The board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the delegation of .eu generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) and authorised their CEO to enter into an agreement with EURid. The next stage is for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to put .eu into the root Domain Name System (DNS) servers.

Dot hu (.hu) domain names will be available for EU businesses and citizens from 1st March 2005, .hu (Hungarian) domains (including second-level domains such as .co.hu and .org.hu) A Hungarian registered trademark will no longer be necessary.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in India has approved the transfer of .IN registry management and operations to the National Internet Exchange of India(NIXI). IN Registry is now the official .IN registry.

IN Registry does not carry out registrations itself. Instead, it accredits registrars, which then accept registration requests from end users.

Source: ncst.ernet.in

The UK domain name registry Nominet has witness a step rise in the number of attempts to register names that already exist, it has grown from an average of 20,000 attempts per day to 80,000. This has significantly reduced the performance of Nominet's Automaton system.

The new Anti-abuse policy will reduce the number of request operations and query operations, for domains that already exists to a daily limit of 1,000 operations rather than individual limits of 1,000 per day.

This new policy implementation will go live on 4th January 2005.

WIPO has decided that Microsoft is not entitled to a Spanish software company's domain name, mocosoft.com. The panel decided that "moco" is not phonetically close enough to "micro" to use the precedent set by past rulings.

Nominet have received a formal complaint from technology company Apple relating to the itunes.co.uk domain name, which was registered by Benjamin Cohen, managing director of CyberBritain Holdings, on 7th November 2000.

Apple claims an entitlement to the domain, but some are of the opinion that their chances are slim.

"iTunes" was only published in the Trade Marks Journal on 6th December, 2000, after the domain name had already been registered. Mr Cohen allegedly had no idea that Apple was intending to build the iTunes service at the time of his registration, and claims that he has been making legitimate use of the domain since registration.

Canadian Frank Fowlie has joined ICANN in the role of Ombudsman.

The role is primarily one of conflict resolution, the principal junction being "to provide an independent internal evaluation of complaints by members of the ICANN community who believe that the ICANN staff, Board or an ICANN constituent body has treated them unfairly".

Mr Fowlie has 20 years of experience operating in various agencies of the Canadian government and the United Nations.

The Office of the Ombudsman and the work that the ICANN Ombudsman does are
established by Article V of the ICANN Bylaws.

The ICANN Ombudsman is independent, impartial, and neutral. The Ombudsman's
function is to act as an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) office for the
ICANN community who may wish to lodge a complaint about a staff or board
decision, action or inaction. The purpose of the office is to ensure that
the members of the ICANN community have been treated fairly. The Ombudsman
will act as an impartial officer and will attempt to resolve complaints
about unfair treatment by ICANN using ADR techniques.

Aplus.Net, yesterday announced the launch of two new services that help businesses and individuals protect their online property and business branding efforts.

Aplus.Net's Domain Monitor service monitors the domain name's registry record, and if any changes are made to domain name server, registrar, status or expiration of the entry being monitored, an email is sent to the customer. Domain Monitor not only protects customers from malicious actions but also from technical and clerical errors.

Aplus.Net's Domain Guard service helps businesses guard their website branding by monitoring the new domain name registrations for specific keywords that the customer selects. If a new domain name is registered that contains the monitored keywords, an e-mail is sent to the customer.

Cambridge, Mass. - July 19, 2004 - In March of 2002, Indianapolis bail bondsman Kerry Edwards was an average American looking to build his own Web page to display family photos. More than two years later and on the eve of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Mr. Edwards, the longtime owner of www.KerryEdwards.com, is sitting on a very hot piece of Internet real estate.

Having received unsolicited offers of up to $150,000 for the domain, Mr. Edwards has announced that he will auction the rights to www.KerryEdwards.com to the highest bidder. The auction will be held exclusively at www.Sedo.com, the leading online marketplace for buying and selling Internet domain names, from July 19-July 31, 2004. With the DNC set to begin just days after the start of the auction, Massachusetts-based Sedo.com will open the bidding at $150,000, and there is no reserve price.