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Community geographic domain names (CGDNs) are domain names registered within the eight Australian state and territory 2LDs: act.au, qld.au, nsw.au, nt.au, sa.au, tas.au, vic.au, wa.au.
The purpose is to preserve Australian geographic names for use by the relevant local community. CGDNs may only be registered as 3LDs (eg. carlton.vic.au) and their use is restricted to community websites that reflect community interests such as local business, tourism, historical information, culture, sporting groups, local events and news.
CGDNs were launched in August 2006. auDA is conducting a 12 month review of the Policy Rules and Guidelines for Community Geographic Domain Names (CGDNs) (2006-04).
The closing date for submissions is Friday 28 September 2007.
More information is available here.
This announcement is available here.
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In a unanimous decision, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has ruled in favor of Dire Straits in a “cyber-squatting” case. The U.K. rock band filed a complaint with the Geneva-based patents and intellectual property authority May 28 over a disputed domain name, www.direstraits.com.
In their complaint to WIPO, Dire Straits claimed to own the intellectual rights to their band name, which has been in existence for 30 years.
The respondent, Alberta Hot Rods of Canada, has been involved in “many domain name disputes” including a site named after Tom Cruise, and did not offer any reply in this case, according to WIPO’s adjudication.
In its findings, WIPO said that the domain name is identical to a trademark for which Dire Straits has the rights. It also found that the respondent had no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name, and that it was registered and being used in bad faith.
WIPO has now ordered that the domain name should be transferred to the band.
The disputed site was still live as of Aug. 31, describing itself as an “unofficial Dire Straits fan site”, although it acts as a portal which has several sponsored links to commercial sites offering music memorabilia and concert tickets.
Source: WIPO Court Ruling – August 31, 2007
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Mattel, which makes Barbie dolls, was forced this month to recall millions of toys that were made in China because of lead paint and loose magnets. So what’s Mattel’s next step in recovering from possible lost revenues? To attack porn star “China Barbie” of ChinaBarbie.com, of course.
Rather than focusing on its own legal problems, the major US corporation has decided to take aim at suing US porn queen China Barbie for her comparatively nominal monetary assets.
“The site’s been up for like five years, so it’s like, why are they coming after me right now?” she wondered recently of the trademark-infringement lawsuit leveled at her website ChinaBarbie.com by the California-based toymaker.
“It’s because they’re in trouble right now with the lead-poisoning thing, and everyone’s been Googling it and that’s how they found out about the site,” she told Hasani Gittens of the New York Post in a recent interview.
“I’m not marketing myself to children, in any way shape or form,” said China Barbie, whose real name is Terri Gibson.
Regardless of what the outcome of this lawsuit will be, longtime fans of China Barbie are rallying around, many through her website and her Adult Yahoo Group.
The tactic being undertaken by Mattel is especially questionable in this case. Often intellectual-property owners who file lawsuits in similar circumstances lose the case.
The US Patent and Trademark Office and US federal courts generally opine that personal names meant and used as the identification of an individual do not give rise to infringement or damages unless the individual is seeking to identify with and purposefully using intellectual property of the complainant – which China Barbie is not.
“Barbie” is a common name but is also a trademark owned by Mattel for certain purposes, and has certain limitations. “China”, of course, cannot be trademarked for myriad reasons but basically because it is the name of a country and thus too “generic”.
The mixed “word mark” of “China Barbie” would likely be a valid registration – if it weren’t the current subject of objection. One can bet that Mattel’s intellectual-property lawyers are working overtime to register “Barbie of China”, “China Barbie”, “Chinese Barbie”, or similar word marks to arm themselves in this campaign.
But this still overlooks the fact that Miss Barbie is using the name as a personal moniker without seeking to use or infringe on Mattel’s intellectual property. Any long-term court battle would likely end up ruling against Mattel, in Barbie’s favor.
Even the domain name that Mattel is fussing over – which is part of the lawsuit – does not enhance the claim. The Domain Name System registrar that allowed China Barbie to register and use ChinaBarbie.com stands strongly on a first come, first served basis.
