Flashes of Panic

So it turns out, according to this article in today’s NYT magazine, that I have a legitimate claim on my own name as a domain name. Seems the tests for dispute resolution are:

The complainant must have rights to the name, or to a name ”identical or confusingly similar.” The name doesn’t actually have to be a registered trademark, but it needs to have been used in commerce, like a brand. Actors, musicians, even authors get protection this way, while politicians, scientists and religious figures do not. …

Not that this is an issue for me, since I believe I’m the only one with a variant of my name registered as a DNS zone. When I first did it, it was lack of originality and immediate need (I was looking for a job, and that works best when your website is not flashesofpanic.com, I’m afraid.) But it’s good to know that since I’ve used my name in commerce, as a writer, I’ve got a pretty strong claim on the domain. In fact, I discovered through my site referrer statistics that the site is seen, at least from one perspective, as “site of the freelance writer.”

So, there you go. I’m back to the Brand of Me.

Update: Here’s another link to the story from the author, James Gleick’s, website.