Nic News ..

Brazilian Policy Changes

It is no longer an initial requirement for companies to have a local presence within Brazil in order to register .br domain names. However foreign companies must have a legally empowered representative within Brazil, who can be granted a power of attorney to act on behalf of the domain name registrant.

The applicant must also provide a declaration of their commitment to establish activities in Brazil within 12 months of registering the domain name.

Industry Update ..

Cybersquatting set to be minimised

The vice president and general counsel for ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) this week appeared in front of a congressional subcommittee in Washington DC to that the introduction of new gTLDs would not lead to an increase in cybersquatting.

Louis Touton confirmed that all applications for .biz addresses will be checked against a database of trademarks to ensure they do not voilate existing trademarks and .pro domains will be limited to qualified professionals such as doctors, lawyers and accountants, for example.

He told the House Judiciary Committee's intellectual property subcommittee that four of the new domains, .info, .biz, .pro and .name should be available for business by late summer.

Calls for easier access to Whois information

Industry experts are calling for access to the Whois service, which allows users to look up registrant information on top level domains, to be made simpler. There are now 179 gTLD registrants worldwide since Network Solutions lost its monopoly on .com, .net and .org registrations two years ago. However, obtaining information about ownership of domain names has become more complicated with separate databases maintained by different registrars leading to a breakdown in search functionality.

The Whois Committee has advised ICANN to recommend that registrars provide replies to Whois queries in one standard format and move towards providing the full range of Whois features. Currently most registrars only offer domain name lookup.

NetNames News ..

NetNames will shortly be launching its new revamped web site, featuring improved and easy-to-use search and registration facilities, helpful information about protecting and managing your domain portfolio worldwide and the latest domain name news updated daily.

Here's a taster of our new logo, by this time next week we'll bring you news of the new live site…

Fact of the Week..

Two thirds of UK firms have e-marketing strategy

A new survey from NewWorld Commerce and Marketing Week has revealed that online marketing in now an established part of corporate marketing strategy in the UK.

A total of 63% of the surveyed companies already have an e-marketing strategy in place. Telecoms, IT and service companies were revealed to be the most forward-thinking. The fast, cost-effective and interactive nature of this form of marketing was cited as its main attractions.

Tip of the Week..

Do you know when your company's domain registration expires?

No? Well it could be sooner than you think. Even large corporations often lose track of expiration dates, and the consequences could be dire, with unscrupulous individuals ready to pounce on well-known names that have failed to be re-registered.

The problem is that the person who registered a company's domain names a couple of years ago may no longer be at that company, and renewal notices may reach no-one at all.

So, to make sure you aren't caught unaware, type in your domain name in the search section of the www.netnames.com web site, select the appropriate suffix, and click on 'More info'.

This will tell you who your company's official contacts are and when your domain's registration expires. You may want to change the email address and possibly the contact name to a mailbox that is guaranteed to always be there - contact your registrar in order to do this.

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