Subscribers may be interested to know about a law suit by sex.tv against .tv
corporation alleging misrepresentation on the part of .tv inducing it to pay
a ridiculous sum for the name. Its hard to tell from the papers but it may
have been $US 325,000 (whether it was for ever, one year or two isn't
clear.)

Apparently poor old sex.tv isn't getting any hits from the generic nature of
its name, only from expensive marketing campaigns.

An interesting side line is that the brief quotes ICANN general counsel on
domain name auctions. I don't necessarily endorse or disendorse his views -
it seems to me that there may be no ideal way to resolve multiple
applications - but his comment is relevant to current happenings in
Australia.

"For the most part . the Internet community does not support a system that
directly advantages those with greater resources, as auction schemes are
likely to do. In one recent small-scale episode, an auction mechanism was
used during 2000 for the registration of certain names within the 'Dot TV'
ccTLD (associated with the island nation of Tuvalu), which resulted in a
dramatically increased cost to the public for registering those names (some
in excess of $5000 per year). That registration mechanism also resulted in
associated activities where names were registered abusively with the intent
of ransoming them to trademark owners."

Of course I cannot agree that auctions are likely to lead to trade mark
abuse any more than any other registration system.

I may try to find out whether anyone in Australia with a problem with .tv
can join in as a class action plaintiff.


Stephen Gethin
IT Lawyer

This email represents my own views and not those of my firm. Where this
email contains comment on legal issues it should not be considered legal
advice. (I know that you don't think that it does, but I have to say it
anyway.)