Mattel had the opportunity to spend its millions long before China Barbie to buy up any domains it felt might represent a threat to its intellectual-property (IP) rights. That might sound ominous for owners of intellectual property, but it is not; if Miss Barbie had used the domain in question to infringe somehow on the IP rights of Mattel, the company could contest it. However, usually the first step is to make a complaint to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy board, an arbitration panel provided by the Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers, before taking it to the courts.
In either case – for successful prosecution by the plaintiff – she would have had to use Mattel images, products or advertising to promote her site, which she hasn’t.
Unlike Barbie, Mattel doesn’t have legs in this case. So why is it bothering to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to prosecute it?
It could be summarized by keywords: “China, Barbie, production, lead, trade, labor, paint, magnets, Mattel” versus what you might find by just searching on “China Barbie”. For Mattel it is a public relations action – while the firm is being lambasted in the West for making in a “trade” pariah such as “China” a “product” that might be dangerous because of “lead” “paint”, Mattel’s PR gurus can divert the attention to this “slut porn star” who is misusing the firm’s good, honorable name.
Often the methodology of larger businesses and corporations is to bleed their victims through litigation. Smaller organizations – like China Barbie – have nowhere near the resources to fight successfully an attack from a company like Mattel.
Mattel and its IP lawyers might realize that they have no valid litigation against China Barbie that would recover damages, but the job is not to recover assets. The job is public relations, disinformation and redirection.
Source: Copyright 2007 – Asian Sex Gazette, reprinted with permission – By William Sparrow – August 31st, 2007
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The first heavy metal domain dispute I’m aware of. There are reports “the surviving members of Pantera are involved in a legal battle with their former webmaster over” Pantera.com. Pantera.com was once the band’s official web site, but since February 2003 the official web site has been located at www.officialpantera.com.
“According to the Justia.com legal portal, which maintains a database of Federal District Court filings and dockets, Pantera.com’s webmaster filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Western District Court on August 2, 2007 against the Pantera Partnership (consisting of Vincent Paul Abbott, Philip Hansen Anselmo, Rex Robert Brown, and the estate of Darell Lance [”Dimebag Darrell”] Abbott) over the domain, which has apparently been registered to Alfenas since 1998. The Pantera Partnership, meanwhile, filed a suit of their own in the Michigan Eastern District Court against Alfenas (who resides in Michigan) the very next day, August 3, 2007.”
The court documents state prior to securing pantera.com, “the Plaintiff informed the Defendents (Pantera) that the address was then owned by a third party (not a party to this litigation), and that the band Pantera could acquire the address from the third-party.” But the band declined to do so at the time, “respectfully” not the court documents.
The plaintiff then obtained the domain name with the full knowledge of, and no objection from, the band. The court documents note the band has previously not objected to the website, despite having full knowledge of it. And, so the documents note, “the band not only failed to object to the Plaintiff’s website, but it even started taking affirmative and public steps to endorse, advocate, accept, and promote the Plaintiff’s website.” Even promoting the website on one of Pantera’s albums (Reinventing the Steel) calling it the “official Pantera website”. Likewise on the DVD, “Pantera 3: Vulgar Videos from Hell”.
Meanwhile, news reports state the Pantera lawyer said, “Give us the domains or we are going to sue you.” Pantera.com’s webmaster responded, “They could have saved a lot of money if they were just nice. You don’t treat someone that’s done nine years’ worth of work for you like a piece of shit. Especially me.”
For more detailed news reports see: – http://www.metalunderground.com/news/details.cfm?newsid=28587
– http://roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=79831.
Court documents are available from:
– http://casedocs.justia.com/michigan/miwdce/1:2007cv00749/53543/1/0.pdf
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This is an update to our story about Bobog.com a few days ago. Seems as if the news reported was not 100% accurate and that the US judge overstepped his boundaries. Visit Jay Westerdal post here for his perspective on the matter.
Another perspective on the story can be read here.
Source: Chief Editor – DomainNews.com – August 31st, 2007
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An updated version of the proposed .MUSEUM sponsorship agreement is posted today for public comment. The amendment from the previous draft agreement is a result of significant collaboration between the registry sponsor and community members. The updated agreement is posted today with the intention of submitting it to the ICANN Board for approval after the 30-day comment period.
