• Good Reasons for a Dot-Sex Domain Name
  If the top-level domain of dot-sex were adopted, the benefits would be felt by nearly every category of Web user.
  .... full story

• Public Interest Groups Clash With ICANN Over Governance
  A cadre of public interest groups today released a report contradicting the findings of a recent study by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) into what role the online public should play in drafting global Internet addressing policy.
  .... full story

• ALSC Chair Defends ICANN Report
  The chairman of the committee that recently drew up a report with recommended changes for individual representation at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) defended the paper's position Friday.
  .... full story

• Trademark Holders Don't Automatically Win Similar Domain Names, Federal Judge Rules
  Trademark rights don't automatically entitle the holder to the rights to an Internet domain name that incorporates the trademark, a federal judge has ruled
  .... full story

08/30/2001

• Sun Makes .biz Domain Demands
  Sun Microsystems Inc has put the pressure on domain name registrars, demanding that they block anybody from trying to register .biz domains that feature the company's trademark, it emerged yesterday.
  .... full story

• ICANN Debates Membership, New Web Addresses
  At issue is the notion of having representatives from the Internet community ``at-large'' electing board members of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), said President and Chief Executive M. Stuart Lynn.
  .... full story

• Dot IT Domains Available In Ireland
  Digiweb has become the first Irish ISP to be approved by the Italian Domain Registry to register .IT domains
  .... full story

• Domain names body yet to address Web issues
  Despite three years since its inception, the non-profit ICANN that oversees Web addresses is at crossroads on deciding how much influence its members should have. The issue is regarding who should be chosen as representatives, the Net users or those owning web addresses, to elect the board members of ICANN.
  .... full story

08/29/2001

• ICANN Board Member Blasts Governance Study
  Arguing that a proposal pending before the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) would effectively prevent ordinary Internet users from having a meaningful say in Web governance, one ICANN board member today vowed to oppose the plan.
  .... full story

• Public membership of (ICANN) will be restricted
  Public membership of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will be restricted to holders of domain names. ICANN announced the change yesterday after spending six months grappling with the problem of representing the wider Internet community.
  .... full story

• Some firms sit out chance for .info and .biz domains
  Motorola's got the info. McDonald's does not. The mobile phone company swooped in and reserved www.motorola.info, making it one of thousands of companies that took advantage of an offer to grab their trademarked names before anyone else could
  .... full story

• Cybersquatters hijack new domains with fraudulent claims
  The frontiers of cyberspace have been hijacked by fraudsters, according to the company responsible for registering thousands of websites ending with the new .info suffix
  .... full story

• Beware the tricks of domain name registrars
  The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has received a rush of new complaints regarding "sharp practices" by some Internet domain name registrars.
  .... full story

• Oxford wins domain name battle
  Oxford University has defended its 800-year-old name on the Internet successfully, claiming control of a site run by a cyber squatter who calls himself "Mr. Oxford University," the World Intellectual Property Organization said yesterday.
  .... full story

08/28/2001

• Study Recommends Retooled ICANN Governance Structure
  Rank and file Internet users would be given their own "supporting organization" within the influential Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) under a proposal submitted today by an internal ICANN group.
  .... full story

• ICANN rottweiler savages Net consultant
  If you ever doubted that the legion of Internet consultants rushing around telling Net-ignorant business folk what the World Wide Web means to them have been talking out their respective arses, worry not longer.
  .... full story

• Internet Homesteaders Scramble for the Right Domain
  Long Lines of Applicants Seek First New Global Online Addresses to Be Released in 17 Years
  .... full story

• Domain name abuse warning
  A domain name manager has warned of the potential for an "uneven playing field" for privacy compliance, with new entrants to the industry falling through potential cracks in the privacy regime.
  .... full story

• 'Oxford' Domain-Nabber Loses Second College Cachet Bid
  A man who flunked his first attempt to hold on to an Internet address reminiscent of the famed University of Oxford has failed again, even though he claimed to have changed his name to Mr. Oxford-University."
  .... full story

08/27/2001

• Dogfight Over Domain Name Broken Up By Arbitrators
  A dogfight between two Phoenix, Ariz.-area animal trainers over the domain TeamCanine.com has been broken up by International authorities.
  .... full story

• Domain manager seeks monopoly extension
  Melbourne IT wants to extend its monopoly on selling com.au names and wants new naming policies to be introduced immediately. Melbourne IT's group general manager, Theo Hnarakis, said the company had asked the .au Domain Authority (auDA) to "release the names policy", while asking for more work before competition was introduced.
  .... full story

