The Barbados Government, through its Telecommunications Unit and with the agreement of Cable &Wireless (Barbados), will take over the administration of the .bb ccTLD from February 18 according to a public notice on the government’s Telecoms Unit website dated 10 January 2008.

The notice says ccTLDs are usually administered by or for respective governments. In the case of .bb, Cable & Wireless (C&W) assumed the administration of the .bb domain name from the University of Puerto Rico in 1996. Then in 2001 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Government of Barbados and C&W (Bartel) Ltd. and C&W (BET) Ltd. provided for C&W to continue to perform the role of administration of the .bb domain name until such date as determined by the Government.

With the liberalization of the telecommunication sector in Barbados, consideration had to be given to the continued administration of the domain name registration. The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL) had advised that the management of domain names involves government entities, academic entities, NGOs and the private sector. Should Government take over this function, training of staff is essential.

There was an exchange of correspondence between the Telecommunications Unit and Cable & Wireless in relation to taking over the administration of the .bb domain name, including the training of staff. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Switzerland was also approached re: training of staff in the various aspects of this area – legal, administration and technical, but was unable to assist.

The government says the intention is to operate a semi-restricted ccTLD and let the Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office handle the legal issues, which are an integral part of domain name administration. The Inter American Telecommunications Commission (CITEL) had advised that it is the role of governments to provide a clear, coherent and predictable legal system. The main element of legal responsibility relates to duty of care and protection against issues such as defamation, infringement of copyright and/or trademarks, misappropriation of intellectual property and unjust enrichment. A semi-restricted system is where it is necessary to have a local representative with a formally-constituted presence (tax number, registered company etc.).

To read the public notice in full, see the Telecoms Unit website at telecoms.gov.bb

Source DomainNews

Google is planning to add a new technology to its popular AdSense program by the next month. This technology will facilitate detecting domain kitting, a common practice that the experts consider as questionable. Numerous Internet marketers are earning profits in the domain registration space business presently.

‘Domain kiting’ is very popular among the domain registrants. It is a practice to play with the standard five-day grace period at the beginning of the registration of an ICANN-regulated domain. This five-day grace period actually helps the registrants who mistyped domain names they acquired from being stuck with the wrong domain.

The gaming with ‘Domain Kitting’ is increasing at a faster rate. Registrants repeatedly delete a domain name during the grace period and re-register it without ever paying for it. They do this again and again in order to make profits and generate good money from the number of advertisement hits the successful domains get.

Such types of successful domains become capable of generating considerable amount of online advertising revenue for the simple reason that that these domains remain active in search engines, such as Google. This situation helps the registrants to makes millions from partners that taste domains with ‘AdSense for Domains’.

This game of ‘Domain Kitting spoils the chances of fair deal and transparency for the genuine business owners. The honest registrants who intend to make use of a particular domain name for the legitimate business reasons do not get the desired domain names because these are already tied up with the kitting.

From February 11 onwards, Google will install a system for preventing registrants from making ad revenue from kited domains using AdSense for Domains. Google however, will not disclose the details of this new addition.

Google has always discouraged the practice of ‘Domain Kitting’. If we determine that a domain is being kited, we will not allow Google ads to appear on the site, said the official spokesperson of Google. The company anticipates that such a policy in place would make positive impacts both on the users as well as the domain purchasers around the globe.

Quashing the ‘kitting’ business has some business interests of Google involved. There might be some lawsuits filed in near future against the vendors who enable the ‘Domain Kitting’.

Domain Kitting ‘ is quite different from the ‘Domain Tasting’. Tasting is actually a facility given to a prospective purchaser to ‘taste’ the domain for five days and then buy the domain, according to Danny Sullivan.

Google has clarified that it is not targeting the Domain tasting. But the industry specialists observe that the new system from Google will definitely affect the ‘tasting’ also. The tasters who are earning huge profits and think that this is a perfectly legitimate business process will also create a backlash for Google, many experts feel.

Source propeller.com