ICANN under investigation
Two congressmen introduced a bill on Thursday that would
block an ICANN plan to give control of all expiring domains
ending in .com and .net to VeriSign. The bill also calls
for a federal investigation of ICANN's business practices.
 http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2136324,00.html
 http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-1019438.html
 http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/2225211
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31357.html

Dot-Com Waiting List Under Fire
Domain Name Retailers Say Proposal Will Help VeriSign, Hurt
Them: A plan to tame the speculative feeding frenzy that
surrounds expiring "dot-com" Internet addresses came under
fire today from two lawmakers who said the proposal could
create a monopoly for Internet addressing giant VeriSign
Inc.

http://www.bizreport.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=5fbdb29e164b191dc67724ccbfd12d92

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14022-2003Jun19.html
 http://www.silicon.com/news/500019-500001/1/4774.html

Baird and Inslee Introduce Legislation to Keep Competition
in Domain Name Market
U.S. Reps. Brian Baird and Jay Inslee introduced
legislation today to ensure healthy competition in the
internet naming market and protect tech jobs in the
Northwest.  This bill, The Fair Transparent and Competitive
Internet Naming Act of 2003, will instruct the General
Accounting Office to study the operating procedures of the
corporation that manages the Domain Name System (DNS).
 http://www.house.gov/baird/prbiilkcdnm.htm

Happy Birthday, Dear DNS
Twenty years ago, a group of USC computer scientists
automated the domain name system, a key innovation
essential to making the modern Internet work. The next step
is helping the technology continue to mature.
 http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59348,00.html

WHOIS Data Reminder Policy - A White Elephant?
As Demys.net previously reported generic top level domain
name registrants will now be presented by their Registrar
with their WHOIS contact details on an annual basis. ICANN
has now published the mechanism by which this will be
achieved - the WHOIS Data Reminder Policy or 'WDRP'. 
 http://www.demys.net/news/2003/06/18_whois.htm

ALJAZEERA.NET Hijacker Pleads Guilty To Us Federal Charges
A Californian website developer, who duped Network
Solutions (formerly Verisign) into giving him control of
the domain name account for Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language
media organisation, has agreed to plead guilty to two US
felony charges of wire fraud and unlawful interception of
an electronic communication.
 http://www.demys.net/news/2003/06/17_aljazeera.htm

".nz" Internet Domain Names Poised To Double
The number of registered .nz domain names is poised to
double quickly if current trends continue, says Derek
Locke, chief executive of Domainz, New Zealand’s leading
.nz domain name registrar.
 http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/SC0306/S00073.htm

ICANN: What is Whois?
Elana Broitman, Director of Policy at Register.com,
examines ICANN's Whois policy review and the implications
for consumers and the domain name industry.
At the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers'
(ICANN) meeting in Montreal later this month, a task force
will be formed to review the privacy issues surrounding the
management of the Whois database, and the technical
solutions for improving privacy protection.

http://www.netimperative.com/cmn/viewdoc.jsp?cat=all&docid=BEP1_Feature_0000054102

The Battle for Sex.com
Do you remember the days when a domain name could be worth
a good deal of money? It wasn't so long ago. Nowadays the
values have collapsed, but there are still some worth
fighting for, Sex.com being possibly the most valuable
domain name of all, given that Internet porn is still a
thriving business. Sex.com has also been the subject of a
six year legal battle between Gary Kremen and Stephen
Cohen, that has travelled all the way up to the supreme
court.
 http://www.it-analysis.com/article.php?articleid=10959

ICANN Announcement - Management Positions Posted
Today, ICANN posted advertisements for three key positions:
Vice President, Supporting Organizations and Committee
Support; General Manager; IANA, and General Manager,
Technical Operations. These positions were first outlined
in the reorganization (Plan for Organization of ICANN
Staff) announced by President and CEO, Paul Twomey, on 22
May 2003. The positions posted today join two others posted
recently: Vice President Business Operations and General
Counsel.

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-19jun03.htm

ICANN Announcement - Deployment of Internationalized Domain
Names
ICANN today announced the commencement of global deployment
of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), which will allow
use on the Internet of domain names in languages used in
all parts of the world. In October 2002, the Internet
Engineering Steering Group approved the publication of a
standardized way of integrating IDNs into the Internet's
domain-name system (DNS). After the proposed technical
standard was published in March 2003, the ICANN Board
endorsed an approach for implementation of the technical
standard that had been developed cooperatively by ICANN and
leading IDN registries.

