[ga] One-Fourth Of '.Info' Addresses May Be Frauds - Study

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

All assembly members,

By David McGuire, Newsbytes
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.,
 http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/169497.html
--------------------------------------------

As many as one-fourth of the more than 50,000 addresses registered
thus far in the nascent ".info" Internet domain may have been
obtained fraudulently, a new study finds.
Performed by University of Minnesota Professor - and part-time domain-
name speculator - Robert Connor, the study examines 11,500 .info
addresses purchased during the .info "sunrise period," which ended on
Monday.

"Sunrise squatters are a serious problem, probably affecting between
15 percent (and) 25 percent of Sunrise registrations," Connor
concluded in his report. "Unless these problems can be thoroughly
corrected, use of sunrise periods in future top level domain names
may be in doubt."

Operated by Newtown, Pa.-based Afilias, .info was one of seven new
Internet domains approved for launch last year by the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The domain
officially opened for business last month.

In a bid to make it easier for trademark holders to obtain the .info
addresses that match their trademarked names, Afilias set aside the
first month of the new domain's operation as a sunrise period, during
which trademark holders were permitted to register their proprietary
names in .info.

But shortly after Afilias made the "WHOIS" database of .info
registrants available to the public earlier this month, it became
apparent to some observers that unscrupulous domain name speculators
had been misrepresenting themselves as trademark holders in order to
snatch up the most attractive .info Internet addresses before they
became widely available.

Connor said today that his study - which relied on computer-assisted
as well as "manual" analysis of 11,500 .info registrations - proves
that the fraud in the .info sunrise process was extensive.

But while Afilias has publicly acknowledged the occurrence of fraud
in the sunrise application process, Afilias Chief Marketing Officer
Roland LaPlante today said that Connor's estimates were probably too
high.

Because Connor relied on publicly available WHOIS data to complete
his analysis, he has an incomplete picture of whether certain names
were registered fraudulently, LaPlante said.

"As people spend more time looking at (.info registrations) and
investigating them, they are going to find the number is lower than
they think," LaPlante said.

Legitimate registrations may look fishy in cases where trademark
holders improperly entered their trademark data, or where an Internet
registrar failed to properly record a registrant's information,
LaPlante said.

Earlier this month, LaPlante estimated that fewer than 10 percent of
all .info addresses sold during the sunrise period were obtained
fraudulently.

But Connor said that he allowed for honest data entry mistakes and
registrar errors when he performed his study.

Indeed, Connor contends that his first computer-assisted analysis of
the registration data revealed that roughly half of the 11,500
addresses were fraudulent. Connor then took a closer look at the
questionable registrations and gave registrants who appeared to have
made simple mistakes the benefit of the doubt, he said.

After going through the questionable registrations largely by hand,
Connor said that he arrived at the 15-20 percent figure.

Responding the concerns about fraud in the sunrise process, Afilias
announced earlier this month that it would mount an effort to purge
the fraudulent addresses at the end of the year.

Afilias also has a process by which individual trademark holders can -
 for the next 120 days - challenge any sunrise registrations that
infringe on their marks. Those challenges are being handled by the
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and will be posted at
http://www.wipo.int , LaPlante said.

Still, Connor urged Afilias to be vigilant when it moves to purge its
system of fraudulent names.

"If Afilias does not challenge enough of these registrations than it
would not be addressing the problem adequately," he said.

LaPlante said that Afilias executives would use Connor's research to
aid them in their own efforts to ferret out fraudulent names.

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 118k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-447-1800 x1894 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208
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