Background
The proposed .MUSEUM sTLD registry agreement and appendices were originally posted for public comment on 2 March 2007 (http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-02mar07.htm). After consultation with the community an amendment was made to Appendix S of the agreement that describes some of the duties and rights of the registry sponsor, MuseDoma. (Amended Proposed .MUSEUM Appendices [PDF, 141K])
During the public comment period that was open through 23 March 2007, concern was expressed about proposed language in Part VII of Appendix S, that allowed for up to 5,000 domain names to be directly managed by MuseDoma. This language was created by MuseDoma recognizing that the “wildcard” capability that was allowed in the original agreement was eliminated from this renewal agreement. (For more on “wildcards” see, http://www.icann.org/committees/security/sac015.htm.)
On 27 March 2007, at ICANN’s public meeting in Lisbon, MuseDoma and the ICANN Registrar Constituency held a public exchange on the purpose of the proposed language and on various forms that language might take. MuseDoma agreed to propose language in response to the public exchange. There have been additional telephonic conferences among some interested parties since that time.
Amendment
Original Language
Proposed Language
Sponsor may register up to 5,000 domain names directly with the Registry Operator and keep these names under direct management until the conclusion of its designation by ICANN
as the Sponsor for the Sponsored TLD.
Recognizing that: i) the charter of the .MUSEUM top-level domain is sufficiently restrictive so that it has appeal to a small, identifiable and limited community, and that said restrictions have created conditions that substantially limit market demand and as a result, registrar uptake; ii) MuseDoma is a not-for-profit entity as is the community it is required to serve by the definition of its charter; and iii) MuseDoma makes available to its community members under certain conditions, at no cost, third-level domain names. Therefore, MuseDoma is permitted to maintain up to 4,000 domain names directly with the Registry Operator and keep these names under direct management for purposes stated in iii) of this Section until the conclusion of its designation by ICANN as the Sponsor for
the Sponsored TLD.
No other changes have been made to the version of the agreement posted on 2 March 2007. As previously reported, the proposed agreement is for a ten-year term, and provides for:
the elimination of the wildcard;
ICANN fees based on the total number of registrations;
continuation of the existing requirements for:
compliance with consensus and temporary policies except to the extent policy development has been delegated to the sponsoring organization;
comprehensive registry data escrow; and,
approval of new registry services and modifications to existing registry services.
Comments on the updated proposed agreement can be posted to museum-renewal-2007@icann.org no later than 5:00PM PST, 30 September 2007 and viewed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/museum-renewal-2007.
Source: ICANN Press Release – 31 August, 2007 – http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-31aug07.htm
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The continuing saga at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) about policy for approving new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) is entering what may be its final stages this summer. There has been a stream of controversy surrounding the “.xxx” gTLD proposal that was rejected by the ICANN Board of Directors at its March 2007 meeting in Lisbon (see IPW, Internet and Communications Technology, 2 April 2007).
ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organisation (GNSO) has continued to work on recommendations for a uniform policy to govern gTLDs, through a special New gTLDs Committee that was set up in a Policy Development Process in December 2005.
At the June 2007 ICANN meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) and At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) combined to present a workshop on freedom of expression concerns that are at issue in the proposed gTLD policy, including the launch of a new campaign to mobilise public opposition to provisions that involve non-technical criteria for approving or rejecting new gTLDs.
The “Keep The Core Neutral” campaign (KTCN) launched with a coalition of over 100 organisational and individual members that signed a petition asking ICANN to “stay within its technical mandate and refrain from embedding particular national, regional, moral, or religious policy objectives into global rules over the use of language in domain names.” At the time of this writing, there are over 250 signatories on the petition, including roughly 100 organisations from both the nonprofit and commercial sectors. This is the first public mobilisation campaign targeting the ICANN policy-making process directly.
