domain news - 15 January

[David Goldstein <goldstein_david@yahoo.com.au>]

.au - State push to rein in fraud
A parliamentary committee has called for a specialist
agency to tackle Victoria's $640 million-a-year fraud bill.
...
The committee's report on fraud and e-commerce, released
yesterday, also recommends tightening rules for registering
company or internet domain names. This would prevent the
practice of registering business names that are only
slightly different from existing names for fraudulent
purposes.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/07/1073437345695.html

Nigeria Internet Group Demands Apology From Computer
Society
THE .ng country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) controversy
raging in the country, Tuesday, added another flavour with
the Nigeria Internet Group (NIG), saying that the opposing
camp over its nomination by the Federal Government to host
the ccTLD locally, Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), has
disrespected Nigerians and therefore, demanded an apology
from the society.
 http://allafrica.com/stories/200401090213.html
 http://www.thisdayonline.com/news/20040111news23.html

http://www.champion-newspapers.com/infotel/teasers/article_1/content_html

'Why Nigerians Can't Use the .ng Domain Name'
Facts have emerged that the refusal to allow local
management of the country's domain name (.ng ccTLD), is
responsible for the failure of most applications by
Nigerians to carry the .ng domain name on their web
addresses. This development has rendered useless efforts at
national content development and cultural presence on the
Internet which the Nigerian government hold in high esteem.
 http://allafrica.com/stories/200401090151.html

Participation is bigger than voting by Esther Dyson
In Issue 3 of openDemocracy, we published an interview with
Esther Dyson on governing the Internet. She described how
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)
was created - and called for global parties to keep it open
and accountable. Our members had the opportunity to put
their questions to her in our debate section. Just back
from a meeting of the At-Large Study Committee of ICANN,
she responds to six of them, dealing with issues of both
process and principle. She finishes by examining notions of
global democracy.
 http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-7-30-1665.jsp

.eu domain names available from November
European companies and individuals will be able to use .eu
domain names from November 2004.
 http://www.euobserver.com/index.phtml?sid=9&aid=14052
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34756.html

http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=novemberlaunch1073653000&area=news
 
Canadian domain name firm rapped over marketing practices
US authorities have accused an Ontario domain-name
registration company of using questionable marketing
tactics.

http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=127465

.CN domain name usage surges 130% to over 300,000 
The number of registrations of .CN, China's top-level
domain name, totaled over 300,000 as of the end of November
2003, and the figure is growing at about 10,000 per month,
CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) official
Sun Lemin told Interfax in an interview.

http://www.interfax.com/com?item=Chin&pg=10&id=5679380&req=

Internet 6.0
The next version of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, will
supply the world with addresses by the trillions. Too bad
it will also make the Net slower and less secure.

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_garfinkel010704.asp

.us - Judge orders halt of Web addresses
A federal judge in Minneapolis has ordered a South St. Paul
man to stop using the names of a Minneapolis law firm and
the Star Tribune newspaper in Internet domain names that
divert traffic to an anti-abortion Web site.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/7648539.htm

The Debate Continues: Geist Replies to CENTR Response
While this may be better suited as a comment to the CENTR
posting, I thought that its length might warrant a separate
submission. Below is the full text of a comment I forwarded
to CENTR in reply to its commentary on my recent study on
national governments and ccTLDs. I should also preface my
remarks by noting that I speak for myself -- not the ITU,
nor CIRA, (a CENTR member) on which I serve on the board of
directors, nor the Public Interest Registry, which manages
the dot-org domain and on which I serve on the Global
Advisory Council.
 http://www.circleid.com/article/424_0_1_0_C

CENTR Replies to ITU Study on ccTLD Governance
The Council of European National Top-Level Domain
Registries (CENTR) announced today their response to
Professor Michael Geist's draft survey report "Government
and country-code top level Domains: A global survey", which
was conducted on behalf of the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) in December 2003. "In the
last decade the general trend has been to de-regulate
markets in the Communications Industry, which continues to
stimulate economic growth and innovation, and it seems
perverse that this ITU supported report is seeking to go
against the proven successful trend," said Paul Kane,
chairman of CENTR.
 http://www.circleid.com/article/421_0_1_0_C