• Domain-Name Business Offer Lucrative Arena for Dexterous Firms
  In 1985, Symbolics.com was the first domain name registered on the Internet. After that, it took nearly 15 months for the number of domain registrations to reach 100. In the 16 years since then, more than 36 million domain names have been registered worldwide, with more than 22 million under the most popular top level domain name, dot-com.
  .... full story

08/26/2001

• Mafia link in web domain business
  AN international financier charged by US police in connection with a Mafia-related extortion scheme on Wall Street has emerged as the key figure behind Britain's biggest web domain name business.
  .... full story

08/25/2001

• Ethical Treatment of PETA Domain
  A federal appeals court has ruled that a website titled "People Eating Tasty Animals" is not only a bad joke, but also an unlawful one.
  .... full story

08/24/2001

• New domains have dodgy registration
  Up to half of .info domain name registrations could be fraudulent, warn lawyers.
  .... full story

• Domain Registrars Prepare for Massive Name Drop
  Domain name registrars are preparing for what could prove to be a name land-rush of unprecedented proportions. A system set to be launched at the end of the month by VeriSign Inc limits the number of server connections registrars can use when their customers try to pick up the best .com names.
  .... full story

• Weapons Retailers Swashbuckle Over Domain Names
  A knife, sword and simulated Medieval weaponry retailer may be marching a small-time competitor into a U.S. District Court to capture a pair of Internet domain names. But the target of the complaint, Deon Carpenter of Geneva, Ala., says there's no reason for anyone to make a federal case out of it: he's already surrendered.
  .... full story

• Sex.com Sues Yahoo For Intimidation In Domain-Name Flap
  The owners of the Sex.com Web site, threatened with a lawsuit by Yahoo earlier this month for alleged cybersquatting and trademark violations, have decided instead to fire their own volley and sue the mega-portal first.
  .... full story

08/23/2001

• Companies Move To Register .INFO Domains
  With the Sunrise Period for trademark and service mark holders to register their marks in the new .INFO domain slated to end on Monday, Aug. 27, Afilias Thrusday claimed that registrations to date mark .INFO as the first "truly global" domain
  .... full story

• Cybersquatters target new domains
  AFILIAS, the US-based company in charge of the new .info domain name, has admitted that chronic problems with cybersquatters have forced it to review all the pre-registrations.
  .... full story

• Domain name overseer set up
  LEADING local internet players are forming a new company to oversee allocation and administration of domain names in SA.
  .... full story

08/22/2001

• AOL Won't Get Hands On 'Nudescape' Domain - WIPO
  America Online, the Internet arm of communications giant AOL Time Warner [NYSE:AOL], is rarely denied in its efforts to shoo alleged cybersquatters from Internet domains that sound like the names of its own products. But an international arbitrator says AOL's claim that the address "Nudescape.com" is a play on the moniker of its Netscape Web browser is one pun too far.
  .... full story

08/21/2001

• Professor tears ICANN domain dispute policy to pieces
  Professor Michael Geist from the University of Ottawa has added to the cacophony of criticism against ICANN over its domain dispute resolution policies (UDRP). He has published a paper on the subject entitled Fair.com? An examination of systemic unfairness in the ICANN UDRP.
  .... full story

• ICANN approves widespread new domain cybersquatting
  ICANN has officially approved widespread corporate cybersquatting for new domain name registry operators.
  It is not a well-known aspect of the new domain operators' contract, but they are entitled to register up to 10,000 domains for themselves before allowing anyone else access. ICANN argues that a registry operator will need a wide range of addresses on that registry in order to work effectively, and it is impossible to disagree with that. However, a registrar is given free rein to select up to 10,000 domains that they wish to possess . . .
  .... full story

• auDA won't consider new domains before 2002
  The .au Domain Administration will not introduce new second level .au domains before 2002.
  .... full story

08/20/2001

• Law Expert Charges Bias In Domain-Dispute Arbitrations
  A legal expert's comprehensive analysis of fast-track arbitration, which is used to settle disputes over the ownership of Internet domain names, suggests that the process is fundamentally biased in favor of outfits that want to wrest addresses from so-called "cybersquatters."
  .... full story

08/18/2001

• UK retailers reject new domain names
  Major UK retailers say they will not register their trademarks for either .biz or .info because they see no business case for new domain names.
  Rowe admitted that HMV is opening itself up to some risk from speculators by not registering, but is confident that it will gain control of the new suffixes in arbitration.
  .... full story