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-20jun03.htm

UDRP Dilemma In Proving Bad-Faith Domain Registration -
Part I
The purpose of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, known
as the UDRP (hereafter the Policy), is to determine
disputes relating to the registration or acquisition of
domain names in bad faith. Under the Policy, the
complainant must establish that (i) the disputed domain
name is identical with or confusingly similar to a
trademark or service mark in which the complainant has
rights; (ii) the domain name registrant has no right or
legitimate interest in respect of the domain name; and
(iii) the domain name was registered and is being used in
bad faith.
 http://www.circleid.com/article.php?id=131_0_1_0_C

India: Changing Trends in Passing-Off
In India, whilst the Intellectual property owners continue
to face the problems of counterfeiting and infringements of
their brand names/trade marks, the emerging trend amongst
misusers appears to be adopting famous/well known marks as
a part of their trading style/corporate name. Obviously,
the intention is to choose a name that is easy to recollect
and gives the impression of being associated with a
well-known company. More often than not, in order to claim
honesty in adoption, the marks are adopted in relation to a
different business as that of the IP holder. Also it is
common among misusers to slightly twist the name or add a
descriptive suffix/prefix to the well-known mark.
 http://www.circleid.com/article.php?id=127_0_1_0_C

Background on .EU the Upcoming European Identity
Progress is being made towards launching a .eu top-level
domain for European individuals, business and
organisations.
 http://www.circleid.com/article.php?id=126_0_1_0_C

ICANN and the Developing World: Examining The Outreach
Program
Shravanti Reddy’s recent piece draws attention to an
important issue that has nagged at ICANN ever since the
ill-fated at large elections, when participants from the
developed world greatly outnumbered those from the
developing world. This imbalance was somewhat mitigated by
the regional delineation of candidates, but it nonetheless
raised two important questions that have yet to be settled:
 http://www.circleid.com/article.php?id=128_0_1_0_C

Unraveling the Myths of the Internet's Origins - Part I
There are several myths that dominate the public perception
of the Internet. These myths make it hard to understand the
needs and nature of the Internet and its future
development. One of the most dominant myths equates the
early U.S. packet switching network known as the ARPANET
with the metasystem linking diverse networks that we call
the Internet. One such example is demonstrated by the time
line at the AT&T web site.
 http://www.circleid.com/article.php?id=124_0_1_0_C

Dot-ca Members Begin to Vote Today for Election Candidates
Polls for the Canadian Internet Registration Authority's
(CIRA) Board of Directors elections will open today at noon
(12:00) EDT June 19, 2003. All CIRA members will have the
opportunity to exercise their membership rights by casting
votes to fill three seats on the CIRA Board of Directors. 
This year, Members can cast votes using one of three
methods: 1) linking directly from CIRA’s email to members,
2) visiting www.cira.ca and logging into the voting ballot,
3) contacting CIRA to obtain a fax ballot.
 http://www.cira.ca/news-releases/voting_2003.html

Ecuador: Andean Community Trademark - Domain Name Disputes
(reg req'd)
One of the more salient issues in intellectual property law
has been the resolution of conflicts between rights holders
in trademarks and domain name registrants. With the
entrance into force of Decision 486 of the Andean Community
Commission, the Andean Community nations (Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) have begun to
implement measures which may address this issue. Article
233 of Decision 486 provides that if a distinctive
well-known sign is unlawfully registered in a member
country as part of a domain name or electronic mail address
by an unauthorized third party, the competent national
authority may, at the request of the titleholder to the
mark, order the cancellation or modification of the
registration of the domain name or electronic mail address.
The national authority may only order cancellation or
modification if use of the domain name or electronic mail
address may cause confusion regarding identical or similar
business, activities, products or services or, with regard
to different businesses, activities, products or services,
if such use may cause "passing off", "blurring" or
"tarnishing" as understood in U.S. federal trademark law.

http://www.mondaq.com/article_preview.asp?a=21633&p=5&c=1474&e=on

Melbourne IT To Provide Domain Name Registration Services
To Lycos
Melbourne IT today announced that it has entered into an
agreement with Lycos, Inc., a division of Terra Networks,
S.A.

http://corporate.melbourneit.com.au/news/newsstory.php?id=125

Melbourne IT Signs Agreement with Microsoft Corporation
Melbourne IT today announced it has signed a global service
agreement with Microsoft Corporation to provide domain name
registration services to Microsoft.

http://corporate.melbourneit.com.au/news/newsstory.php?id=126

Domain Names Australia Pty Ltd
auDA has become aware that a company named Domain Names
Australia Pty Ltd (DNA) is sending letters and/or faxes to
some domain name registrants regarding the .com version of
their .au domain name being available or unregistered.
 http://www.auda.org.au/about/news/2003061903.html

VeriSign tracks buyers to fight e-fraud
The Internet services company announced on Wednesday a new
Fraud Protection Service that ties geographical information
from its domain registry database--which is managed by
VeriSign's Network Solutions--to timing data from its
credit card clearinghouse service. The technology, which
the company has tested during the last 18 months on its own
business, will identify transactions that have an
unacceptable probability of being fraudulent.
 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-1018711.html
 http://news.com.com/2100-1011_3-1018711.html
 http://virus.idg.net/ic_1322253_9677_1-5041.html

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

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

=====
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 address: 2/4 Dundas Street
             COOGEE NSW 2034
             AUSTRALIA
 email: Goldstein_David§yahoo.com.au
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