computer
"It was a BBC computer, called a BBC Model B, which was used in all the schools in England."

favorite bookmarks

First Time On The Web
"It was at the university, about four and a half years ago. This was only when the first versions of Netscape were out. I think the first Web pages were educational Web pages, like the university’s own page."

Optimistic Statement About The Internet
"I think it's a fabulous medium to give people the opportunity to publish things that people all over the world can view without being costly to the person publishing the information. If you were to publish something in every newspaper in the world, it would cost you thousands of pounds; but you can literally reach the same number of people by putting something on a Web page."

Pessimistic Statement About The Internet
"I can’t think of anything too pessimistic about the Web. I only wish it were available to more people. At the moment, there’s only a small percentage of people that have access to it."

favorite bookmarks