id.au - the 'smarter way'
The industry regulator for Australia's domain system last
week pointed to the failure of yet another ISP, Smarter
Way, as reason for consumers to secure email addresses
under their own names. Calls to the Smarter Way phone
number published on its website are answered with a Telstra
recording telling callers the service is disconnected.
 http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/22/1079823297760.html

Did ICANN Over Regulate VeriSign?
CircleID recently interviewed Jonathan Weinberg, Professor
of Law at Wayne State University to discuss legal and
regulatory issues that have been raised against Internet
Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
VeriSign, the registry operator of the two most popular
top-level domains .com and .net, filed a lawsuit against
ICANN on February 26, 2004 complaining that the Internet
regulatory body has extended "its authority beyond the
scope of its contracts". Did ICANN cross its contractual
boundaries? To what extent does ICANN's contract limit its
technical coordination functions and how much of a threat
does VeriSign's lawsuit impose?
 http://www.circleid.com/article/538_0_1_0_C

The Latest Cybersquatting Trend: Typosquatters,Their
Changing Tactics, and How To Prevent Public Deception and
Trademark Infringement by Dara B. Gilwit
In an era when technology dominates, the Internet has
become an indispensable and expedient source for a wealth
of information. From purchasing clothes and cars, to dating
and corresponding with people across the globe, the
Internet is the modern day choice for instantaneous
communications. Many businesses, relying heavily on
customer website usage, distinguish products through their
trademarks, which indicate quality and help develop brand
names. Thus, using trademarks as domain names helps
businesses to create a strong presence on the Internet.2
Yet, domain name registration, once a convenient
identification method for consumers, has become a
profitable venture for clever entrepreneurs such as
cybersquatters.

http://law.wustl.edu/Journal/11/p267Gilwitnotebookpages.pdf

Anti-spammers press for own domain
Ten applications for new Top Level Domains (TLD) were
published by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and
Number (ICANN) over the weekend with a special TLD to
prevent spam and three new names to merge the phone and
Internet worlds.
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/36450.html

New domain names aid net to grow
New net domain names including .xxx for pornographic sites
and .mobi for phones could be live by early 2005.
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3560161.stm

The battle over triple 'x'
commentary - By the end of this year, Internet users could
have an extraordinarily convenient place to find
pornography: a new .xxx top-level domain.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/0,2000061744,39118921,00.htm

http://www.silicon.com/networks/webwatch/0,39024667,39119382,00.htm

.Mobi's Case For Mobile Domains
Three days after the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) posted its proposed sponsored top
level domains (sTLDs), Microsoft's (Quote, Chart) director
of technology made the case for a mobile TLD separate from
.com and .net.
 http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/3329961

Posibilidad de disponer de nuevos dominios
Según ha indicado el ICANN ha recibido la solicitud de
nuevos registros en Internet, tales como .mobi, . asia,
.jobs, .post o .travel.

http://delitosinformaticos.com/noticias/108004077979560.shtml

La comunidad catalana solicita el dominio .cat
La Associació puntCAT, que reune alrededor de setenta
asociaciones y entidades catalanas, ha solicitado a la
ICANN que creé el dominio .cat para la comunidad
lingüistica y cultural catalana.

http://delitosinformaticos.com/noticias/108012904532748.shtml

Arabic domain names still long way off - Lebanon
In cyber terms, a few months are equivalent to a few years.
But when it comes to the Arabization of domain names,
things have been stalling. Nonproprietary standards are yet
to be offered and then proposed to the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for authorization.
 http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=45249

Internet NZ to spend more on regulation, lobbying
politicians
Internet NZ wants to boost the amount it spends on legal
and regulatory issues and on lobbying politicians.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/businessstorydisplay.cfm?storyID=3556242

Survey Reveals Increased Privacy Concerns Cause Customers
To Provide False Identity Data - Network Solutions Launches
New Service to Protect Domain Customer Privacy
A new online survey of internet users released by the
Network Solutions® privacy forum,
www.internetprivacyadvocate.org, reveals that 70 percent of
respondents said they have provided false data about their
identity because of concerns about their personal
information becoming public.

http://www.networksolutions-customerfeedback.com/pressreleases.html#20040305

Major Television Advertisers Make Too Little Use of the
Internet -- So Last Century. SoLastCentury.com!
Consumers are ready to visit Internet websites for products
advertised on television, but TV advertisers are not doing
the right things to get them there, says Psychologist Susan
Griffith, in the new online journal Psychology of the
Internet. Commercials need to speak domain names aloud,
make the names relevant and memorable (like Broadzilla.com
for broadband or LowCarbOJ.com), and tell the consumer what
is at the website for them, e.g. coupons.
 http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/3/emw113121.htm

ICANN: GNSO Council Rome Meeting Minutes held on 3 March
2004
 http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-gnso-03mar04.shtml

ICANN GNSO: WHOIS Task Force 1 minutes held on 16 March
2004

http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-dow1tf-16mar04.shtml

ICANN GNSO: Council Teleconference Agenda for 1 April 2004
 http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/agenda-gnso-01apr04.shtml

