Hi all

This is the final news for 2005, so have a great
christmas and new year... and the news will return in
the week commencing 7 January.

>From a snowy and cool Salzburg!

Cheers
David

The domain name news is supported by auDA.

21 December:
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DOMAIN NAMES
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au: Registering website address needs care
SMALL businesses need to watch they don't waste money
and time when registering for an internet domain name.

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17615097%255E913,00.html

Domain Name Market in 2006: Will the Explosion
Continue? (news release)
The domain name industry has received unprecedented
press in 2005 including articles in The Wall Street
Journal and Business 2.0. Leading domain industry news
source Domain Name Wire is conducting a study of the
domain name market and where it?s heading in 2006.
 http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/12/prweb322820.htm

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WSIS & GOVERNANCE
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ug: Ucc Gets New Task
THE Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has been
tasked to convene a National Internet Governance Forum
as recommended last month at the World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia.
 http://allafrica.com/stories/200512190283.html

Reforming Internet Governance: Perspectives from the
Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), edited by
Bill Drake
With the continuing debate in mind, this volume
presents papers by former members of the WGIG and its
Secretariat staff that were written subsequent to the
release of the group?s reports. The contributors offer
their personal reflections on the value of the
multistakeholder cooperation in the WGIG and beyond;
and on some of the key substantive issues and
institutional reform proposals currently under
consideration by the international community.

http://www.unicttaskforce.org/perl/documents.pl?id=1572

19 December:

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DOMAIN NAMES
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nz: Dispute Resolution Service - Experts and Mediators
InternetNZ is implementing a dispute resolution
service for .nz domain names. The New Zealand system
is to be based on the Nominet UK system which has been
in place for a number of years and is very successful.
The dispute resolution service (DRS) provides an
alternative to Court action, giving parties another
mechanism to resolve disputes which arise.
 http://dnc.org.nz/story/30233-29-1.html

Domain administrator still hopeful on ?.ph? resolution
DotPH, the administrator of Philippine domain name
.ph, continues to be hopeful that the ownership debate
on the disputed domain name will finally come to a
resolution.

http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=59986
 http://www.mb.com.ph/INFO2005121851980.html

de: Berlin May Get Its Own Domain 
A German entrepreneur sometime next year hopes he will
be able to boast, "Ich bin ein dot-Berliner." The
businessman, Dirk Krischenowski, is bidding to make
his city the first in the world with its own domain
name: .berlin. Berlin's businesses and citizens will
flock to the domain because millions of people regard
the hip European city as a part of their identities,
he believes.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,69827,00.html
 
Provo Towne Center: The domain name's ownership has
been in dispute since 1997
A federal judge, refusing to stay his earlier ruling
in a "cybersquatting" case, has ordered a former Utah
Internet businessman to immediately surrender disputed
Web sites to the Provo Towne Center mall.
 http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3310166

US CAN And Others CAN?T: The Story of ICANN
THE recently concluded World Information Summit in
Tunisia last month was supposed to address the yawning
digital divide: both between nations and within
nations. Instead, most of the public focus was in who
would control the Internet, not only the information
highway of today but also a major channel for global
commerce. Though the results from the summit was not
decisive, the issues somehow getting pushed under the
rug for the time being, it is increasingly clear that
an Internet controlled by the US as it is today is not
acceptable to the rest of the world.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/2387/1/136/

Reporters Without Borders raps censorship of UK
comedian?s "Borat" website
Reporters Without Borders condemned censorship by the
Kazakh government, which has removed the right to use
the .kz suffix from two websites it finds troublesome,
including that of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen,
or "Borat". The organization has written to Franck
Fowlie, ombudsman for ICANN asking him to intervene.
 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15919

Prices reduced for dot.ie domain names
The IE Domain Registry (IEDR), the managed registry
for Ireland?s dot.ie domain names, today announced a
20% price reduction for new dot.ie domain
registrations and renewals.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=17388298&p=y738837z&n=17388383

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single5814

Watchdog Slams Kazakhstan Over Borat Ban
An international media watchdog has criticized the
Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan for stopping a
British comedian who poses as a bigoted Kazakh
journalist from using the Kazakh Internet domain name.
 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,178860,00.html

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/story.asp?j=192044155&p=y9zx4497x&n=192045041

Domain names are so last year
Amsterdam-based company UnifiedRoot announced in
December that it would accept registrations for new
top-level domains (TLDs) of your choice - perhaps your
company name, or a hot keyword like shop, hotel or
casino. The TLD is the suffix part of a web address,
such as .com, and traditionally internet body Icann
has managed the system.

http://www.vnunet.com/itweek/comment/2147635/domain-names

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WSIS & GOVERNANCE
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us: Internet Access Bringing Social, Economic Benefits
Globally
Ambassador David Gross participates in video webcast
December 13 - Gross, who answered numerous questions
from webcast viewers Africa, Asia and Europe, also
discussed the recent international agreement on
Internet governance reached at WSIS.

http://usinfo.state.gov/eur/Archive/2005/Dec/16-983378.html

Net goes beyond U.S. domain
One of the most hotly debated issues today revolves
around who should hold the remote control to the Web.

http://www.zdnetindia.com/insight/commentary/stories/131646.html

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Sources include Quicklinks <http://qlinks.net/> and
BNA Internet Law News <http://www.bna.com/ilaw/>.

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(c) David Goldstein 2005



David Goldstein
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