[council] ICANN Advisory on Regland Lawsuit

["Andrew McLaughlin" <mclaughlin@pobox.com>]

NC members:

ICANN has just posted an advisory regarding a lawsuit that has been filed
against ICANN in a state court in Texas, USA.  The lawsuit relates to
"pre-registration" services for potential new TLDs, and our advisory takes
note of the Names Council's recent warning about that kind of activity.

As the advisory notes, we believe the claims are utterly baseless, and
regard the lawsuit as frivolous.

Let me (or Louis) know if you have any questions.

--Andrew

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<http://www.icann.org/announcements/advisory-03nov00.htm>

Advisory Concerning Regland Litigation

ICANN has seen reports that Regland, Inc. has filed a lawsuit against ICANN
in state court in Texas. The lawsuit complains about ICANN's statements
concerning Regland's business practices in taking money for
"pre-registrations" in proposed top-level domains (TLDs) that do not exist,
have not yet been approved by ICANN, and may never be available on the
Internet. Regland's claims are utterly baseless and ICANN regards the
lawsuit as frivolous.

ICANN believes that it is entirely appropriate to alert the public that no
TLDs have been selected and that no company — including Regland — is yet
authorized to be selling domain names in new TLDs. These statements are
entirely true and are designed to caution consumers who may be mislead into
believing that they have actually registered a name in a TLD that does not
yet exist.

On 29 September, ICANN's primary advisory body on domain name issues — the
Names Council of ICANN's Domain Name Supporting Organization — issued a
statement warning consumers that "it is premature for companies to offer
pre-registration services for domain names in speculative new TLDs. To date,
no new TLDs have been selected and there is no guarantee that any particular
organization will be authorized to take registrations for any particular
TLD. The registration of names in new TLDs will be done on a fair basis, and
the practice of pre-registration should not be encouraged."

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