URLs, IP Numbers, and Speech
There's a great fight going on right now in
Philadelphia.The case is about a Pennsylvania statute that
mandates that Pennsylvania ISPs remove access to sites that
the AG believes contain child pornography. Now, child
pornography is abhorrent and any ISP will cooperate in
taking down such sites that it is hosting. But the problem
is that in complying with the statute with respect to sites
the ISPs don't themselves host, ISPs are (rationally) using
either IP blocking ("null routing") or "domain poisoning"
techniques, both of which (particularly the IP number
blocking) result in rendering inaccessible millions of
perfectly legal sites.
 http://www.circleid.com/article/420_0_1_0_C

Whois Task Force Meeting Minutes
* Task Force 1 held 16 December 2003

http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-dow1tf-16dec03.shtml
* Task Force 1 held 23 December 2003

http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-dow1tf-23dec03.shtml
* Task Force 2 held 15 December 2003

http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-dow2tf-15dec03.shtml
* Task Force 3 held 17 December 2003

http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-dow3tf-17dec03.shtml

Take Three: Why Cyberspace Still Matters In The Post Dot
Com World (reg req'd)
The past few years have spurred incredible changes and
evolution in the law of trademark infringement,
identification, and enforcement. But with the dot com
bubble deflated, if not altogether burst, is the law of
cyberspace still relevant and still evolving? As the
headlines in the major trademark bulletins across the globe
reflect, and the ever-expanding online presence of even the
most stalwart bricks and mortar companies confirms, the
answer is an unqualified "yes." Legal issues such as what
acts on the Internet constitute infringement and dilution,
to the minimum "Net" contacts necessary to establish
jurisdiction over a nonresident, and sometimes
out-of-country, defendant, continue to proliferate. What
follows is a brief summary of some of the key disputes
currently shaping the future of trademarks online.
http://www.mondaq.com/article_preview.asp?a=23905&e=on

Communiqué from the 20th CENTR GA (news release)
Members of the Council of European National Top Level
Domain Registries (CENTR) met for the 20th CENTR General
Assembly in Warsaw, Poland on 27-28 November 2003. Those in
attendance represented 24 different members and observer
organisations.
 http://www.centr.org/news/20-GA.html

The (GTA) secret's in the name
Once again the registration of trademark names has led to
educated speculation as to the name of a forthcoming
sequel. Take Two, parent company of Rockstar Games,
registered three different GTA trademarks. GTA5 and GTA6
were there but more pertinently GTA: San Andreas also
cropped up, giving the strongest hint yet as to what the
title of the next instalment in the series will be. As the
only city from the original game that hasn't been re-worked
in a 3D incarnation rumour was rife that this would be the
title for GTA4. The fact that a Rockstar employee
registered the domain names for www.gtasanandreas.com and
www.grandtheftautosanandreas.com last January would seem to
cement this possibility.
 http://www.ferrago.com/story/2718

Registrars offering multilingual domain names
More and more registrars are offering non-english character
set domains. You will find the complete list of
Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) certified registrars
for .com and .net by clicking here
<http://www.verisign.com/nds/naming/idn/customer.html>.

http://www.multireg.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=278

VeriSign reports transaction volume rose 40% in 2003 over
previous year
Online consumer payment transactions processed by VeriSign
rose by more than 40% in 2003 over the previous year,
reports the company. While dollar volumes will be reported
with earnings later this month, its online transactions
represent several billion dollars per quarter, according to
the company.
 http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=10980

VeriSign planning more changes to .com, .net
VeriSign is planning changes to a Domain Name System
component responsible for coordinating updates to the .com
and .net domains throughout the DNS system, according to a
company spokesman.
 http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0108verisplann.html

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/01/08/HNverisigncom_1.html

Large Hosts Ease Domain Discounting, But Others Now at $4 
Hosting
While some providers continue to sell domain names at a
loss to acquire customers, the industry's larger players
are retreating a bit from their price-slashing ways of
2003.

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/01/08/large_hosts_ease_domain_discounting_but_others_now_at_4.html


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