I’ve just done a quick story about the 74,000 .eu domains that EURid has suspended and the 400 registrars it is suing.

First of all, thanks to John McCormac who sent me an email earlier today pointing it out with a link to his blog with more info. EURid, I discovered soon after, had stuck up a press release and I called up Patrik Linden at EURid for more info and, as ever, he was incredibly straightforward, honest and helpful.

So the upshot to the registrar scam that came to light almost immediately after the .eu domains were opened to the public back in April is finally being dealt with. Hopefully no one will profit too much by playing the system. None of this removes the fact though that EURid was warned by several big registrars long before they started selling .eu domains that this problem was likely to happen.

If you want to know more, read my story on The Register.

I’ve written a piece for The Register which went up this morning about Nominet having to deal with a US company surreptiously data-mining the Whois details for .uk domains to use in their products.

It’s an interesting story in that it highlights something that most people are really very unaware of, plus helps outline the risks we face in not building sufficient privacy laws with digital technology. Nominet is a rare example of a main Net registry that provides a minimum of Whois information about domain owners and also has an opt-in to remove all information except your name.

This system about thanks to two Australian con-men a few years ago taking the entire Whois for .uk domains and then using it to send people letters telling them they had to pay extension fees to keep their domains. It was a scam, but one that 50,000 Nominet customers were fooled by.

That isn’t my main point however. My main point is that while under European law, the Whois data is copyright and therefore protected, under ICANN rules, all global top-level domains – which means all dotcoms, dotnets, dotorgs etc – have to make all people’s contact details publicly available, and that means home address and telephone number and email address.

I’ve always liked this because as a journalist I’ve been able to get in touch with domain owners very easily and quicky, but for years these easily accessible details were the databases that spammers used to make everyone’s lives a misery. And alot of the scammers. These databases are still out there and are still used.

Fortunately, registrars started putting protections on accessing this information. With most Whois databases now, you are given a wobbly representation of numbers and letters to manually type in to get the information, thereby preventing automated scripts from simply dragging the information of the servers.

But (and I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a month), the GNSO part of ICANN voted in a new definition for what the Whois can be used for in March, which will restrict the information that will be displayed to just the name and maybe the email address – with home address and telephone numbers pulled out.

It has still to get past the ICANN Board, but it has been a long, lengthy and drawn-out battle in the Internet community – three years in fact – to finally get there, despite massive privacy concerns from day one.

Milestone

I believe the change is much more significant than just the Whois though. What it represents is the Internet hitting another milestone in its maturity as a medium. The Whois rules as they currently exist came about thanks to the unusual history of the Net. When all the rules for how it would work were being decided, it was a pretty scrappy discussion. But there was one group that was highly organised, highly focussed and, well, aggressive and overbearing.

They were, of course, lawyers. Intellectual Property lawyers. As a result this group managed to distort a huge number of basic Net rules in their favour, including the frankly ridiculous rule that a person’s entire contact details for a domain name be made freely and publicly available.

Well, it’s all turning back now. The Net is of such importance that these bad rules are being written out. The medium has become integral to our lives and the mini-powerbrokers’ era is over. The Whois is one important step on that path.

The biggest and most important step is still to come however. And that will be reform of the domain name arbritration rules. That will be a big battle. But I for one will be at the front waving years of stories about how utterly corrupt the UDRP rules are, with WIPO the online equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition.

People probably won’t notice when that day comes, in much the same way that they won’t notice when the Whois changes, but these are the things going on under the surface that are making the Internet the great global medium it is.

[I'm only glad I don't live in the US - where big business is shamefully trying to turn the Internet in a controlled space. Somewhat ironic. But I will write more of net neutrality later. If you are interested, the best source of information I would say was Susan Crawford - check out her blog.]

Well, it’s 3.15pm Geneva time and the afternoon session of Sub-Committee A at PrepCom3 of WSIS at the UN in Geneva will start in 15 minutes.

What does all that mean? That for the next few hours a group of around 100 people in a room will start making fundamental decisions about how the Internet will run forever more.

These sessions were getting behind. In fact there was only supposed to be one of these a day but a slow start last week has seen them running two a day and possibly three, with a third tonight.

It was pretty much doom and gloom right up until yesterday. Factions have built up and fallen down. The US and Canada – who always stick to give in the world politics stakes, mostly it must be said because of a pretty similar world view – have started edging apart.

Meanwhile, a group calling themselves the Likeminded group and containing an oddly anti-US Brazil contingent, as well some of the African countries and assorted others has started gathering pace.

I am told there was an OECD gang but that appears to have fallen apart. And the most stubborn so far are Iran and Cuba – quite possibly because the US is being pretty solid in its view that the UN shouldn’t have control of the Internet, and there’s nothing that annoys Iran and Cuba more than the Yanks laying down the law.

However, I had a quick interview with the US Ambassador, David Gross, as well as with the Sub-Committee A chairman and Pakistan ambassador Masood Khan, and both of them are quietly confident that a deal may be struck – no matter how unlikely it looks at the moment.