APC: Whose “information society”?
Was WSIS worth it? The general verdict on the recent United
Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held
in December 2003 was a thumbs-down. The Summit outcomes
were limited after an arduous and expensive process.
However, argues Anriette Esterhuysen, APC executive
director, from the perspective of many civil society
organisations that participated actively, the WSIS has
created a new opportunity for solidarity across
ideological, sectoral and geographical divides.

http://www.apc.org/english/about/history/english.shtml?cmd[384]=i-575-17983


NTIA Committed to ICANN Reform
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
(NTIA) has made a long term commitment to taking the
actions necessary to reform ICANN. Specifically, the
Department of Commerce's Strategic Plan for FY 2004-2009
discusses the need for NTIA to take action to reform ICANN.
The Strategic Plan details three Strategic Goals for the
Department to achieve over the next five years. The second
goal is to "Foster science and technological leadership by
protecting intellectual property, enhancing technical
standards, and advancing measurement science."
 http://www.circleid.com/article/537_0_1_0_C

Will the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act Create
More Problems than it Solves? by Natalia Ramirez
Various complex legal issues surfaced with the explosive
and dynamic growth of the Internet. For example, 1999
witnessed a purchaser pay $7.5 million for the Internet
address “business.com.” This example illustrates the
growing importance of Internet addresses (domain names) and
the problem facing trademark owners who register their
marks as domain names only to discover that someone else
registered their mark to extract a payment. Courts
recognize the commercial importance of domain names and
thus, apply traditional principles of trademark law to
domain name disputes. As a result, courts consistently
favor trademark owners when one party, commonly known as a
cybersquatter, registers a well-known trademark as a domain
name for the sole purpose of collecting money from the
trademark’s owner. Traditional principles of trademark law,
however, fail to resolve the problem created when two
parties have a valid claim to a specific domain name. This
situation arises either because both parties own the
trademark in different geographic areas or because they use
the trademark in connection with different goods or
services.

http://law.wustl.edu/journal/8/p395noteRamirezbookpages.pdf

Realspace Sovereigns in Cyberspace: Problems with the
Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act by Catherine T.
Struve and R. Polk Wagner
This Article seeks to fill a critical gap in the current
literature relating to the international ordering of
cyberspace: the link between jurisdictional assertions by
realspace sovereigns and their effects on the global effort
to administer the Internet. We analyze the United States’
response to disputes over domain names, the
Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”), which
permits a trademark owner to seek cancellation or transfer
of the domain name by proceeding in rem against the domain
name itself, thereby expanding the scope of the ACPA to
encompass disputes with little direct connection to the
United States. Congress appears to have developed 15 U.S.C.
§ 1125(d)(2) based on a misunderstanding of the
constitutional requirements for adjudicative jurisdiction
in the U.S. courts; and early court decisions interpreting
the provision have perpetuated the misunderstanding. This
Article argues that there exist no cases of foreign
cybersquatting (aside from certain cases involving
anonymous registrants) as to which the in rem provision
will be both applicable and constitutional.

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/journals/btlj/articles/vol17/STRUVE_WAGNER.pdf

Afilias Opens Registrations for .INFO German Script Domains
(news release)
Afilias, a global provider of Internet domain name registry
services, announced Wednesday that it has opened
registration for .INFO German script internationalized
domain names (IDNs), which now enables Internet users to
register Web addresses containing the German characters ä,
ö, and ü. Afilias opened registration yesterday evening. As
of 13:00 UTC (08:00 a.m. EST) on 17 March, over 13,000
German script IDNs were registered, the first of which was
kinderbücher.info.

http://www.afilias.info/news/press_releases/pr_articles/2004-03-17-01

Domain Name WLS is Anti-consumer, Anti-efficiency,
Anti-shareholders (news release)
Although VeriSign’s WLS is anti-consumer, inefficiently
priced and destructive to shareholder value, domain-name
registrars are well positioned to introduce a pro-consumer
service that would make WLS irrelevant.
 http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/3/emw113721.htm

Protect Your Domain Name Registration into the Next Century
(Network Solutions announcement)
Every day, companies lose their domain names by accident
because they failed to renew. Protect your valuable online
identity for 100 years and rest assured that it will be
automatically renewed into the next century.

http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/name-it/popup-100-yr-term.jhtml

Pivotal Private Equity Acquires Network Solutions
Pivotal Private Equity announced today that it has signed
an agreement to acquire control of Network Solutions, the
world's largest domain name registrar, for $100 million.

http://www.networksolutions-customerfeedback.com/pressreleases.html#20031126


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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for an archive or to subscribe to the general news.

Sources include Quicklinks (www.qlinks.net) and BNA
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=====
David Goldstein
 address: 2/4 Dundas Street
             COOGEE NSW 2034
             AUSTRALIA
 email: Goldstein_David§yahoo.com.au
 phone: +61 418 228 605 - mobile; +61 2 9665 0015 - home

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