According to a report by new site TheRegister.co.uk, one of the
companies behind Afilias, the consortium in charge of the .info
domain name registry, is pulling out over the poor handling of the
registry’s roll-out for trade mark holders.
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.
