More domain name woe as .info chief quits

Robert Connelly, a director of Afilias, the registry set up to run the new .info domain, has quit over cybersquatting fears and delays that will push back the new top level domains until November.

In his resignation letter, Connelly slammed Afilias for its handling of a special session, called the sunrise period, designed to protect company trademarks, prevent cybersquatting and allow resolution of disputes over trademarks.

"I have not hidden my disappointment with the way the sunrise period turned out. It was an abomination," he said.

During the sunrise period, which ran from 25 July to 27 August, owners of registered trademarks and service marks were able to officially register their marks in the .info domain. But UK lawyers said that between 10 and 50 per cent of those names registered may be fraudulent.

Afilias puts the figure closer to 10 per cent, but has launched an investigation into the possible registration of several highly marketable domains by cybersquatters.

General registration of .info domains is scheduled to start on Wednesday, but Connelly said that Afilias is in no position to process requests fairly and is unable to produce a list of questionable registrations.

Meanwhile, Louis Touton, vice president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), has said that six of the seven new names will be up and running between November and January 2002, after originally being pencilled in for July.

Icann indicated that .biz, .museum, .coop, .aero, .info and .name will be ready for November, with .pro following early next year.