Posts Tagged ‘domain law’

auDA rolls out DNSSEC

Friday, August 27th, 2010

.au name space to become more secure with the rollout of DNSSEC

Details of the rollout of Domain Names System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) in the .au domain name space have recently been released by the au Domain Administration (auDA).

Developed in conjunction with the .au registry operator, AusRegistry, the plan consists of a five stage process to introduce DNSSEC into the .au Top Level Domain (TLD) and second –level zones, including com.au, net.au, org.au and asn.au.

DNSSEC is a security extension that facilitates the digital signing of internet communications. Implementation of the plan hopes to see additional protection against a range of vulnerabilities.  AuDA CEO, Chris Disspain has said in an auDA announcement that “DNSSEC can provide an extra level of security to help ensure that Australian internet users will be directed to the website or service they expect to enter when they enter a domain name into their browser.

Implementation is scheduled to commence next month and allows for:

-          Experimentation and testing of core systems

-          The gradual signing of second level .au domains and the .au TLD

-          A trail implementation for .au domain registrants, and

-          Full protection rollout to registrants

A review to be undertaken by auDA’s independent Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), chaired by professor Bill Caelli from the Queensland University of Technology, will be conducted at the end of each stage.

The fifth, and vital stage of the implementation plan will be the active encouragement of Australian ISPs and domain registrants to adopt DNSSEC. auDA believes that the Australian Government will play a significant role in delivering to the ISPs, the message about the importance of DNSSEC for the security of Australia’s internet infrastructure.

We will keep you updated as the implementation process rolls out.

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auDA Name Policy Panel

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Cooper Mills Director and Domain Name Lawyer Erhan Karabardak has been appointed to auDA’s 2010 Name Policy Panel.

The Panel, will among other things, review existing auDA regulation concerning domain name eligibility. Erhan was previously a member of the 2004 Names Policy Panel.

The issue of domain name eligibility is one of the more contention issues in the .au space.

The Panel is due to hold its first meeting on September 14, 2010.

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Chinese and .xxx domain names approved

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

The ICANN Board has just approved the release of new IDN ccTLD domain names, while at the same time allowing for the creation of the controversial .xxx domain names.

The IDN ccTLD domain names approved by ICANN are:

• CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center)
• HKIRC (Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation Limited)
• TWNIC (Taiwan Network Information Center).

Speaking during the ICANN 38 meeting, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom announced that:

One fifth of the world speaks Chinese and that means we just increased the potential online accessibility for roughly a billion people.

This announcement comes hot on the heels of the recent release of the Russian and Arabic IDN ccTLD, which we announced with great fanfare.

The contraversial .xxx domain was allowed to pass with ICANN saying:

The ICANN board also voted to allow the application for the controversial .XXX top-level domain (TLD) to move forward. The ICM registry applied for the .XXX sponsored top-level domain as a potential community site for the adult entertainment industry. The Board approved a detailed set of next steps for the application, including expedited due diligence, negotiations on a draft registry agreement, and consultation with ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee.

The .xxx domain was first mooted in 2000 as a dedicated domain for the Adult industry, but fierce debate from supporters and detractors has raged since then. In 2007 the ICANN Board rejected a proposal to progress the .xxx, but in more recent times members of the ICANN board have expressed support for it, which has resulted in its return as a prominent issue.

Members of the Adult industry had feared that while the .xxx is descriptive of their businesses, that mandatory use of this TLD would isolated Adult websites.

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Subway in foot long trouble

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Doctor’s Associates Inc, which operate and franchise Subway stores, is red faced after losing a domain name dispute over MySubwayRewards.com.

The recent decision is a set back for the sandwich chain as they may have lost the battle due to their lawyers failing to do their homework. The Panel held that Subway’s lawyers failed to provide enough evidence to prove that the website was confusingly similar to the SUBWAY trade marks. They provided no explanation or argument as to why the phrase “mysubwayrewards” in the domain name may be confused with the mark SUBWAY.

This seems like an easy enough thing to do right? But it appears that the lawyers got lazy and assumed that they already had the cat in the bag by identifying the name as confusing. They omitted to then take the necessary step of proving how and why.

The Panel highlighted that due to the fact that the word SUBWAY was bracketed between other words which could quite conceivably be used in combination to convey a meaning unassociated with the SUBWAY mark, it becomes necessary to sufficiently demonstrate identity or confusing similarity to the trademark at issue.

This is an example which shows why trademark and domain name owners should carefully select lawyers who understand the UDRP and auDRP processes, and who regularly undertake this type of work, like Cooper Mills Lawyers.

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Record domain name sales in Q1 of 2010

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

A Sedo domain market study has confirmed a record sale of domain names in this year’s first quarter, in which close to 12 000 domain names were sold via the Sedo marketplace. These sales take the record for the highest selling quarter with an 18.6 percent increase from Q4 of 2009.