The Chinese – vital in any agreement – despite having put out a very strong statement earlier in the week which was a barely disguised attack on the US and ICANN, has not been as forthright as you might expect and so with both the US and China appearing to be willing to concede some points, if that agreement is made, the others could well be brought into line.

So what?

Well, while it’s not vital that everyone agree on a system for Internet Governance, if one isn’t reached, it is going to be the ten-ton gorilla in every important discussion regarding the Internet from this point on. And, as you can imagine, that’s going to be pretty often.

So agreement is definitely preferable. Or at least an initial agreement on who should run the Internet, who should decide where it grows and how it grows and how what already exists works with the rest of it.

I will get the interviews with the Ambassadors down on an MP3 with some commentary from me hopefully tonight and doing a broad, clearly story for The Register than this quick blog, but that’s how it stands at the moment in Geneva.

I was very nearly tied into a 12-month contract with T-Mobile. In fact, I only had two days left before my seven-day grace period with my new phone ran out. The issue was that I had chosen a new phone for one reason and one reason only – I wanted to be able to pick up my email on it.

I received the phone and spent four days calling T-Mobile and Nokia and trawling the Internet to try to get my phone to work (to access my email) but even inputting numerous settings into the phone by hand didn't word. Finally I popped into Carphone Warehouse and the bloke there told me that T-Mobile simply did not allow me to pick up external email – at all.

This was news to me. So I called T-Mobile for the third time that week, determined to get a straight answer. I finally got it. T-Mobile does not allow access to external email accept through specific models. Except it won't tell you this.

In fact, it has a policy of purposefully misleading customers by referring them to the phone manufacturer and your ISP time and again. This has the effect of delaying any decision you may have to return the phone while you are trying to sort out the issue. If you don't sort it out within seven days and return the phone, you are tied into a 12-month contract.

T-Mobile clearly has a very compelling financial incentive to fail to inform its customers about its approach to external email.

I recorded the phone conversation for posterity. Here is a transcript of that conversation and a MP3 of it at the bottom.

I have since moved to Vodafone and have absolutely no problems getting hold of my email.

Me: I upgraded just under a week ago, the whole point being that I could get at email on my new phone. And it’s been impossible to get at it. I’ve got a Nokia 6230i. Now I spoke to yourselves, T-Mobile and you said ‘oh you need to speak to Nokia’. And I spoke to Nokia and they said you need to speak to T-Mobile.

So I went on the Internet and I got all the settings. And that hasn’t worked either. I simply cannot get. T-Mobile working. I have to get some kind of GPRS settings to get hold of my email.

Then I went to Carphone Warehouse and the guys there said – and I don’t know whether this is true, which is partly why I’m calling – that T-Mobile has a walled garden and I will not be able to access external email.

Right, okay. Just bear with me for a sec. [2 mins 3 seconds later...] Hey Mr McCarthy. What you need to find out is… you will need to get in touch with Nokia unfortunately…

No, I’ve just spoken to Nokia. I went through it 10 times with them. And they told me you [T-Mobile] need to send me the GPRS settings to my phone.

Right. To get external email?

Yes. The first question is: Is it possible for me to get external email on this phone through T-Mobile? Is that possible?

It is down to the handset…

Yeah, okay, the Nokia 6230i. Is it possible for me…

That’s why we’re advising you to go ask Nokia…

No, no. You must be able to tell me whether it is possible.

Right, basically, what you need is whether your handset has an email client.

Of course it does. You should know. You know this. It’s the 6230i. It is not Nokia – either T-Mobile lets me pick up email on this phone or it does not.

It’s not something that we support. But if you have the correct settings which you need…

Exactly, and it is T-Mobile that needs to send me those settings. It is not Nokia.

Right, basically it was… T-Mobile did not send them settings…

No I need you to be able to send me those settings.

But we don’t do them…

Well then where am I supposed to get them from?

It you will bear with me for two seconds, I’m just about to tell you that.

Okay.

You get them from your Internet Service Provider…

No, no, I’ve done that. That is not possible. I need to input some T-Mobile settings. They either exist or they don’t exist. If they do not exist I do not want either the phone or the price plan I’m on.

[Five second pause] Just bear with me a sec [39 seconds later] Hello Mr McCarthy, basically, we do not do them settings. You can get them from your Internet Service Provider. That is the only people who will be able to give you them.

They are T-Mobile settings that I need. No other settings.

We can send you, you can send email but not external email.

So are you telling me I am not able to access external email through T-Mobile with…

It’s not something that we support.

What does that mean? Does that mean I can do it or I can’t do it?

It means it doesn’t work.

If you get settings from your Internet Service Provider then you may be able to do that, but we do not support it…

What are these settings? These settings are T-Mobile settings.

If it’s external it will need to be something from your Internet Service Provider. We do not do them.

No, that’s not true. I can’t magic up a connection to my ISP using a phone through your network. It doesn’t happen. They have to be T-Mobile settings. So either these settings exist or they do not exist.

