Domain Diary

EURid, a Brussels based registry for .eu domain names recently announced that it has opened a regional office in Stockholm, Sweden to support Northern Europe.

As a next step, offices are also planned for the Czech Republic and Italy. The Stockholm office and the future regional offices in Prague and Pisa will assume responsibility for the helpdesk support offered to registrars, domain name holders and the general public in their respective local languages.

Web hosting provider and domain name registration services firm, Network Solutions, has called upon the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) to review the proposed .com registry agreement between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and VeriSign, Inc.

The World Association of Domain Name Developers, Inc. (WADND), will host its third annual T.R.A.F.F.I.C. EAST conference and trade show, developed specifically for domain developers and investors, sponsors, pay-per-click aggregators, buyers of Internet traffic, advertisers, and business owners and professionals.

Internet governance experts remain divided over last week’s decision to extend the US government’s oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), with some calling it appropriate, and others portraying it as unwise.

The strong sentiments on either side reflect a chronic, troubling tension that has enveloped ICANN since 1998, when it was formed to progressively absorb the Internet management functions which, until then, were handled fully by the US government. Often accused of lacking transparency in its decision-making process and of responding disproportionately to US interests, ICANN carries on its shoulders the critical responsibility of ensuring the security and stability of the Internet.

Escom LLC, the owners of the storied Sex.com domain name, today announced a distribution deal in which the new Sex.com will become a premiere online destination for broadband premium services representing the best in entertainment for adults.The agreement calls for the Playboy Entertainment Group to power the Sex.com web site, providing content options that include a wide array of high-quality erotic programming and interactive elements that allow for social networking between consenting adults.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said in a statement Wednesday that it does not have the ability or authority to comply with a proposed court order that it suspend the Internet service of the Spamhaus Project. Spamhaus is a volunteer-run antispam service.
In a proposed order last Friday, Judge Charles Kocoras of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois called on the organizations responsible for registering the Spamhaus.org Internet address to suspend the organization’s Internet service. Both ICANN, the nonprofit organization set up to manage the domain name system of the Internet, and Toronto-based Tucows, the Spamhaus.org registrar, are named in the order.

Sedo.com LLC plans to introduce this week an auction service for domain name sales, a company executive said Monday.

Jeremiah Johnston, COO and general counsel for the online marketplace for buyers and sellers for domain names and Web sites, said the new seven-day auction platform will augment a traditional model, where domain names are posted on the site for sale and price negotiated.

The eBay-like model aims to satisfy requests by businesses, as well as professional investors who purchase high-ticket domain names each year.

Internet overseeing organisation ICANN will vote later today on whether to introduce a new system aimed at closing a loophole in domain name rules that enables speculators to register thousands of domain names effectively for free.

The method, called “domain tasting”, has proved highly controversial in the past year and, its critics argue, is costing the industry money as well as restricting choice on the internet.

The ICANN board will decide whether to allow an amendment to the contract that covers all .org domains, currently held by non-profit organisation PIR, that will enable PIR to charge five cents for every domain registered with it that is returned within five days - something that it hopes will remove the financial incentive for so-called “domainers”.

In just seven years of operation, the caseload of the Arbitration and Mediation Center of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) topped the 25,000 mark with a case that has just been decided.

Since it launched its domain name dispute resolution services, the WIPO Center has resolved disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and various other policies. The 25,000th case related to a cybersquatting dispute handled under the UDRP in which the panelist ordered the transfer of the domain name to the trademark owner, the Red Lion Hotels chain.

In the period since the launch of its dispute resolution services under the UDRP in December 1999 through August 2006, 9,567 UDRP or UDRP-based cases (generic top level domains, gTLDs and country code top-level domains, ccTLDs) have been filed with the WIPO Center, covering 17,912 separate domain names involving parties from 136 countries.

The Internet will soon have a domain to unify businesses and other users in the Asia-Pacific region.A key oversight agency has approved a “.asia” domain for Internet addresses, supplementing suffixes available for individual countries, such as “.cn” for China and “.jp” for Japan. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers earlier approved “.eu” for the European Union.

Made up of groups that run domain names for China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and other countries, the DotAsia Organization Ltd. plans to explore permitting domain names in Asian languages under “.asia.”

A US judge has denied a request to order internet registrars to suspend Spamhaus’s domain, easing concerns that the spam blocking service might be interrupted.

Judge Charles Kocoras turned down a motion from e360 Insight, a firm that sued Spamhaus after the anti-spam organisation blacklisted its domains over alleged spamming, in the latest chapter in an ongoing legal tussle between the two organisations..

In a default ruling [PDF] made by an Illinois court last month, Spamhaus was ordered to pay $11.7m in compensation to e360 Insight, pull the organisation’s listing, and post a notice stating that it was wrong to say e360 Insight was involved in sending junk mail. UK-based Spamhaus did not defend the case and the ruling was made in its absence.

Afilias, a registry for .info domains, announced today that it has released support for eight additional Internationalized Domain Name language scripts in the .info generic top-level domain.

According to the company, these eight additional scripts join the German script that launched in 2004. The new scripts include Polish, Swedish, Danish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian and Korean languages. Afilias IDNs provide users with the ability to register domain in their local language, using non-ASCII characters that previously did not work in web browsers. Afilias IDN technology works with IDNA web browsers and e-mail clients so that the new domain can resolve. Internet applications such as internet explorer 7, netscape 8.1.2, firefox 1.5.0.7 and opera 9 support the use of IDNs.