The Sedo study has indicated a swell in generic (gTLDs) and country code Top Lop Level Domains (ccTLDs). Sedo believes that the growth in the domain name market over the last quarter is due to an increase in market spending among larger corporations and the introduction of one and two-character domains and IDN domains that use a non-Roman script.

Closer to home, secondary domain markets have developed in the .au space with both Drop.com.au and Netfleet.com.au leading the way in sales which are achieving record prices. Drop.com.au shows domain sales as high as $18,000 for carparts.com.au while Netfleet achieved $6000 for graphicdesign.com.au.

Sedo is expecting a rise in sales to continue over 2010 as it believes that companies are starting to understand the critical role a domain name strategy plays in driving a successful marketing campaign.  Many large companies are investing heavily in branding and domain name sales. The study also highlights the importance for trademark owners to get in quickly and take action to protect brands.

Cooper Mills Director and Technology Lawyer Erhan Karabardak believes that the market will continue to grow and achieve higher prices, he says that:

With the end of the Global Financial Crisis, marketing budgets are increasing and companies are becoming more active with their online sales and marketing strategies which are key in the increasingly competitive market place.

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Non latin domain names make debut

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

ICANN has announced that domain names will now appear in Arabic Script, as part of the move to non-latin domain names.

Since November of last year ICANN has received 21 requests for top-level domains (TLDs) through its Fast Track Process, representing 11 different languages, however ICANN has chosen Arabic as the first Non- Latin script as it is one of the most widely-used on the internet today. Other non latin language requests have come from China, India and Russia to name a few.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been chosen as the first three regions that will be able to use country-code specific TLDs. Addresses for regional domain names in these countries can be found by using native language characters. Egypt has been the first to create a domain name using Arabic characters. The domain name .misr, which is the Arabic word for Egypt, will be spelled out in Arabic script.

ICANN expects that the introduction of domain names in Arabic script will make a surge in the number of internet users in the Arab speaking world and will enable Internet services to penetrate into new market segments by eliminating language barriers.

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Shock decision in Kentucky 141 Domains Case

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

In a judgment released by the Supreme Court of Kentucky on 18 March 2010, the decision of the Kentucky Court of Appeal, which found in favour of the domain owners, was overturned.

More to follow.

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Wildcarding Domain Names – in the .AU context

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

The issue of domain name wildcarding became a hot issue in 2006, after auDA deleted 19 domain names from a Registrant because they were wildcarded. This matter ended up in the Federal Court of Australia and was fought out, until the parties resolved the matter shortly before trial.

This Court battle caused auDA to develop an interim policy on wildcarding in 2007, which was to have been reviewed  but almost 3 years on and nothing has happened – so it remains an interim policy. Our enquiries of auDA revealed that they did intend to have their security and stability advisory committee (SSAC) look at the issue soon (that was in 2009) – it is interesting to note that at the time the interim policy was announced the SSAC didn’t have any members!

In order to understand wildcarding one must understand what it means. The auDA policy defines it as:

A “wildcard DNS record” is a record in a DNS file that will match all requests for non-existent domain names, so that a user who types a non-existent domain name into their browser does not get the standard “Error 404” message, but is instead redirected to another webpage.

The auDA definition is a little misleading. Firstly a wildcard record matches all requests for fourth level domains as opposed to ‘non-existent domain names‘. For example a domain coopermills.com.au exists, but if it were wildcarded then anything that was typed before coopermills.com.au with a full stop would resolve to (usually) a web page hosted at the third level domain. If an internet user was to type cars.coopermills.com.au, then it may resolve to www.coopermills.com.au. The effect of this is to in essence allow any fourth level domain, as opposed to manually creating them.

Wildcarding is commonly used by almost all parking companies such as Sedo. The rational is that it is better that an internet user is directed to content rather than an error – this enhances the internet user experience.

auDA had claimed that wildcarding caused the security issues identified in RFC 1535. The Registrant called the author of RFC 1535 Ehud Gavron to give evidence as an expert at the trial, who disagreed. During Mr Gavron’s visit (and after the matter had been resolved by the parties), Cooper Mills Lawyers hosted Mr Gavron who spoke on wildcarding of domain names in the .au context.

To download the podcast click on the link: Domain Wildcarding: The Implications for the .au Space

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Happy Holidays – Seasons Greetings

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

To all of our clients and visitors to our blog, we wish you seasons greetings and a safe and prosperous new year.

Thank you for your support in 2009, and we look forward to working with you in 2010.

Our office will be re-open on 11 January 2010.

Stay tuned for our new IT Law, Telecommunications Law, Domain Law and general Commercial Law articles / posts.

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Posted in Domain law and domaining, General, ISP and Telco Law, IT Law, Podcasts, Privacy, Spam, Trade Practices Law, Uncategorized | No Comments »

New IT Law and Domain Law Posts

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

We are working on bringing you some more new and interesting IT Law and Domain Law posts and articles shortly.

To assist us to cater to our audience, if you have any specific requests for IT Law, Domain Law or Telecommunications Law articles or information, feel free to drop us a note at info@coopermills.com.au

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