• China Appoints Domain Name Dispute Arbitrator
  China's first official arbitrator of disputes over Internet domain names has been appointed as the court system wrestles with guidelines for the legalities of domain name registrations.
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12/27/2000

• Domain names for Christmas
  UK domain name registrar, NetNames, has reported an increase in personal domain name registrations in time for Christmas.
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• Fight the Power in Domain-Name Disputes
  Every month business names rise in price like baseball tickets. At a recent corporate-name unveiling I attended in San Francisco, the new outfit admitted it took a ragged name mainly for the short URL.
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• Network Commerce Acquires Internet Domain Registrars
  Technology infrastructure supplier Network Commerce Inc. announced today that it has acquired Internet Domain Registrars Corp., one of the companies accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to register top-level domain names.
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12/26/2000

• The insane domain name game
  Wacky WIPO kicked off the new year with its first ruling, and has hardly taken time to draw breath since - dishing out domain name decisions willy nilly, and normally not in favour of the little guy.
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12/22/2000

• Domain name infringement on increase
  Domain name infringement is on the up, having increased 5% since 1998, according to a survey by Net Searchers.
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12/21/2000

• Time Warner Wins Potter Domains
  Time Warner Entertainment emerged the winner Thursday from the latest hair-raising Harry Potter adventure, this time fought out in the world of cyberspace.
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• New service back-orders domain names
  A Web site launching in early January will monitor Internet domain name registrations globally and allow corporations to back-order names that were previously owned by competitors or speculators.
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12/20/2000

• VeriSign Tops 700,000 Multilingual Domains
  Since the launch of its test phase in the multilingual domain game, VeriSign (Nasdaq: VRSN) says its Multilingual Domain Names Testbed has received over 700,000 domain name registrations since it opened for registration on November 10, 2000.
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12/19/2000

• P&G Sells Flu.com Domain Name
  Procter & Gamble Co. has sold the Internet domain name flu.com, one of nearly 100 commercial names the consumer products company has put up for sale because it has no plans to use them for Web sites.
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• easyJet Gets Tough On Domain-Name Rivals
  British airline easyJet is making life difficult for Web businesses with similar monikers.
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12/18/2000

• Multilingual domain names could strain corporate nets
  Under pressure from non-English speaking users, the Internet engineering community is considering several proposals for supporting foreign language domain names that would all require significant network upgrades for multinational organizations.
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12/17/2000

• Competition in Hangul Domain Name Service Market Heating Up
  Competition is heating up to take the initiative in the Korean Internet domain name service market, estimated to reach 2 trillion won annually
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12/15/2000

• JPNIC's First Dispute Settlement Centers on Domain Name Transfer: Verdict May Come Before Year-End
  A new solution to company-to-company disputes on the ownership of Internet domain names will soon be introduced.
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• Frozen Food Co. Has Domain Dilemma
  The owner of the Findus frozen food trademark has been refused the rights to the Internet domain name www.findus.com after a United Nations arbitrator agreed the name could be read as ``Find Us.''
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12/14/2000

• Mortgage.com domain fetches $1.8 million
  Mortgage.com sold its domain name to ABN AMRO Mortgage Group for $1.8 million as it closes its operations after being unable to raise enough cash to keep going.
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• BAA.com domain battle settled out of court
  The legal battle over the ownership of www.baa.com has been settled out of court after its owner, Tom Bourke, was no longer able to afford the heavy legal fees.
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• New York Times wins rights to domain name
  The New York Times has been awarded the right to the internet domain name www.newyorktimes.com
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• Who can get hacked without noticing? Icann
  Surfers visiting the website of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organisation that runs the domain name system, saw an unusual message in the title of their browser Wednesday.
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12/13/2000

• Class action tilts at NSI domain name hoard
  Aggrieved wannabuy domain name punters are invited to join a lawsuit to force Network Solutions International (NSI) to release its hoard of expired and pdomain names.
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• New domains: Get ready, get set, litigate!
  The Internet domain name chase is about to enter its next phase, when the new domain names become available. Get ready for a "name rush" that will rival the Oklahoma land rush of 1889. Back then, there were problems with squatters, now romantically called Boomers and Sooners, and the new name rush will have plenty of problems, too. Already the ambulance chasers—uh, lawyers—are out in force to make sure you know whom to call when you need to stake a claim to, or defend, that precious piece of cyber-turf that will constitute your corporate identity.
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12/12/2000

