Judging the domain name game.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Two years ago Volkswagen got a voice mail that set off the auto maker's lawyers. I own the rights to vw.net, the caller proclaimed, and I'll sell the domain name to the highest bidder if your company doesn't respond within 24 hours.

Work of a cyberpirate out to make bucks by ransoming a Web address, right?

Three federal judges in Virginia saw it in those black and white terms. Last month they ordered the caller's business _ an Internet service provider named Virtual Works _ to surrender vw.net. In their judgment, the company registered the domain name in bad faith because it knew that, someday, Volkswagen might be interested in the address.

But the case has plenty of gray. The court decision came even though Virtual Works had used the domain name for years without complaints. And it came even though Virtual Works made the phone call only after VW dealerships had inquired about buying the Web address.

Companies and individuals with famous names deserve trademark protection on the Web. But they don't merit blanket control over every conceivable dot-com, dot-net and dot-org variation. The rest of us should be able to register innovative addresses without unreasonable fear that some big businesses years later will be able to pluck them away.

That danger exists, thanks to the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. Congress approved it in 1999 over the objections of free speech advocates. One anxiety: The law might even rope in non-commercial sites that consumers set up to protest dubious business practices. Sometimes these dom-com addresses attach the word ``boycott'' to a brand name. One legal theory says the law could ensnare them if the sites divert confused customers.

That hasn't happened, yet. But the law has given the courts and companies a heavy-handed weapon to fight people who register addresses that seem to resemble or play off of well-known trademarks.