Domain Names

The Cyber-Sociology of Domain Names

Erica Wass is the editor and contributing author of the recently published book, "Addressing the World: National Identity and Internet Country Code Domains", (Rowman & Littlefield, October 2003). This book is an edited collection of original essays by domain name administrators, academics, journalists and lawyers that examine the connections between various cultures and the use and regulation of their country code domain names. CircleID recently caught up with Erica Wass to gain a better insight into the work behind this book. What follows is the first article of a three-part series where Erica shares her insight and discoveries that lead her to a sophisticated global perspective on "Addressing the world". She begins by examining cyber-sociology of ccTLDs -- the underlying theme of the book.

Lobbying for Whois Privacy

Today a letter was submitted to the President of ICANN, Paul Twomey, at the ICANN Carthage meeting, "asking him to ensure that strong privacy safeguards, based on internationally accepted standards, are established for the WHOIS database." Latest reports indicated that the draft letter had been signed by about 50 nonprofit groups and represented 21 countries on six continents. "Signers of the letter included the American Library Association, the U.S. Association for Computing Machinery, the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Electronic Frontier Finland, Privacy Ukraine, and the United Kingdom's Foundation for Information Policy Research."

Registration And Use Of Domain Name Infringing Another’s Trademark Ruled “Advertising Injury” Covere

The registration and use of an Internet domain name that allegedly infringes another's trademark is an "advertising injury" within the meaning of an insurance policy, and thus requires the accused company's insurer to provide coverage, according to a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In the same ruling, the Fourth Circuit also held that the domain name, because it led customers to advertisements at the related website, constituted use of the trademark "in the course of advertising." State Auto Property and Cas. Ins. Co. v. Travelers Indemn. Co. of Am.

.Pro Asking for Second-Level Domains (Again)

In a Message from RegistryPro Advisory Board to Tina Dam on 24 October 2003, it is noted that .Pro is, again, asking ICANN to allow for the registration of 2nd level domains. I am, again, of mixed opinion on this. On the one hand, a registry should be able to do what it wants, within reason. This clearly falls into that category. On the other hand, .Pro has been denied once already on the grounds that registering 2nd level domains is not the proposal upon which they were approved in the "testbed" procedure of November 2000.

Why Do We Care About Names and Numbers?

An article based on the most recent study for the European Commission on the Policy Implications of Convergence in the Field of Naming, Numbering and Addressing written by Joe McNamee and Tiina Satuli of Political Intelligence.

"With relation to the Internet and also IP addresses, the "scarcity" is more complicated: there are not only intellectual property issues with regards to domain names, but there is also an issue of managing the integrity of the system. For any naming or numbering system to work, it is essential that the names and addresses used cannot be confused with any other -- in other words, no one system can have two end-points with the same fully qualified number or name..."

Site Finder as Starting Point for True Innovation Above DNS

Well, I have remained silent on this issue for now -- mainly because of conflicts. I was one of a few members of the technical advisory group asked by VeriSign to look at Site Finder and ask the questions -- what does it add, what does it break, and how can we fix anything it breaks? The scope of the group was unlimited by any VeriSign edict and the members were of impeccable individual credentials. This group has now completed its work so I feel able to comment.

Reaction to VeriSign-NSI Break Up

On October 16, 2003, VeriSign announced the sale of its Network Solutions (NSI) business unit three years after its purchase from SAIC. This is a report on the historical snapshot of Network Solutions and a collection of commentaries made in response to this event...Network Solutions, Inc. was founded by Emmit J. McHenry as a joint venture with the National Science Foundation and AT&T...

Is Industry Underestimating the Ending Dot?

According to RFC1034, "cnn.com" and "cnn.com." should be the same domain names. However, it doesn't appear that programmers always understand that trailing dots can be added to domain names. Web servers also can't seem to agree what to do with a period at the end of a host name. IIS, thttp, and Akamai's Web server all get confused while Apache doesn't seem to care. How much other software behaves incorrectly because of a trailing period on a domain name? Can spam-filtering software be bypassed with dotted email addresses? Here is a situation when bad things can happen -- "WebShield SMTP infinite loop DoS Attack"...

UK’s DNS Open to Prying Eyes

Network Penetration conducted a survey at the start of 2003 to check the status of the UK's DNS infrastructure. The second scan of the year has just been completed and the results are much more positive. There are however still some serious holes in major areas...Here is a look at what was tested, the results, some sample zone transfers and recommendations.

The .Name Domain Disrupted by Site Finder Patch

The "delegation-only" patch to BIND that was released for Internet Service Providers and others who wanted to block Site Finder service is reported to be disrupting emails to .name emails (that look like '[email protected]'). As a result, the Global Name Registry has submitted a letter to ICANN stating...