Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Afilias, the registry for all domain names ending .info, has announced “Land Rush 2,” its second attempt at the distribution of certain names that were initially registered dishonestly – arguably because the nature of the registration system invited abuse.

Dublin-based Afilias ran a Sunrise Period during which registered trade mark holders could register .info names matching their trade marks, before the names became available to the general public. However, the system did not check the trade mark information supplied. Accordingly, generic words that would not be eligible for trade marks were taken by opportunist registrants. Registrations not meeting the Sunrise Period criteria – 17,000 in all – have now been cancelled.

Afilias expects to begin the new submission process in June of 2002 and award the names in mid-July 2002. Registrants should apply for the names through their registrar of choice. Each participating registrar will then send the requests to Afilias in the form of a queue (or batch of names). Each registrar's queue will be processed utilising a randomised, round-robin name selection method employed during .info’s initial launch.

Among the names being offered are film.info, accounting.info, travel-agent.info and sexclub.info.

More details can be found at www.afilias.info.

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