While there have been various media reports speculating about who made the complaint; what I do know is that the complainant was The Arsenal Football Club Public Limited Company and the respondent was Domains by Proxy, Inc./Official Tickets Ltd.

The Panel has released an Issues Paper for public consultation, which sets out the current situation and canvasses the issues and possible options for change. The closing date for submissions is Friday 1 August 2008.

Here are a few interesting points:

• “Abandon the competitive registry model and make auDA the registry operator”
  

This sounds like someone has been talking too much to ICANN or Verisign.

• “the start-up capital costs constitute the most significant barrier for prospective new entrants” Ohhh.. the poor kids down the road can’t become an operator.

HELLO, its called capitalism ! I’d note that “Accredited registrars pay an annual fee to auDA of $3,300 and there is also a $2,200 non-refundable accreditation application fee.”

• “auDA does not have the legal power to impose financial penalties on a registrar who has breached the Registrar Agreement.”

So registrars can basically do whatever they want as long as its not serious, to the point of suspension or termination the registrar’s accreditation.

• “Questions have been raised however, about the extent to which registrars should be allowed to participate in domain-related activities other than the core business of registering domain names for registrants. For example, is it appropriate or desirable for registrars to be in the business of warehousing domain names for their own domain monetisation purposes?”
  

Watch out - its those evil domainers again!

• “It has been suggested that this lack of market transparency could be addressed by publishing a list of deleted and expiring domain names, or by placing the domain names in a “holding pool” for a period of time before making them available to the general public.“

This is just a bad idea. Again, see the word capitalism. Looking into my crystal ball I see auDA being in a position to profit from this “holding pool”. Who will have the independence to maintain it?

It appears that auDA needs all the help it can get. Have a look at the Issues Paper and send your comments to:

auDA Industry Competition Advisory Panel
email: info@auda.org.au
fax: 03 8341 4112

This morning I received an email titled “Wishing Well Promotion:: Win Cash and Promote Change!“. At first I thought spam, then I thought “promote change” - that sounds like CNN’s “be the change” promo…. so I opened the email from Sedo.

At the top of the email was a picture of the world, a large green leaf and a little African child. Wow, the marketing guys really picked one issue from each category for this promo! It looks like something from an NGO like WorldVision.

So what’s the bottom line? Well, if you spend 1,000 USD/EUR/GBP or more, Sedo puts $10 into a bucket (Wishing Well). At the end of the month half of the money in the “Wishing Well” is given to CHF International “in response to the drought occurring in Ethiopia“. The other half will be given at random to a buyer or seller who closed a transaction through Sedo during the month of August. What the? Am I living in the twilight zone here? What we have is - drought in Ethiopia vs large latte at Starbucks. Hmmmm… Some people might find this hard to believe, so here is their landing page for the promotion with all the info.

So let me get the straight - domainers buy stuff from Sedo for $1k and Sedo gives $5 to charity and the other $5 to a domainer. Great concept around the charity, but very BAD execution. It should be a competition OR a charity.

Here is an extract from CHF International which explains how much $$ is required:

• $300 provides a family with proper sanitation;
• $600 provides a year’s supply of food and water for one growing child;
• $1,000 repairs an existing well that will provide 400 people with clean water;
• $7,000 builds a new well, which could save the lives of 800 people;
• $12,000 builds a new school building, providing children with valuable education.“

Sedo, why don’t you donate 100% of the funds to the charity? $5 is nothing to a domainer. If you really cared, you would give it all to charity.

Don’t get me wrong - conceptually this is a great idea. I believe that Western countries and wealthy individuals have an obligation to give something back to society. I personally donate to several charities on a monthly basis.

Sedo should be congratulated on making the first step as they didn’t have to do it. There is now an opportunity to get it right and set an example to the rest of the industry.

Here is a small selection of names that I like:

CreditCheck.us, SuperSaving.com, Trades.net, OnlineDiscounts.com, SellingTips.com and OrlandoHotelGuide.com.

There are a lot more premium names and the full catalog will be release in due course.

The story goes something like this…. girl registers and runs Kapaluaadventuretours.com - company that developed the Kapalua Resort (Maui Land & Pineapple Co) files a complaint in federal court. Apparently they own the Kapalua trademarks. oops!

