As reported in OUT-LAW News yesterday, Economic Solutions Inc.
(ESI) sent a warning letter to the President of ICANN, complaining
that if, as many expect, ICANN introduces the new .biz name, it
will cause confusion among internet users and interfere with ESI’s
rights in the .bz name.
ESI agreed in 1999 with the Government of Belize to market and
sell the .bz country-code top level domain (ccTLD) of Belize to
international applicants on the government’s behalf on condition
that the registrar pays a royalty to the government for each
sale.
ICANN is this week considering applications to control proposed
new global top level domains, to add to existing ones such as .com
and .net.
Rejecting the claim by ESI for an injunction against ICANN,
District Judge Donald Stohr said:
“The possibility that even before the
ultimate establishment of a .biz [top-level domain] a selected
applicant might assert rights adverse to those claimed by [ESI]
would not, in the court’s view, constitute irreparable harm.”
In a statement, ICANN said it “applauds this decision preserving
the integrity of the ongoing consensus-based process for moving
toward the establishment of new TLDs.”
