Criticism of .info roll-out leads to resignation of registry co-founder

Afilias is a consortium of 18 domain name registrars. One of these, PSI-Japan, is selling its stake in Afilias following dissatisfaction with the consortium’s roll-out of the .info domain names, according to The Register.

The new domain names were to be first offered to trade mark holders, ahead of the general public, in what Afilias called its “Sunrise Period”. The plan was intended to pre-empt and avoid name disputes. However, many individuals took advantage of the early registration facility and claimed .info names by submitting false trade mark details.

DomeBase.com, the site of Bob Connnor, an individual who is monitoring the .info roll-out, recently carried out a survey on a sample of 11,000 .info Sunrise Registrations. Connor's findings suggest that between 15% and 25% of registrations violate the trade mark submission rules.

According to The Register, Afilias “was either unwilling or unable to provide PSI-Japan with a list of the domain names registered during the sunrise period”. A director of the company, unhappy with Afilias, decided to pull his company out of the consortium.