The concept of the law of damages in common law systems is dualistic: damages can be recovered for the losses incurred, including loss of profit, and for punishment of the wrongdoer. On the contrary the concept of the law of damages in civil law systems is purely monistic, at least if taken at face vale. Damages are strictly restricted to compensation. Punishment of the tortfeasor is under no circumstances a legitimate function of damages. Nevertheless during the last decade continental tort law has proven less static than one might initially think. It is still to be examined whether any recent developments have brought the two systems any closer to each other, so as at least to narrow that apparently unbridgeable gap.

Starting from the first Greek judicial decision relative to domain names, the author presents the issue of protecting distinctive signs in case they are used by third parties as an Internet address. In the first section he makes a brief introduction into the technical and organisational peculiarities of the domain names and in the following sections he examines the legal problems from the aspects of trademark law, unfair competition law, law of tort and protection of the name. By providing examples from other countries' case law, where similar cases have arisen, he displays the potential as well as the limits of the traditional law of distinctive signs in the digital world.