Are you set up for your mobile Internet?
Yes.

I can send email but not receive it, is that what you’re saying?

That’s right.

Well why didn’t you say that?

But not external email.

Why didn’t you say that? I’ve spent three, four days on this and no one’s told me I will not be able to receive email on this phone using T-Mobile. The only person is some bloke in Carphone Warehouse.

Yeah, you cannot receive.

Why didn’t you say that before?

I was saying we don’t support…

You know that support doesn’t mean receive. Support can mean anything.

It’s not something that we… we don’t do mobile email.

Right so look – what I need to do is I need to change this now. Is there any way that I can receive – using any phone with T-Mobile – external email. Does T-Mobile do that?

Right, basically the phones we do where you can receive external email would be the MDA range and also the Blackberry devices.

Okay, but no Nokias?

No.

Okay, I've just got off the phone with the International Messaging Development Manager for T-Mobile – a nice bloke called Matt Rogers.

He tells me that it *is* possible to get outside of T-Mobile’s network by inputting these settings into your phone:

GPRS APN address: general.t-mobile.uk
Gateway (IP) address :149.254.001.010
Username : user
Password: wap

There is a caveat though – you can’t be sure that your ISP will allow you to pick up or send email even with these put into the phone.

I am certain I put these exact settings in my phone and they didn’t work however. An official response will come tomorrow which I will then add to the story I wrote for The Register.

Mr Rogers readily accepted however that these settings are not available on T-Mobile’s website and that its customer services and call centre also have no access to any information on this.

Next month, T-Mobile will release its own configuration service that will automatically store the relevant email settings for your ISP on your phone. Customer services will also be briefed and provided with the information to deal with such queries in future.

Again though, I tried Nokia’s Web-based configuration process for my exact phone and my exact ISP and it still didn’t work.

Anyway, it’s a success. T-Mobile is now not only aware of the problem (and I put in five phonecalls, two to the company’s press office outlining the problems, which cannot be good). Even better – it is doing something about it. A result. I like being a journalist sometimes. Hopefully I’ve saved thousands of people a load of hassle.

Thanks to all those that have sent me emails and commented on this story below btw.

First published in The Register, 26 November 2001

Movie star unable to sue in US

Movie actor Kevin Spacey has lost a landmark court battle over ownership of www.kevinspacey.com.

Judge Gary A Feess, of the United States District Court of the Central District of California, ruled on 14 November that if Mr Spacey wished to take ownership of the domain to court he would have to file in a Canadian court, where its current owner – the notorious “cybersquatter” Jeffrey Burgar resides.

The decision, in which Mr Burgar and his lawyer Mr EC Grimm “raise a novel threshold question regarding the exercise of personal jurisdiction where the Defendants’ ‘contact’ with the forum have taken place in cyberspace”, should at least allow a more level playing field in relation to future domain disputes. From now, complainants are unlikely to be able to chose where a case is heard, removing any incentive for law courts in certain areas to advertise their stronger approach to large companies and rich individuals.

This decision (case CV-3848) effectively ruins any hopes Mr Spacey had of taking over the domain, without buying it.

In the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act 1999, US Congress accepted that as long as there is no attempt to sell on a “personal name” Web site for profit, then it is an example of “fair use” and permission is not needed from the individual in question.

This decision was roundly attacked by Californian senators at the time, who stood up for the Hollywood film industry. The California legal system could be considered the most sympathetic jurisdiction to anti-cybersquatter manoeuvres conducted by celebrities.
Arbitraitor

Why didn’t Spacey’s lawyers just go to domain arbitrators the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) or the National Arbitration Forum (NAF), like every the lawyers of every other celebrity and use their domain resolution system (Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, more commonly known as UDRP)?

This is something that Mr Spacey did in April this year, winning the domain www.kevinspacy.com in August. UDRP has been heavily criticised in the past for showing bias towards famous or influential people, but… Mr Burgar won a previous WIPO case in almost identical circumstances over the domain www.brucespringsteen.com.

In that case (D2000-1532), the three-person panel made damning criticisms of how WIPO and UDRP operated, although recent decisions have not fully taken these into account.

Mr Spacey filed his case against Mr Burgar on 4 May this year, saying that Mr Burgar was “an infamous cybersquatter” who was using the actor’s name to promote a commercial celebrity Web site. The suit claimed Mr Spacey and his production company M. Profitt Productions (named after the incestuous junkie crime lord Mel Profitt he played in TV show Wiseguy) owned the rights to Spacey’s name, voice, and image. They wanted the domain transferred over and monetary damages paid.

That Mr Burgar is “an infamous cybersquatter” is not under question. He has had celebrity run-ins with Celine Dion, Jodie Foster, Mariah Carey, and others. But he is a rare example of someone willing to argue his case for domain name ownership and has helped more than almost anyone else in exposing contradictory and unjustifiable decisions made by the domain ruling bodies.

The KevinSpacey.com court decision [pdf]

The NAF decision on KevinSpacy.com