Sender: •••@••.••• (The Network Project) Subject: Rights to a domain name I am with an organization that has requested a .net domain name from Internic. We are a start-up non-profit organization with plans for running our own server and providing various Internet services for our members, including web page hosting and E-mail forwarding services. We applied for our domain name about 10 days ago, but we have heard nothing yet. I understand it takes between 2-3 weeks for approval. Since we are not ready to actually put our own server on line, we have contracted for web space for our home page with an ISP. The only service we will offer at first is the mail forwarding. We plan to assign our members E-mail addresses under our domain and forward their mail to their current E-mail addresses. The idea is that our members will then have a permanent address that will not change when they switch jobs or local access providers. The ISP will be doing this forwarding for us until we can get our server going, which could take from six months to one year. Here is my question. What happens if Internic denies us our .net domain? Do we have any legal recourse to compel them to issue a .net name to us? I have read Internic's policies and they are very vague on the .net domain designation. They say .net domain names are for "infrastructure machines and organizations". I cannot find a definition anywhere that provides a better picture of exactly what that means. We are probably on the border. While we are going to offer web and mail services, I doubt we are going to offer internet access. Also, I suspect that we may be denied because we are not ready to put our own server online immediately. This is a concern for us because there is only one name that perfectly matches our organization's name. If we miss out on securing that name, it will deal us a real setback, both financially and in terms of identity and name recognition. Can you suggest any info for us on this subject? we have searched the net to no avail. I cannot believe this issue has not surfaced repeatedly, but I cannot find a thing on it. Any help you can give me will certainly be appreciated. Thanks Bob S. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) You are encouraged to forward and cross-post messages and online materials for non-commercial use, pursuant to any copyright & redistribution restrictions included in individual messages. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~