A final draft report on New gTLD policy was fixed as of 8 August 2007, and ICANN opened a 21-day public comment period from 10 August to 30 August 2007. Anyone with an Internet connection may submit comments on this report at ICANN’s website. KTCN has set up an Action Alert to assist its members and others in preparing comments for ICANN, and it has channelled 40 out of the first 49 comments posted over the first two and a half weeks of the comment period. In particular, KTCN remains troubled by remaining provisions in Recommendation #6 and Recommendation #20 (as well as Implementation Guidelines F, H and P), and encourages members of the public in joining opposition to those provisions.
Analysis
Recommendation #6 begins: “Strings must not be contrary to generally accepted legal norms relating to morality and public order that are enforceable under generally accepted and internationally recognized principles of law.” KTCN opposes this recommendation for four reasons:
“Morality” and “public order” cannot be clearly and objectively defined before examining any particular case, thus this recommendation abjectly contradicts Recommendations #1 and #9 which require gTLD evaluation criteria to be transparent, predictable, and fully available to applicants prior to their application.
Because of the inherent uncertainty in evaluating “morality” and “public order” there will be spurious costs associated with gTLD applications to deal with challenges to applications that may appear at all controversial, resulting in a great deal of self-censorship to avoid such costs. This would suppress freedom of expression of citizens across the globe, especially in many cases where “immoral” or otherwise controversial speech is expressly permitted by national law.
ICANN is currently subject to US law under its Joint Project
Agreement with the US government, and any suppression of free speech would be open to legal challenges under US law. KTCN bases its position protecting freedom of expression on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19, but it happens that the First Amendment is in accord with this principle and in ICANN’s case it has legal authority.
ICANN’s mission and core values relate to relatively narrow technical functions, “in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet’s unique identifier systems” including DNS and IP assignments. This recommendation far exceeds the scope of these technical functions and risks turning ICANN into the arbiter of “morality” and “appropriate” public policy (not to mention spuriously acquiring jurisdiction over a portion of trademark regulation) through global rules.
Recommendation #20 states: “An application will be rejected if an expert panel determines that there is substantial opposition to it from a significant portion of the community to which the string may be explicitly or implicitly targeted.” Implementation Guidelines F, H and P address certain parameters of how such challenge process would operate.
KTCN objects to such a broad and vaguely defined challenge process for several reasons. Similar to Recommendation #6, this creates intrinsic uncertainty in the gTLD application process, violating Recommendations #1 and #9. An expert panel is expensive and their composition can easily be manipulated. The definitions of “substantial opposition,” “community,” “established institutions” and “detriment” in Implementation Guideline P are inherently arbitrary and subjective.
In short, this challenge process is far too broad and unwieldy to be put into practice. It would stifle freedom of expression, innovation, cultural diversity, and market competition. Rather than follow existing law, the proposal would set up an illegitimate process that usurps jurisdiction to adjudicate peoples’ legal rights (and create new rights) in a process designed to favour incumbents. The adoption of this “free-for-all” objection and rejection process will further call into question ICANN’s legitimacy to govern and its ability to serve the global public interest that respects the rights of all citizens.
Next Steps
ICANN states that when this gTLD public comment period closes: “A complete summary and analysis of community feedback will be made available at the end of the comment period, and considered by the GNSO Council prior to its vote on the report on 6 September 2007. If the Council accepts the policy recommendations, it will be then be considered by the ICANN Board.” This is expected to happen as early as the next ICANN meeting in Los Angeles, 29 October to 2 November 2007. Once this policy is in place, it is unlikely it will be addressed again substantively any time soon thereafter. This is the time to act.
Public comments can have a significant impact on the Council decision whether to accept the proposal from its New gTLDs Committee in its current form or to require further work (or perhaps to correct it and approve a viable version to send to the Board for consideration). If the Council approves the policies contained in the current final draft report, then the Board will consider it in that form, and at that time the list of names on the petition will be delivered to the Board as it prepares to vote on gTLD policy.
Your direct comments and your signature on the petition will both improve the chances that we can prevent bad policy from being made at ICANN. KTCN invites all Internet users to submit comments to ICANN’s public forum, and to join the KTCN coalition by signing its petition.

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Dan Krimm is Campaign Director for Keep The Core Neutral and Global Policy Fellow at IP Justice, which is providing resources for the KTCN coalition. IP Justice is a member of ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All of the news articles and features on Intellectual Property Watch are also subject to a Creative Commons License which makes them available for widescale, free, non-commercial reproduction and translation.