• Domain name database revamp due?
  Momentum is building within the Internet's technical and policy circles for an overhaul of one of the most important information services on the 'Net: the WHOIS database that lists owners of domain names
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• Commission to create registry to run ‘dot-eu’ domain
  The European Commission has adopted a proposal to create a registry to run the dot-eu internet top level domain. This proposal is a crucial step towards the creation of the dot-eu top level domain on the Net since the proposed registry will be the body that will run the domain. The Commission is also talking to ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to enable the creation of the dot-eu code on the internet to become a reality once the registry is in place.
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• Anti-WalMart domain win claimed as sea-change
  WIPO has ruled against a huge conglomerate! We know, unbelievable as it may seem, it's true. Kenneth J. Harvey is officially entitled not to have his www.wallmartcanadasucks.com taken off him and given to a faceless organisation. The judges did slap Ken's wrist however, calling him childish and unfair.
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• 'Hangul' Internet Domain Feud May Lead to Legal Fight
  After a month of verbal disputes on the priority of keyword-based Hangul (Korean character) Internet domain registration service between a local start-up, netpia.com, and the U.S.-based RealNames Inc., the controversy is likely to enter its second round as a legal suit.
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12/11/2000

• New Web suffixes are changing the rules
  Suppose the Wharton School wanted to register Wharton.biz as a domain name using one of the seven new Web suffixes approved last month by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Then let's say that Joe Wharton, owner of a dog grooming business in Iowa City, wanted to register Wharton.biz to advertise his pet service. Finally, suppose an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania wanted to set up Wharton.biz to sell potential customers a selection of his writings on the American author Edith Wharton.
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• Register.com gains injunction against Verio
  Register.com, which offers a service to register Internet domain names, says a federal court has granted its motion seeking a preliminary injunction against Verio, a subsidiary of NTT Data Communications System. The company said that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the motion enjoining Verio from accessing Register.com's Whois database to target its customers with unsolicited commercial e-mail and telemarketing.
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12/09/2000

• The small island domain name craze
  After Tuvalu, another small island has put their Top Level Domain (TLD) in the shopping window and opened it up for registration to the world. An American business will take care of the .MU TLD and has become the official registrant for the domain names under the .MU extension
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12/08/2000

• Jaccs Wins Japan's First Web Domain Name Court Dispute
  Jaccs Co., Ltd., a major Japanese credit card firm, won a case in which it had sought that a company called Nihonkai Pakuto based in Toyama city, Toyama prefecture, be prevented from using a Web site under the "jaccs.co.jp" domain name.
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12/07/2000

• NCAA awarded 20 disputed domain names
  The NCAA was awarded 20 Internet domain names Thursday in a U.N.-arbitrated dispute, but failed to win control of 12 addresses that appeared to offer gambling on college sports.
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• 'The domain that rocks': .mu
  Can sex sell domain names? The entrepreneur behind the .cc domain is using bikinis, guitars, and race cars to sell .mu Web addresses.
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12/06/2000

• ICANN is Not a World Government
  Interview with Vint Cerf, ICANN's newly elected Chairman of the board, who wants that the non-profit company to focus on its challenging technical tasks
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12/05/2000

• French Court Rules Against eBay in Domain Name Squabble
  US auction giant eBay has received another blow in its court battle with French startup iBazar over its ownership of eBay's French domain name, as the courts again ruled in iBazar's favour
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• New domains bring high costs to businesses
  The seven new top-level domains, recently ratified by Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), could cost big business more than £50,000 to maintain.
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12/04/2000

• Petsmart.com snaps up rival domain name
  Pets.com is dead. Long live Pets.com!
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• China, U.S. battle over domain names
  A government agency is fighting attempts by U.S.-based VeriSign to license Chinese domain names -- accusing it of introducing inferior standards.
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• TWNIC, CNNIC To Allow Reciprocal Domain Registration
  The Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC), the organization charged with managing the island's domain names, and its Chinese counterpart, (CNNIC), last week reached agreement to establish a common system for registering Chinese-character domain names
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12/03/2000

• Canadian Internet Domain Registration Deadline Passes
  Several thousand Canadian Web site operators had their Internet addresses shut as the deadline to re-register Internet names in the sovereign ".ca" domain lapsed.
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12/02/2000

• The Net's .us domain is laden with baggage
  If you think Christmas shopping at the malls is an ordeal without equal, you haven't tried shopping online for a new Internet domain name recently. With the most attractive 20 million names in the .com realm already registered, the remaining stock is looking a little picked over.
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12/01/2000

• Network Bolsters Domain Holdings With Dot-TV Domain
  Internet addressing giant Network Solutions may consider buying a stake in other "boutique" Internet domains following its recent investment in ".tv," a Network Solutions spokesperson said.
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• Banks Square Off Over Internet Domain Names
  Financial institutions take cyber-squatters and slanderers to court.
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• Kiwi Tax Unit Grabs Domain Info
  New Zealand's tax gathering agency, the Inland Revenue, has acquired the personal details linked to all New Zealand-registered domain names.
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