Transnational capital and national legal regimes: Analysis of Internet domain name disputes in India

Abstract

This paper examines the outcomes of Internet domain name dispute arbitrations in India through a quantitative analysis of all domain name arbitrations (N = 1147) involving the Indian country code top-level domain from 2006 to 2019. Specifically, we investigate whether the nationalities and corporate/ individual identities of the complainants and respondents affect the outcome of the arbitrations. The most common type of dispute during this period is an international entity petitioning against another international entity (46%). In sum, the domain name arbitrations under INDRP are dominated by international and organizational complainants, but there is more variation among respondents' profiles in terms of nationality and identity. Our analysis suggests that the INDRP process, in the 14 years examined, tends to generate outcomes that favor corporations. Although the complainants almost always won, corporate respondents, compared to their individual counterparts, are more likely to retain the disputed domain names. Also, cases, where a respondent contested a complaint, had a higher probability of rulings in favor of respondents, compared to cases where the respondent filed no response.