.eu - EURid lifts suspension on 74,000 domain names
NetNames has learnt that the 74,000 .eu domains
suspended in July of this year have just had their status changed
from ‘on hold’ back to ‘registered’. A court decision has required
EURid, the registry operator for .eu, to unblock the registrations,
thus making them potentially eligible for transfer.
The domains were registered to a company named
Ovidio Ltd. A number of valuable trademarks were included in the
registrations. EURid originally suspended them on the basis that the
registrant appeared to be a front for a number of registrars which
had stockpiled the names, with a view to later selling them on at
premium prices. Such practice would clearly have contravened EURid’s
rules and regulations. Legal proceedings between EURid and the
registrars continue.
Now that the suspension has been lifted, there may
be opportunities for trademark owners to recover their intellectual
property. Platinum Service clients who lost some of their marks to
Ovidio Ltd should contact their account manager immediately to
discuss the options available to them.
.mobi – open registration begins Wednesday 11 October
A reminder that from Wednesday 11 October, the price
for .mobi domains will drop, after the two week landrush period.
The motivation behind .mobi is to create web
content specifically designed for delivery to mobile devices.
Guidelines from the registry will encourage webmasters to tailor
their websites towards mobile users, meaning that far more web
content will be made available through mobile phones and other
similar applications.
Over 100,000 .mobi domains were registered in the
first four days of the domain's general availability. In contrast,
it took ten years for the general public to register 100,000
PC-based domain names.
Visit
www.netnames.com
to secure your space on the mobile web.
Also - the WIPO-regulated Premium Name Application
Process will finish at 12 noon GMT on 13 October 2006. Any trademark
holders wishing to apply for a Premium Name should get their
application in by then - see
http://pc.mtld.mobi/switched/premium.html for details.
.hk (Hong Kong) CDNs
.hk Chinese character Domain Names (CDNs) have
recently been launched. Here follows details of the phased release
schedule:
28 Sept – 10 Nov
Priority Registrations: open to Hong Kong trademark holders
4 Dec – 5 Jan 2007 Prior Rights: open to holders of current .hk
English domain names
29 Jan – 9 Feb 2007 Public Sunrise: open to applicants that
meet the selected CDN category requirements
NetNames will notify readers of N3Lite as soon as
.hk CDNs are available through the NetNames website. Platinum
clients interested in registering in any of the phases can contact
their account manager.
.biz IDNs
From 1 November, .biz IDNs (Internationalised
Domain Names) will become available in the following language
scripts:
- Danish
- Norwegian
- Swedish
- Icelandic
- Spanish
.biz IDNs are unrestricted and available on a
first-come, first-served basis at
www.netnames.com.
More political cybersquatting
It seems that NetNames’ sensible policies with
regard to the safeguarding of online intellectual property continue
to be unheeded by those in the public eye. David Cameron’s recently
launched official website webcameron.org.uk, which includes a blog
and videos of the Tory leader, may already be losing potential
visitors to other sites. Having chosen a domain name which was
already registered in the .com suffix, to an Australian poet whose
work demonstrates a certain level of cynicism towards the media, Mr
Cameron has also found competition on the web from a parody site at
webcameron.info – which links to a video pointing out similarities
between himself and Tony Blair, to the tune of David Bowie’s
“Changes”.
The video has been viewed thousands of times. The
site appears to have been put up by UKIPhome.com, a site that is
“completely unofficial to and independent of the UK Independence
Party itself, but staffed by party members who are seeking to reform
UKIP into a party with a full and positive progressive small
government agenda”.
David Cameron is not the first politician to have
come unstuck online. During the General Election, Lib Dem MP Mark
Oaten was the victim of cybersquatting from his Conservative Party
rival George Hollingbery who had seized the markoaten.co.uk web site
and directed visitors to his own site.
©
Copyright NetNames 2006. All rights reserved.
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