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ComputerWorld comments on the New Zealand Honey Net project, which produced Capture-HPC and produced a “white paper about using Capture-HPC to identify malicious Web servers.” ComputerWorld notes the project “inspected more than 300,000 URLs (nearly 149,000 hosts) for three weeks and found 306 malicious URLs served from 194 malicious servers.”
They give a list of the most interesting points, these including “The highest percentage of malicious Web servers were tied directly to adult content” although all types of content “were nearly as bad; … the highest percentage of malicious Web servers were tied directly to adult content; … Only 12% of malicious URLs appeared on a blacklist; and fully patched computers blocked 100% of the malicious attempts.”
For the full ComputerWorld report, see computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9033998
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Starting in September, take advantage of registering your .MX domain name at a lower price!
During the months of September, take action and take the first step towards having a Mexican Internet identity. Register a .MX domain starting at only $6 dollars per year, when you register the domain for a 5 year period. The more years your register the domain for, the more you save!
Registering your .MX domain name has never been easier and cheaper! An .MX domain extension will tell the world what you do and where you are geographically speaking.
In addition to NIC Mexico’s promotion, our resellers will also have a special offer for you. If you want to know more about click the following link: http://www.nic.mx/es/Distribuidores.Promoregistrosep07
It is important to note that…
• this promotion only applies for new registrations (created and paid for between September 1st and 30th, 2007).
• this promotion does not apply for renewals.
If you have further questions, please call us: 01-800-999-64-26 or e-mail us at help@nic.mx
At NIC México it will be a pleasure helping you!
The Staff at NIC México
About NIC Mexico NIC Mexico is the professional independent organization that manages the country code top level domain .MX. NIC Mexico also registers IP addresses to Internet users in Mexico.
www.nic.mx
.MX is the new way to say Mexico
Source: NIC .MX Press Release sent to DomainNews.com – August 31st, 2007 – Posted by Chief Editor
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Only 16 months after its official appearance, the .eu domain has recorded 2.5 million registrations for the second time – after a brief consolidation. The same number had been reached in the spring, but as the year ended, some of the domains registered in the opening phase had not been claimed by their owners, which pushed the number of total registrations below 2.5 million.
For Frederick Schiwek, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for leading domain registrar EuroDNS SA, reaching the 2.5 million mark “proves that the common Internet suffix is clearly on the road to success in Europe.”
Among EU countries, the countries with the greatest number of .eu domains are Germany (815,000), the United Kingdom (354,000), and the Netherlands (340,000) all core markets of EuroDNS. France (170,000) and Italy (125,000) follow closely behind. Sweden and Cyprus occupy the front of the midfield with 90,000 registrations each, and Slovenia and Bulgaria (3,900 each) and Gibraltar (2,500) occupy the lower end of that area.
The smallest number of domain names has been registered in far-off French overseas territories: 181 in Réunion, 75 in Guadeloupe, 49 in Martinique, and 8 in French Guyana.
Most of the domain owners use their existing generic or country-specific domains as their primary address and register their .eu domains as a second or alternate address. But more and more companies and organizations support the goal of greater unity within Europe and prefer to use the .eu suffix. “Originally conceived of as a defensive suffix, .eu is now mature and well into the .com competition for most used domain,” says Schiwek.
To mark the registration of 2.5 million domains, EuroDNS is offering a discount on .eu domains until September 30, 2007. Customers who enter discount code EUPR25M when placing an order with EuroDNS receive a discount of 50%.
In addition to the .eu promotion, another set of ccTLD discounts is available from EuroDNS by clicking here.
About EuroDNS
EuroDNS is a global domain registrar headquartered in Luxembourg and with offices in the Netherlands, France, Poland, and Korea. Specialized in geographic domain names, the group focuses on the European market with EuroDNS and the Asian one with AsiaDNS. With its registration portal in 10 languages and with more than 25 top-level domains, EuroDNS covers 97% of the market in the enlarged European Union. For more information, please visit www.eurodns.com.
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