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Robert Walton, 30, was bored at work when he decided to search his name on the Internet Movie Database, imdb.com, a few years ago.Walton, a reporter for Gas and Utility Week, a newsletter in Washington, “thought it was hilarious” when his name appeared on the cast list for a video that had a sexually explicit title.
“I quickly e-mailed the link to as many people as possible,” he said.
The adult entertainer was the third reference to a Robert Walton that he had found online.
The first was a character from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and the other was an artist in Colorado who owns the domain name RobertWalton.com.
“That is my biggest name issue,” Walton said of the Web site that bears his name but not his work.
“I don’t even like his art.”
“Fifty years ago or even four years ago, people didn’t have this problem,” Mueller said.
People were identified by their position within a geographical community, not an online one.
As the Internet expanded globally, the World Intellectual Property Association in Geneva started addressing issues with domain names and the use of personal names on the Internet.
In a 2001 report, the association decided that there was no precedent for the protection of individual na...
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