Hi all

News collected on domain name issues today.

Cheers
David

ICANN and the Problem of Legitimacy, Jonathon Weinberg (Duke Law Journal)
Dec http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?50+Duke+L.+J.+187
In this Article, I shall briefly explain the process by which ICANN came
into being. I shall then turn to the legitimacy issues that have swirled
around ICANN from its inception and examine the techniques that ICANN has
used to address those issues. I suggest that the legitimacy questions
besetting ICANN are, or should be, familiar to U.S. administrative lawyers.
They parallel concerns about the legitimacy of federal administrative
agencies that have been at the heart of administrative law since the
beginning. The ultimate issue, in both cases, is the exercise of public
power, and the creation of public policy, by an entity without democratic
credentials or direct political accountability. To be sure, ICANN's
legitimacy issues are highly controversial, and rightly so, while the
legitimacy of the U.S. administrative agency is no longer in doubt. Yet the
parallels are instructive. I suggest in this Article that the administrative
law debates over agency legitimacy are useful in understanding ICANN's
responses to concerns about its own legitimacy. Indeed, ICANN's efforts
mirror some of the major answers in the administrative law literature to the
[*pg 192] question of agency legitimacy. Understanding those parallels makes
it easier to evaluate ICANN's actions and to see whether they succeed in
addressing its legitimacy concerns.

Wrong Turn In Cyberspace: Using Icann To Route Around The Apa And The
Constitution, Michael Froomkin (Duke Law Journal) Dec
http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?50+Duke+L.+J.+17
The Internet relies on an underlying centralized hierarchy built into the
domain name system (DNS) to control the routing for the vast majority of
Internet traffic. At its heart is a single data file, known as the "root."
Control of the root provides singular power in cyberspace. This Article
first describes how the United States government found itself in control of
the root. It then describes how, in an attempt [*pg 18] to meet concerns
that the United States could so dominate an Internet chokepoint, the U.S.
Department of Commerce (DoC) summoned into being the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a formally private nonprofit
California corporation. DoC then signed contracts with ICANN in order to
clothe it with most of the U.S. government's power over the DNS, and
convinced other parties to recognize ICANN's authority. ICANN then took
regulatory actions that the U.S. Department of Commerce was unable or
unwilling to make itself, including the imposition on all registrants of
Internet addresses of an idiosyncratic set of arbitration rules and
procedures that benefit third-party trademark holders. Professor Froomkin
then argues that the use of ICANN to regulate in the stead of an executive
agency violates fundamental values and policies designed to ensure
democratic control over the use of government power, and sets a precedent
that risks being expanded into other regulatory activities. He argues that
DoC's use of ICANN to make rules either violates the APA's requirement for
notice and comment in rulemaking and judicial review, or it violates the
Constitution's nondelegation doctrine. Professor Froomkin reviews possible
alternatives to ICANN, and ultimately proposes a decentralized structure in
which the namespace of the DNS is spread out over a transnational group of
"policy partners" with DoC.

Chinese domain name row deepens (South China Morning Post) 5Dec
http://technology.scmp.com/internet/daily/20001205070101135.asp
A dispute between the United States and China over the control of
Chinese-scripted Internet addresses deepened on Monday as the mainland
reiterated its claim over all Chinese-language internet domain names.
Also see China Claims Its Own Domain (Wired) 4Dec
http://www.wirednews.com/news/politics/0,1283,40506,00.html
China, U.S. battle over domain names (ZDNet) 4Dec
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2660400,00.html

ICANN is Not a World Government (Telepolis) 5Dec
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/4408/1.html
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.

Domain name gambles may pay off (Daily Yomiuri) 5Dec
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/1205cu13.htm
Starting Nov. 10, kanji characters have become an option for registering
Internet domain names--the "address" of host computers on the Net--making it
possible for Net surfers to simply type in familiar kanji in the top
rectangle on the browser window and hit return to access desired Web sites.

Cybersquatter loses out, after a fashion (The Age) 5Dec
http://www.theage.com.au/news/2000/12/05/FFXPOD9TBGC.html
Melbourne fashion designer Bettina Liano has won back the right to name a
website after her clothing label from a "cybersquatter" who had already
registered the name.

Callisa bietet kostenlose ".de"-Domain (ZDNet) 5Dec
http://www.zdnet.de/news/artikel/2000/12/05013-wc.html
Callisa, der Internet-Provider von Callando, bietet ab Januar eine
kostenlose, werbefinanzierte ".de"-Domain an. Wer in den Genuss der
Gratis-Adresse kommen will, kann sich ab sofort registrieren Nach Angaben
des Unternehmens können nur die ersten 10.000 Anmeldungen berücksichtigt
werden. Will der Kunde den Provider für die Domain wechseln, werden einmalig
39 Mark fällig.

Petsmart.com snaps up rival domain name (CNET) 4Dec
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-3993285.html
The online pet store signs a letter of intent to acquire the Pets.com domain
name from the eponymous--and now defunct--e-tailer, in a deal that routes
customers to its site.
Also see Pets.com to sell domain name to PETsMart (Nando Times) 5Dec
http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/0,1643,500286729-500452965-502966
716-0,00.html

Domain Mastery (Computer World) 4Dec
http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47-74_STO54669,00.html
Sure, .biz and .aero and .coop are big news. But let's talk about sex -
specifically, sex.com. Last week, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered
that domain name to be returned to its original owner, after hearing
allegations that a new owner had forged documents in 1995 transferring the
name to himself. Want to know how easy it was to steal a hot domain name?
According to court documents, all it took was one forged document sent to
the domain name registrar, Network Solutions Inc. And how tough was it to
get the name back? It took five years of legal work.

La protection d'un nom de domaine ne peut s'acquérir que par son
exploitation (Juriscom.net) 25Nov
http://www.juriscom.net/actu/achv/200011.htm
Le Tribunal de grande instance de Paris décide, dans une ordonnance de
référé du 27 juillet dernier, que la protection sur un nom de domaine ne
peut s'acquérir que par son exploitation. Il rappelle également que le
principe de spécialité s'applique en matière de conflit entre marques et
noms de domaine.
This French decision decided that protection of a domain name can be
acquired only by its use.

A Kind of Constitutional Convention for the Internet (New York Times) 23Oct
1998http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/10/cyber/cyberlaw/23law.html
At first blush, the new nonprofit organization selected by the Clinton
Administration earlier this week to take over the important job of
administering Internet domain names appears to be just another geeky
technical standards group. But look closer, say some legal observers, and
you will see that the newborn baby, called the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is actually the beginning of something
big -- a unique form of government for the global Internet.

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