• 25,000 .info names taken before Sept 12 launch for Net domains
  The general public won’t be able to get Internet domain names ending in “.info” until next month, but already 25,000 names have been taken by businesses getting first dibs.
  .... full story

• Internet domain name game stretches
  As the Internet expands, plans to add new features and languages to Web site addresses are stretching the domain name system beyond its original capabilities.
  .... full story

08/17/2001

• Web Domain Name Chief Urges Patience, Perseverance
  The head of the organization that oversees the Internet's address system has advice for those trying to snag a domain like www.mortgage.info or www.show.biz -- hang in there.
  .... full story

• Underdog fails to get big brother' domain name
  UNDERDOG, the online content provider to M-Net's Big Brother show has failed to secure the show's domain name bigbrother.co.za after negotiations with the owner Big Brother CCTV fell apart over the price (.co.za)
  .... full story

08/16/2001

• Survey: 80% Of Top Brands Grab .INFO Domain
  About 80 percent of the top corporate firms have snapped up the .INFO domain name associated with their brands, allaying preliminary fears that the roll out of the new TLDs would lead to a large-scale cybersquatting.
  .... full story

• Celebrities, fans line up for .names
  Last year, rock star Bruce Springsteen lost a legal dispute to claim BruceSpringsteen.com from a fan, one of the few times a celebrity has failed to win custody of a dot-com named after themselves.
  .... full story

08/15/2001

• ''.info'' registry to evict cybersquatters
  The company in charge of the new ''.info'' Internet domain says that it will seek to recover Internet addresses from dishonest applicants who grabbed hundreds of desirable names before they were made available to the public.
  .... full story

• NoVa Company Suing Amazon.com Over Domains
  NeuLevel Inc., the exclusive operator of the new “dot-biz” Internet domain, has filed a federal lawsuit against online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. in a dispute over the way the Sterling company is selling the domain names
  .... full story

• New ICANN chief outlines agenda
  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a political science experiment on a global scale. This 3-year-old, nonprofit organization sets policy for domain names, IP addresses and root servers using a consensus-driven process open to all Internet users.
  .... full story

08/14/2001

• .biz domain firm sues to resolve lottery charges
  The Virginia company overseeing the roll-out of new .biz Internet addresses has sued to seek protection from charges that its preregistration system for coveted new domain names amounts to an illegal lottery.
  .... full story

• Register.com to offer ".ag" and ".sc" Internet domains
  New York domain-name seller said Tuesday that it plans to offer the Internet domains ".ag" and ".sc" to the general public, further expanding alternatives to the popular ".com" domain
  .... full story

• ICANN adviser brings diplomatic expertise to Net governance
  Here's a little-known fact that should give people new appreciation for the complexities of regulating the Internet: The leader of a group rethinking Internet governance spends his spare time advising the United Nations -- on the Balkans.
  .... full story

08/13/2001

• VeriSign stamps down on domain name landrush
  New limits are being imposed on registrars as the daily landrush for cool-sounding expired domain names clogs the servers at VeriSign
  .... full story

• Broad Coalition Joins Forces On Dot-US Domain Management
  A growing consensus in the Internet community may lead to the revival of auction block in June.
  .... full story

• Wrestlers Vow To Body Slam WWF Domain-Name Ruling
  World Wrestling Federation Entertainment [NYSE:WWF] has vowed to seek a rematch after a British High Court ruling that could force the sports entertainment company to hand its Internet address to the World Wildlife Fund.
  .... full story

08/12/2001

• Setback for personalised .uk domains
  A UK move to create domain names for individuals has faltered just as the company that was approved by ICANN to operate the Web's first personal top-level domains is gearing up for its launch.
  .... full story

08/11/2001

• Domain names hoarded from Web surfers
  Internet expansion leaves some asking where is their dot.info?
  .... full story

08/10/2001

• Non-trademark holders complain of domain name shutout
  The general public won't be able to get Internet domain names ending in ''.info'' until next month, but already 25,000 names have been taken by businesses getting first dibs.
  .... full story

• Renting out Web names garners big bucks
  Nick Koustas' father has been in the real estate business for years, so it's only natural that he would follow in his footsteps--but with a dot-com twist.
  .... full story

08/09/2001

• Domain Registrar Investigates Dot-Info Fraud
  Problems with domain registrations have surfaced during a 'sunrise period' designed to thwart cybersquatters and let trademark holders secure their dot-info names.
  .... full story

• Impolite Domain Names Allowed
  Anything goes in the new .biz and .info top-level domains, at least for most registries.
  .... full story

