Published on Newswire, November 15 2000

As ICANN prepares to assign new top-level domains, cybersquatting in the existing ones is alive and well, as search engine site Ask Jeeves has discovered.

Ask Jeeves uses natural language technology to match queries with a sorted and categorised set of Web links. For some months now, it has been trialling an Australian version of the service. The Australian site is one of several planned by the service since it announced international expansion plans in December last year. The existing US version is rated as the 11th most popular search service in Australia by local ranking service Top 100.

Users who access the main askjeeves.com site from an Australian IP are offered a redirect which takes them to a localised version of the service, complete with Australian-sourced advertising material. However, the Australian site is not located at www.askjeeves.com.au, as you might expect. Instead, it's located at the rather less obvious au.ask.com.

This is because the askjeeves.com.au domain isn't the property of the company. It's owned by Stuart Rankin, the proprietor of Victorian new media company Avenue Media. Rankin registered the domain in July last year, after registering the business name Ask Jeeves in Victoria.

Rankin's plans for the site aren't clear. At present it displays a blank page, and Rankin has not responded to requests from Newswire seeking details on his intentions with the domain. Ask Jeeves also declined to comment on whether it would be seeking to reclaim the domain.

Squatting time

Rankin's registration is not just an unfortunate coincidence. Through Avenue Media, he has registered at least 10 domain names in the .com.au space. As well as askjeeves.com.au, Rankin also owns mysimon.com.au, which echoes the name of comparison shopping site mySimon. The CNET-owned shopping site may also be hitting the Australian market in the future, with company officials in October launching a major global expansion campaign. "mySimon is eager to expand its presence outside of the US," said CEO Josh Goldman.

Compared to the .com domain, which has historically been allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, .com.au is relatively protected. Companies wanting to register a .com.au domain name must demonstrate ownership of the name through a company registration, business name registration or ABN, and trafficking in domain names is technically illegal. However, cybersquatters have worked around these problems by setting up companies purely in order to register a domain name, and then selling off the business (rather than just the domain name itself) if an interested buyer comes along.

How this cybersquatting can be prevented will be one of the key questions for domain name management group ICANN when it meets in Marina del Rey this week. ICANN is actively considering introducing 14 new top-level domains (TLDs), but one of its central concerns is how the companies who manage those domains will prevent unauthorised use of well-known or trademarked brands. The regulations for assessing applications stress "the importance of appropriate protections of rights of others, including intellectual property rights, in connection with the operation of the TLD".