Issue 179 - 25th February 2005

General domain name news

- The Sudan Registry recently re-opened after closing down last year due to the hostilities in the country. .sd domains are available at www.netnames.com.

- The .web.com suffix is newly available at www.netnames.com. Prices have recently been reduced for the full range of .com 'special' sub-domains (e.g. .uk.com, .de.com).

- 75,000 Indian (.in) domains have now been registered, since being made available at the second-level on 16th February.

Registrars drop lawsuit against VeriSign over Wait-Listing Service

Last year, a group of eight registrars sued VeriSign Inc. and overseeing body the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) over VeriSign's proposed Wait-Listing Service (WLS). WLS (not to be confused with Site Finder, which was designed to redirect mis-typed domains to advertising pages) would allow someone seeking a domain that was currently registered to pay for the right to claim it if it expired. Since VeriSign currently manages both the .com and .net registries, the complainants accused WLS of being anti-competitive and breaking consumer protection laws.

The registrars reportedly no longer see WLS as a realistic possibility, since changes in the market for expiring domains mean that back-ordering systems are already common. ICANN approved WLS last March, but since then the proposal has not progressed.

Pioneers of Internet win Turing Award

The 2004 Turing award has been presented to Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn for their pioneering work in the seventies on network protocols (TCP/IP). The award, named after British mathematician Alan M. Turing, is generally considered the 'Nobel Prize' of computing. Vinton Cerf is now chairman of the board for ICANN.

Number of cases handled by WIPO up on 2003

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) recently announced that in 2004 it handled 1,179 disputes over domain registrations, an increase of 6.6% on the previous year. Since ICANN's introduction of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) in 1999, WIPO has handled in total over 7,000 disputes. Over 80% of cases have gone in favour of the trademark holder.

ISO fails to secure ISO9000 domains

As recently reported in online press, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) failed to secure the transfer of four domains which contain 'ISO9000' from a company named AQI, in a case handled by WIPO. ISO is a non-profit organisation concerned with the development of international standards, primarily of a technical nature, including the well-known ISO 9000 series. It holds the rights to the ISO trademark. AQI has, for a number of years, been responsible for the organisation of the International Conference on ISO 9000 and registered related domains including iso9000directory.com.

The panel found that AQI had regularly and widely used at least three of the domains, with ISO's knowledge and no challenge from them till now, and therefore had legitimate interests in the domain names. The panel also decided that AQI did not register and use any of the domains in 'bad faith'.

The panel ruled in favour of the respondent (AQI), one panel member even claiming that the complaint was a case of 'reverse domain hijacking' (i.e. that ISO was wrong to claim rights over the domains).

NetNames recommends a proactive policy with regards to online brand protection. Expanding and protecting one's domain portfolio now can prevent against expensive UDRP and litigation down the line.