.nz Domain Name Fee Reduction Announced
InternetNZ (www.internetnz.net.nz) is reducing by 12.5% the
wholesale domain name fee charged to authorised .nz
registrars by nz Registry Services (NZRS).
 http://dnc.org.nz/story/30151.html

-Ng Controversy:
A non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Lagos and
licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to
manage and administer the nation's .ng country code Top
Level Domain (ccTLD), Nigeria Internet Group (NIG), has
said that the avalanche of electronic mail (e-mail) scam on
the Internet today, is not peculiar to Nigeria.
 http://allafrica.com/stories/200401120828.html

FG Clarifies Position On Nigeria's Internet Group
The controversy surrounding who should administer Nigeria's
Top Level Domain name, .ng was laid to rest Friday when the
Federal Government through the Nigeria Information
Technology Development Agency (NITDA) declared that the
Nigerian Internet Group (NIG) had been licenced to perform
that function.
 http://allafrica.com/stories/200401120353.html

English dominance sparks `digital divide'
English language dominance on the Internet is creating a
digital divide relegating non-English speakers and the
world's poor to a kind of "cyber ghetto" in which they're
cut off from the emerging information society, some experts
say.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1073822463809

.uk - The inventor of the World Wide Web is now Sir Tim
Berners-Lee (KBE)
Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, is now Sir
Tim Berners-Lee. He has received a knighthood in the New
Years Honours List for 'services to the global development
of the internet'. In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee developed the
Universal Resource Locator (URL) which initiated the start
of the 'internet' - by allowing individual pages stored on
remote computers, to be recognised by a configuration of
numbers or letters. Now often referred to as domain names.

http://www.pickering.uk.net/news/news_vault/jan_june_2004/01/berners_lee.shtml

IANA Report on Redelegation of the .ht Top-Level Domain
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (the IANA), as part
of the administrative functions associated with management
of the domain name system root, is responsible for
receiving requests for delegation and redelegation of
top-level domains, investigating the circumstances
pertinent to those requests, and reporting on the requests.
This report gives the findings and conclusions of the IANA
on its investigation of various requests for redelegation
of the .ht (Haiti) country-code top-level domain (ccTLD).
 http://www.iana.org/reports/ht-report-13jan04.htm

Report on Distribution Analysis of Internationalized Domain
Names
In December 2003, the testing phase of Multilingual domains
also known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), went
live with the addition of over 350,000 multilingual domains
to the .com and .net registries. As of 1st January 2004,
the .com registry contained 300,409 IDN's, whereas the .net
registry had 79,630 IDN's, representing around 1.25% of the
total .com and .net domains. WebHosting.Info has analyzed
these 380,039 IDN domains that are now live, and provided a
detailed insight on trends and patterns across these
domains.
 http://www.circleid.com/article/436_0_1_0_C

Future of Internet Navigation and DNS: The NAS Study
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has been studying
the issue of Internet navigation and the DNS. The study was
undertaken at the request of Congress to "provide analysis
and advice for consideration by agencies of the U.S.
Government, interested international institutions, and
other stakeholders." In addition to examining technological
issues, the study is also considering "relevant legal,
economic, political, and social issues...because
technologies related to the DNS and Internet navigation do
not operate in isolation, but must be deployed within a
complex and challenging national and international
context."
 http://www.circleid.com/article/426_0_1_0_C

.us - Is a URL the same as a hyperlink in law?
Two US web sites are testing the limits of a law intended
to create a safe internet area for children by setting
standards for certain web sites, including prohibiting
hyperlinks to other sites. What if a third party URL is not
a link?

http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=isaurlthesameas1073996812

.us - Federal Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction Against
Vision Direct/WhenU Pop-up Advertisements
Judge of the Southern District of New York, Deborah Batts,
granted a preliminary injunction sought by 1-800 CONTACTS
against WhenU.com and Vision Direct, a subsidiary of
drugstore.com, for their use of pop-up advertisements.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SVBIZINK3.story&STORY=/www/story/01-07-2004/0002085172

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php?story=2004010715592619

Lord of the Rings -- Return of the domain name
The estate of J.R.R. Tolkien has won a cybersquatting case
as the final instalment of the film of his epic trilogy,
"Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", continues to
top the worldwide box office.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=4123775

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=17300725
 http://www.demys.net/news/2004/01/13_lord.htm

.au - Stopping The Overseas Scammers (reg req'd)
Domestic law's limitations in dealing with Internet scams
are well-known. When scams involve the use of domain names
similar to registered trade marks, the mark's owner may
have recourse through ICANN, but in the meantime consumers
could still be deceived and harm done to the mark's
reputation.
 http://www.mondaq.com/i_article.asp_Q_articleid_E_23863

.ph - Online dispute settlement of cybersquatting urged
Philippine domain name administrator DotPH is urging local
companies that encounter Internet address ownership issues
to take advantage of the uniform dispute resolution policy
(UDRP) in settling their complaints.
 http://www.itmatters.com.ph/news/news_12192003f.html

ICANN Special Meeting of the Board Background Paper

http://www.icann.org/legal/proposed-bylaws-corrections-09jan04.htm

ICANN Whois Task Force Meeting Minutes (12 January 2003)
 * Task Force 3 held 24 December 2003

http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-dow3tf-24dec03.shtml
 * Task Force 2 held 30 December 2003

http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-dow2tf-30dec03.shtml
 * Task Force 2 held 5 January 2004

http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-dow2tf-05jan04.shtml
 * Task Force 1 held 6 January 2004

http://gnso.icann.org/meetings/minutes-dow1tf-06jan04.shtml

Global Domains sells Web site names ending with ws
Global Domains International is like a lot of Internet
companies in that it had a successful launch but had to
slash staff in the last few years as the economy took a
dive and technology companies fell out of favor.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/computing/20040111-9999_m1m11global.html

More than 26 million .com domains registered
Total registrations of .com domain names have now surpassed
26 million, according to Whois Source's daily domain
statistics.

http://www.multireg.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=279

VeriSign to manage RFID tags
THE company that manages the internet's core directory has
been hired to perform a similar role in the developing
system for radio-frequency identification tags on consumer
products.

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,8387583%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html

http://www.thestreet.com/markets/marketfeatures/10136563.html

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/01/13/HNverisignrfid_1.html


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

Check out http://www.auda.org.au/about/news for the latest
domain news. Within 24 hours of this news being posted to
the list, a more recent edition of the news will normally
be posted to the auDA web site. The domain name news is
supported by auDA.

Also see
http://greta.electric.gen.nz/mailman/listinfo/internet-news
or http://www.alfa-redi.org/noticia for an archive or to
subscribe to the general news.

Sources include Quicklinks (www.qlinks.net) and BNA
Internet Law News (www.bna.com/ilaw)".


=====
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

http://personals.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Personals
New people, new possibilities. FREE for a limited time.