Issue 112 - 27th March

Use of misleading domain names may become a criminal offence

A vote will be put to the U.S. House of Representatives this week on a proposal to outlaw the practice of using a misleading domain name to lure unsuspecting people to sex sites.

Under the proposal, people who knowingly use an innocent-sounding domain name to drive traffic to a sexually explicit Web site could be fined and imprisoned for two to four years.

As well as using misleading domains such as whitehouse.com, typo-squatters will often register misspellings of well know brand or company names and use these domains to direct traffic to porn sites. By proactively registering common misspellings of your key brands and redirecting them to your main homepage you will not only make it easier for people to find you on the first attempt, you will also avoid the danger of potential clients being redirected to an offensive or derogatory web site.

ICANN to approve Internationalised Domain Name policy

One of the key issues being discussed at this week's ICANN Meeting in Rio de Janeiro is the agreement of technical standards that will allow computers built around English to recognise Chinese, Arabic and other languages.

The computers at the core of the Domain Name System (DNS) currently understand only the 26 English letters, 10 numerals and a hyphen, along with a period for splitting addresses into sections. Other languages must be converted into a string of the permitted characters.

For the past few years, a separate body, the Internet Engineering Task Force, has been working on the technical standards to enable the DNS to handle extended character sets without requiring third party browser plug-ins or other add-ons.

Though some non-English names have already been available on a test basis, ICANN's approval of the new standards would make them official and help ensure that they actually work universally. This agreement would represent a significant step forward.

William Hill backs a winner with NetNames Platinum Service

Outsourced domain name management to support online growth

NetNames, the UK's leading domain name specialists, last week announced that William Hill are the latest on the list of large corporates who are choosing to outsource their domain name management under NetNames Platinum Service.

Rodger Armstrong, Sales and Marketing Director at NetNames commented: "Often it's not until a problem arises that companies recognise the importance of protecting their online assets. William Hill has shown that they are ahead of the game by implementing a proactive strategy that consolidates all their domains under Platinum Service. This puts them in a strong position to continue the success of their online business."

"In the last year, operating profits from our e-gaming activities have grown by 123 per cent," said Peter Nolan, Group Marketing Director at William Hill. "Domain names are an integral part of our online business strategy and it is vital that we have a process in place to protect our interactive brands. NetNames Platinum Service is an obvious choice as it gives us both the flexibility and control we require to effectively manage our domain name portfolio via one central point of contact."

Full press release available at www.netnames.com