Please find below this week's N3Lite, full of domain name industry news, developments and facts.

Colette - N3lite@netnames.com

.info Whois server goes live

Afilias, the registry running the .info domain space, this week opened up its whois server, after the close of the first two stages of the Sunrise Period.

The whois database, which can be found at http://www.afilias.info/whois/ has experienced some initial teething problems, however technicians at the registry expect it to be running well by next week.

Meanwhile, Afilias is investigating claims that cybersquatters are fraudulently claiming trademarked domain names during the Sunrise Period.

2. Industry News

Armani loses domain name case

Fashion house Armani this week lost a domain name case in which it saw armani.com stay in the hands of the original registrant, a Mr. A.R. Mani. Mr. Mani has used this as a business name since 1981 for his graphic design company and was found by WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organisation) to be a good faith holder of the domain name. The panel also judged that the use of the domain name couldn't lead to any confusion public's mind between the two businesses.

German soccer site in porn scam

A German football team is fuming after discovering that a domain name very similar to its owns is being run as a porn site. Whilst the team, VfB Luebeck uses the domain vfb-luebeck.de, the porn site has removed the hyphen and uses vfbluebeck.de.

The soccer club is unhappy about the situation because it own the trademark rights to VfB Luebeck and does not want its name associated with pornography. The club is currently in consultation with its lawyers to determine it has a legal right to the non-hyphenated domain name.

Cybersquatting book site

The son of the late film star, John Wayne, has filed a law suit against a private individual, citing infringement of US Internet trademark law. The johnwaynebooks.com domain name was purchased by a Caroly McGivern from the UK after she wrote a book on the film star. She now intends to sell copies of the book online through the site. Michael Wayne, however, insists that Ms McGivern is breaking a cybersquatting law that stops people buying domain names to resell for profit and protects trademarks.

New non-English domains deal criticised

A plan to allow the Internet Domain Name System to recognize languages other than English has been criticised as creating more problems than it solves.

The Internet Engineering Task Force is proposing a protocol that will allow the DNS to look at a name entered in a language other than English and translate it into the correct numeric Internet address. Because the current system is based on English, countries such as China complain that English speaking companies can - and do - unfairly dominate the Internet.

The initial draft of such a protocol will likely be finalized at the IETF meeting this month - after 18 months in development - and is expected to then go through at least two more discussion stages. However, dissent is already growing.

Critics say the DNS system, which already shows signs of overload, could simply collapse under the pressure of added features and could make the Internet highly fragmented, with some regions not able to communicate with the others.

3. NIC News

Registrations suspended

Domain name registrations in the com.dm domain have been suspended by the Dominican Registry. At the present time there is no information available as to when the registrations will be available.

Registrations in .cx (Christmas Island) are temporarily suspended due to name server changes.

Registrations for the Marshall Islands (.mh) are also currently closed.

Changes to Greek registrations

The Greek registry had published further clarification on the requirements for a .gr domain name. Foreign companies can apply for .gr names if the domain is a trademark. The trademark can be a Greek, EU or international trademark with effect in Greece.