08/08/2001

• Are Cybersquatters Unfairly Claiming Dot-Info Domains?
  A virtual land rush for names in the new ".info" domain is turning ugly, with critics claiming that the registration system is being abused by cybersquatters and frauds who are snatching up valuable names before the general public has a chance at them
  .... full story

• Judge lambasts Armani in domain name ruling
  A Canadian artist has won the right to the www.armani.com domain, following a remarkable hearing at arbitrator WIPO
  .... full story

• German Firm Fights For Net Domain The Hard Way - WIPO
  The referee in a dispute over the ownership of some Internet domain names says a German furniture manufacturer was wasting its money by paying at least $1,500 to launch - and then lose - a battle for three addresses it could have claimed easily for about $550.
  .... full story

08/07/2001

• Congressional Leaders Demand New Internet Domains
  A powerful coalition of congressional leaders this week urged online addressing authorities to create a new batch of global Internet domains.
  .... full story

• Airlines Collide In International Domain Name Dispute
  Here's a nearly fool-proof way to be labeled a cybersquatter by Internet addressing authorities: Register a domain name that sounds like someone else's trademark, don't launch a real Web site, then offer to sell the address to that trademark holder for a big whack of cash.
  .... full story

• Bogus ".info" domain names draw Internet users' ire
  An effort to keep cybersquatters out of a new Internet domain has drawn the ire of Web surfers who say it has allowed dishonest applicants to scoop up hundreds of desirable names like "business.info" before they are available to the public.
  .... full story

08/06/2001

• Don't waste time in claiming domain name
  Did some other company beat you to your desired domain name? As a result, did you have to tack on an "Inc." or "Corp." or use an unusual abbreviation to land your current Web address? Well, you now have a second chance to get the domain name you always wanted.
  The dot-biz domain . . .
  .... full story

• ICANN Can't Predict When .Pro Contract Will Be Signed
  Although everyone agrees that ".pro" is the next Web suffix slated for approval by Internet addressing authorities, nobody involved in those negotiations is willing to hazard a guess as to when the domain will get the regulatory green light.
  .... full story

08/05/2001

• Unrecognized domains want to be sanctioned
  It's not hard to find the offices for Sue McGovern's ancient art and antiquities business in northwest Houston -- it's just off Interstate Hwy. 290.
  Finding the Web site for her company, http://www.antiquities.inc, isn't so easy. For nearly 90 percent of Web surfers, you simply can't get there from here
  .... full story

08/03/2001

• ICANN calls for feedback on the Whois service
  ICANN has launched a survey asking for as much feedback as possible from Internet users on the Whois database. Whois is a database of domain names and registrants and can be accessed free by any Internet user. ICANN believe Whois is used for many purposes
  Users can comment until 14 August 2001 at http://www.icann.org/dnso/whois-survey-en-10jun01.htm.
  .... full story

• Arbitrator Smites Complaint Over 'God Speaks' Domains
  An arbitrator who referees disputes over the ownership of Internet domain names has determined that the word of God probably is not the exclusive property of Catherine Sims of Detroit, Mich
  .... full story

• Armani loses domain name battle
  Giorgio Armani has lost a legal battle to keep control of his internet name.
  .... full story

• Obscenities Live in New Domains
  In the crowded world of dot-com websites, it's well known that most obviously obscene addresses are already taken.
  .... full story

08/02/2001

• New Domain .Name Set For Rollout
  Internet users will be able to end their online addresses with .name beginning later this month. This is the third of seven new generic domains, according to ICANN.
  .... full story

08/01/2001

• ICANN Approves .name Contract Despite "Monopoly" Objections
  The board of the Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers yesterday voted to approve the contract that will allow Global Name Registry Ltd to launch the .name domain name registry. The vote was 14-2 in favor of the contract, with board members Amadeu Abril i Abril and Andy Mueller-Maguhn dissenting.
  .... full story

• ICANN board member sounds off
  To some, Karl Auerbach is a cyber-Robin Hood, underdog crusader for the free and unfettered Internet. To others, he is an acid-tongued critic, wannabe cult figure who advocates the overturn of law and order on the Web.
  .... full story

• ICANN considers anonymous registration of domain names
  The Internet's governing body has launched a survey to assess whether it really is necessary to maintain a database of registrants' personal details
  .... full story

• ICANN approves plans for ".name" domain
  Plans are in place to offer Internet addresses ending in ".name,'' joining the ranks of ".com,'' ".net,'' and other domains, the standards-setting body for the Internet said Wednesday.
  .... full story