That’s what you get if you play with trademarks kids!

Nominet spokesperson Margaret Briffa said “It is clear that since registration the domain name has been used in a manner which took unfair advantage or was unfair or detrimental to the complainant’s rights.”

The mother, Gillian Fergusson told the BBC that she was shocked by the decision. “We provided very clear statements from the internet registration company saying that we had not tried to make any money and yet somehow it has just simply ignored the evidence.”

Apparently, registering an e-mail address for a child is not legitimate use!

Ms Fergusson said: “We have not done anything illegal or wrong, we were perfectly entitled to have this domain name.

“There was three months in which they could have registered this. There was a private period for any trademark holder to register any .mobi domain name when they went on sale in 2006.

“We did not buy ours until after that three-month period had expired and it was open for public sale.”

One thing I can’t seem to shake off is this unsolicited postal mail asking me to renew my domains with registrars and resellers. Yesterday I received three letters in the post. Two were from the “Domain Renewal Group” and one was from the “WorldWideWeb Register”.

I have uploaded a high resolution image of the Domain Renewal Group letter (936k jpg) as well as the WorldWideWeb Register letter (1.7meg jpg). Of course, I have removed some of the identifying information from them.

The Domain Renewal Group letter was printed on paper that’s a big bigger than standard A4, whereas the WorldWideWeb Register used very thin quality A4 sized paper, kind of like the old credit card receipt paper.

Domain Renewal Group

The terms and conditions are in tiny little print and are extremely difficult to read. In fact, you might need a magnifying class to read it properly. Here are some interesting paragraphs:

“If lawsuit(s) are threatened: If we are sued or threatened with lawsuit in connection with Service(s) provided to you, we may turn to you to indemnify us and hold us harmless from the claims and expenses……”

“You warrant that your use of our services is not going go subject us to any claim(s). You further agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless us and applicable registry administrator(s)…..and all such parties‘ directors, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all claims, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses…….”

“All fees are non-refundable, in whole or in part, even if your domain name registration is suspended, cancelled or transferred prior to the end of your then current registration term, unless this Agreement specifically provides for a refund.”

When it comes to renewal costs they are VERY expensive - AU$40 to renew a .com for 1 year! They also suggest other names - in my case for .org and .biz at AU$75 each!

WorldWideWeb Register

Their letter tends to focus on the “Updating of your data:” which is the subtitle of the letter.

The letter was sent to my mailing address, but I didn’t own the domain name that it mentioned. The letter had a generic “company name” as the owner. When I checked the domain name, using whois, it was registered to a different owner.

The first line of their letter reads:

“We kindly ask you to update your subscription ensuring that you include your correct data, thus allowing all Internet users to contact you without any problem. In the attached document, you will find basic data about your company, which you should check in order to avoid publication of private websites.”

Apart from the sentence, not actually making sense - I wonder how many people would receive this letter, see that their details are wrong and then provide the correct information. The other interesting thing is that the domain name they mentioned was a .com.au. Traditionally the underlying registry data for .com.au has been hidden away. Perhaps this is a way to obtain that data, domain by domain?

An extract from page two of the letter reads “The applicant must correctly supply their information so that the contracted company may include it in the relevant editions of the World Web Company Register on CD-Rom, as well as in its Internet database…..”

The next page reads “…. I give GT@P - Guia Telefax Anuario Profesional, S.L. the order to publish my company data in the next three annual editions of its Web Company Register, both on the Internet (www.webcompanyregister.com) and on CD-Rom. The total cost per edition of the service contracted …… is 877 euros.”

Wow, so I pay you 877 euro to have my personal details appear in your database! Where do I sign?

Of course Microsoft is spewing that they “missed the Internet” back in the 90’s, failed to grab any substantial advertising market share during the dot com boom and then failed again in 2008 with the Yahoo deal.

So if the US government say no to Google, then why wouldn’t it be anticompetitive for Microsoft to own Yahoo? What’s this mean for domainers? Two players owning the entire advertising market! Can you say collusion kids? Ok - it means lower payout rates and a HUGE barrier to entry for a 3rd force.