Issue 44 - 26th October - This week: 1. gTLD Update 2. Industry News 3. Nic News 4. NetNames News 5. Fact of the week
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This week we bring you news of the success of the new .info domain name. In the first three months of registration, over half a million .info domains have been registered, which should go some way to answering the critics of the registration process.

We've also information on the progress made on an Internet Names Code of Practice, being established by the .uk registry, Nominet.

Don't forget that NetNames will begin accepting orders for registrations and defensive registrations for the new .name domain from October 31, 2001, from www.gtld.com.

As ever, please let us know if you have any questions.

Kind regards, Colette - N3lite@netnames.com

1. gTLD Update

.biz domain clears first hurdle

A court-ordered freeze on over 58,000 .biz domain names is set to be lifted after the plaintiffs, an Arizona radio disc jockey and a Los Angeles company, failed to post half the required bond of $1.6 million.

Earlier this month, a California court ruled that NeuLevel Inc., the operator of .biz, might be running an illegal lottery. The court ordered that the disputed domain names be placed on hold, but also required that plaintiffs deposit the bond to cover any losses should NeuLevel prevail. The failure to post the bond essentially dissolves the judge's preliminary injunction.

The domain names in dispute were claimed during the pre-registration period. A business wanting a ".biz" address could submit an online request with an application fee of a few dollars. For multiple submissions for the same name, one is picked at random.

According to the law, Neulevel is now free to distribute the disputed names, however it may hold off until the case reaches trial. The company has said it would take a week to assess its options. As soon as NetNames receives any more information, it will contact affected customers about the status of their .biz domain.

500,000 .info domains registered in 90 days

The first of the new domains to be launched in a decade, .info, has got off to a flying start with over 500,000 domain names registered in its first 90 days according to Afilias, the .info registry.

By comparison, .com took more than five years to reach the same milestone. Registrations have come from more than 70 countries, with slightly more that half coming from Europe (Germany alone accounting for nearly 30 percent of registrations.) Forty percent of .info registrations have originated from North America.
 

2. Industry News

Nestlé lose domain case

Swiss food giant, Nestlé this week received a stern rebuke from domain name arbitrators WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organisation). Nestlé had brought an action to recover the maggi.com domain name. However, rather than finding the original registrants of the name guilty of cybersquatting, Nestlé has been accused of attempting to 'reverse hijack' the name.

This is a rare finding under ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), even though more than 4,500 conflicts between trademark holders and domain name registrants have been settled in the last two years.

The maggi.com domain name had been registered by another Swiss company, Pro Fiducia Treuhand AG in 1996. Nestlé alleged the company had no legitimate claim to the name, since a web site had not been set up on the domain. The domain had, however, been registered by the company's chairman, Romeo Maggi, for his own personal use.

Nestlé was given a very stern ticking off by the adjudicating panel for failing to point out anywhere in its complaint that Pro Fiducia's Chairman's name was Maggi, and that this was the reason for the registration. It ruled that Nestlé had failed to provide evidence which was "complete and accurate."

3. NIC News

Nominet calls for feedback

Nominet, the .uk registry, has called on the Internet naming industry to participate and provide active feedback and on a draft Code of Practice for domain name registration services.

The Code of Practice has been developed by the Internet Names Code of Practice (INCOP), an independent body funded by Nominet, established to set higher standards in the industry.

INCOP has drafted a consultation paper setting out the proposed content of the code and ways in which accreditation may take place. The paper can be viewed at: http://www.incop.org.uk/proposed_content.html and contains a link to a questionnaire where participants can voice their opinions on improvements, implementation and funding.

.ua domain restored

After a decade of negotiation and scandal, it is finally possible to register the Ukrainian domain, .ua, for the first time. It had previously only been possible to register third-level .ua domains, for example xxx.kiev.ua and xxx.com.ua, after the administrator for the .ua domain immigrated to the US in the early 1990s.

The initial registration is for twelve months and requires a trademark registered in the Ukraine or recognised under the Madrid Protocol. The domain name should be identical to the trademark. Non-Ukraine entities can be recorded as the registrant/legal owner of .ua domain names.

Whilst this system has been created to weed out cybersquatters, critics point out that obtaining a Ukrainian trademark can be problematic and very time consuming, which is likely to put off many companies. It is also set to make personal domain name increasingly difficult to obtain.

For further information about registering a .ua domain, please contact NetNames.