Afilias, the registry for the .info domain, yesterday filed
challenges with the World Intellectual Property Organisation
concerning 741 .info domain names which, according to the claims,
were fraudulently registered. In total, Afilias expects to
challenge at least 10,000 such registrations.
Afilias is a consortium of eighteen domain name registrars
located worldwide. It has faced stern criticism for its handling of
the domain's roll-out. NeuLevel, the .biz registry, faced similar
criticism for its poor handling of the .biz domain's roll-out.
The problem for Afilias began when it attempted to protect trade
mark owners by giving them the right to reserve .info domain names
for their marks in advance of the names being opened to the public.
However, the system was automated in such a way that registrations
could be made by anyone claiming to own a trade mark, even if the
name being registered was of a nature that is not eligible for
trade mark protection. Accordingly, thousands of registrations were
placed for generic names such as travel.info and sex.info.
According to Newsbytes.com, Afias has not yet decided how to
redistribute any recovered names.
