The withdrawal of an order by a federal judge that led to the shutting down of the wikileaks.org website is by far the biggest story of the last few days. Originally the judge signed an order requiring the registrar Dynadot to disable the wikileaks.org domain name.

In making his decision, “United States District Judge Jeffrey S. White appeared at times visibly frustrated that technology might have outrun the law and that, as a result, the court might not be able to rein in information disclosed online,” reported the New York Times.

“We live in an age when people can do some good things and people can do some terrible things without accountability necessarily in a court of law,” Judge White said. … more

Now is the time to start planning transitionICANN made its presentation on the Midterm Review of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) between itself and the United States Department of Commerce at a public meeting held today in Washington, DC.

“I think that after almost 10 years of experience of this model the question before us is very stark: Are we going to complete the White Paper’s vision of private sector management of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers? I believe the overwhelming view from virtually all participants is that transition is the goal and the interest is in settling how we get there,” ICANN Chair Peter Dengate Thrush said. … more

What does the IDN wiki give us? by Tina Dam One topic that kept being misunderstood at the ICANN meeting in India was ‘what is the purpose of the IDN wiki’ – the example.test site that are actual IDN TLDs in the root. I’ll try to explain what is going on with the wiki and what it can and cannot be used for.http://blog.icann.org/?p=278

People scoffed when investment firm eCompanies paid $7.5 million for the Web address business.com in 1999 from a person who had paid $150,000 for it.

The purchase, though, shined a light on a secretive world where people actively and aggressively buy and sell Web domain names.

Thousands of Web addresses were bought in the early days of the dot-com boom on a hunch by people who expected Internet real estate would appreciate in value.

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Tucows wins UDRP decision for Batchelor.com.

Domain registrar Tucows has successfully defended against an arbitration proceeding over the domain name Batchelor.com, which the registrar acquired with its NetIdentity purchase. NetIdentity holds nearly 40,000 surnames and offers email addresses at those names, such as tom@lastname.com.

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Top brands face up to 10,000 “brandjacking” incidents a week from cybersquatters who are trying to pass off fake sites as genuine, according to new statistics from researcher MarkMonitor.

The direct cost of removing each one using a Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy process at ICANN, the top internet domain registry, is around £4,000 per incident. Legal fees can add thousands per incident.

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The supposed knocking off of YouTube by Pakistan generated significant coverage this week with Declan McCullagh at CNet reporting a dramatic dropping off of the worldwide availability of YouTube.com from 100 percent to 0 percent for over an hour. It didn’t recover completely until two hours had elapsed. Declan writes this high-profile incident “in which Pakistan’s state-owned telecommunications company managed to cut YouTube off the global Web highlights a long-standing security weakness in the way the Internet is managed. After receiving a censorship order from the telecommunications ministry directing that YouTube.com be blocked, Pakistan Telecom went even further. By accident or design, the company broadcast instructions worldwide claiming to be the legitimate destination for anyone trying to reach YouTube’s range of Internet addresses.” … more

WASHINGTON, Feb 25, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — Senator Snowe’s Anti-Phishing Bill, Introduced Today, Will Combat Fraudulent and Deceptive Internet Practices That Harm Consumers and Businesses Alike

The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), comprised of ten globally recognized brand-name companies, strongly supports the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act (APCPA), introduced today by Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and cosponsored by Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Ted Stevens (R-AK).

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    *Dot.au is the “Old Kent Road” to its dot.com “Mayfair” neighbour. But that could change soon, reports Stewart Carter.

AUSTRALIAN model, musician, dancer, actress and net entrepreneur Estelle Asmodelle is advertising her supermodel.net.au domain name for sale.

Her modelling agency business, Supermodel, already has a well-established website at supermodel.com.au, so she figures she’ll make an easy $10,000 from the .net equivalent.

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ICANN have announced via the news release below registration is now open for their Paris meeting to be held from June 22 to 27 at the Le Méridien Montparnasse. … more

LOS ANGELES — Network Solutions has forced millions of people to buy Internet domain names from them instead of cheaper competitors through a scheme that’s netted the firm millions of dollars, a federal class action lawsuit filed today by Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP states.

ICANN, whose policies facilitate the scheme, is also named in the suit, filed in U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

“Imagine if you asked a car dealer if they had a black convertible and were then forced to buy the car from them. Would you get a good deal? Each time someone asks Network Solutions about a domain name, the firm creates a monopoly for itself, forcing consumers to pay the price they demand,” said Brian Kabateck, lead counsel in the class action and Kabateck Brown Kellner’s Managing Partner.

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Cyber-squatting continues to be the most prevalent form of online brand abuse after a 33 per cent jump in the past year, new research reveals.

The latest Brandjacking Index from MarkMonitor found significant drops in domain kiting and related pay-per-click fraud.

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DotAsia, the organisation responsible for the new .asia top level Internet domain says it has received 266,000 applications for registration of .asia domain names in the first 24 hours of its ‘landrush’ phase.
Related stories

Launch of .Asia is being undertaken in three main phases: sunrise, landrush and general availability. The sunrise phase was for organisations that have legitimate claims to .asia domains as Government bodies or based on existing brand names and trademarks to register their claims. During the landrush period anyone can apply for any .asia domain not allocated during the sunrise period, and if two or more applications are received for the same name, it will be auctioned to the highest bidder.

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The following chart represents current statistics for many of the worlds most popular domains. 

Updated February 2008 from EuropeRegistry.com

Domain Amount Registered Country
.com 71.619.962 Global Generic
.de 11.673.388 Germany
.net 10.623.637 Global Generic
.cn 9.001.993 China
.uk 6.486.829 United Kingdom
.org 6.373.837 Global Generic
.info 4.948.539 Global Generic
.eu 2.715.101 European Union

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The day has finally come for PostCastroCuba.com.

Miami criminal defense attorney Oscar Estevez thought it was a catchy phrase when he bought the name three years ago, and he wanted to develop it into a site for discussions on Cuban business and politics when the regime changed.

But now he wants to sell it — for at least $3,000 — because he doesn’t have the time to develop the site. Plus, he said he isn’t as politically passionate as other Cuban-Americans.

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