Re: Domain Name Denial GARDNET.IT

[Claudio Allocchio - +39 40 3758523 <]

Hallo,

>Hello,
>
>My name is David Anderson. I am the CEO of IBEnet, an International ISP.
>
>This is to inform you that we are having serious problems with GARR in Italy.

Sorry, you're NOT dealing with GARR in Italy, but with the Italian Registration
Authority, operated by GARR-NIS, on behalf of the Italian Service providers
Forum ITA-PE, and coordinating with the ISO Italian Office (UNINFO) and the
"Commissione per la Numerazione TLC" of the Italian Ministry of Post and
Telcommunications.

>The first registration was attempted as "garda.it" 
>( garda is not a city, niether a county or state, it is not a registered 
>trademark, nor protected in any way there is a lake in Italy called GARDA ).
>The motivation for denying "garda.it" was:
>
>that  it's possible for someone to eventually think that garda.it
>represent the association of the cities around  the  Garda  lake.
>The  funny  thing  is that this association doesn't exist yet, as
>far as we know, and that in any case *they* should ask us not  to
>register  the name, and not the GARR. Moreover, the GARR proposed
>us to register garda.lombardia.it and use this domain.  Note that
>"Lombardia" is the region which the Garda lake is on, and there's
>no other Garda Lake in Italy. Now, if "garda.it" can  be  confus-
>ing, I can't see how "garda.lombardia.it" can be not.
>
>We attempted a second registration "gardanet.it" also denied, the 
>motivation was: no official denial.

Sorry again, this is NOT true. Your request for gardanet.it is currently 
under examination by the control commettee, and no decision has been
taken.

>Since this is not the first time we have a problem with GARR 
RE:"e-mail.it" attempted by Piero Serini owner of the trademark 
>E-MAIL in both Italy and the U.S.A. we have already had some 
>information regarding the policies of local Domain Name Space. 
>
>Quoting from RIPE NCC Staff (Mon Aug 14 13:33:01 1995):
>
>> To: Piero@localhost
>> Cc: hostmaster@localhost
>> Subject: Re: Serious problem w/ .IT registry (GARR) 
>> In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 11 Aug 1995 18:49:45 MDT.
>>              <199508111649.SAA29103@localhost 
>> References: <199508111649.SAA29103@localhost 
>> From: RIPE NCC Staff ncc@localhost
>> X-Organization: RIPE Network Coordination Centre
>> X-Phone: +31 20 592 5065
>> X-Fax: +31 20 592 5090
>> Date: Mon, 14 Aug 1995 13:33:01 +0200
>> Sender: ncc@localhost
>>
>>
>> Dear Pierro Serini,
>>
>> Every Top-Level domain has (within a certain boundary) the rights to
>> set their own policies. These policies have to be equally fair to
>> everyone. That means they have the right not to give out the domain
>> name e-mail.it, as long as they don't give it out to anyone else
>> either.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> RIPE NCC staff.
>

There are very precise rules which govern the Italian Registration
Authority, covering both ISO names and Internet domain names.
And also very precise operational procedures, to ensure the the R.A. 
does its job in an impartial and possibly efficient way.

The RA just follows these rules, as they are set by the ITA-PE people, and
whenever there is a problem, the problem is just passed by the RA to
the ITA-PE group for discussion. This happened for E-MAIL.it, for GARDA.IT
and now for your request GARDANET.IT.

>Obviously the rules change according to the whims of GARR. It is also
>obvious that GARR is neither impartial or fair since they are blatantly
>favouring government or para-government organizations.

Sorry again. In the ITA-PE forum there are representatives of all the Italian
Service providers: from large ones to very small ones.  It is NOT a government
organization, nor a business one. It is a coordination group which acts as
a support and discussion forum, in strict coordination with all (not only
Internet) telematics service providers. In the group,  everybody wishing to 
take part in the process is welcome to partecipate. Just some names:

	GARR:		the italian R&D network		R&D
	IUnet:		the italian portion of EUnet	commercial
	I.net:		I.net Spa (Unisource)		commercial
	IT.net:		ITnet SpA (PIPEX)		commercial
	SARITEL		X.400 services (Master400)	commercial
	Post Office	Italian Post Office (PtPostel)	government
	IBM		X.400 / Internet services	commercial
	Telecom Italia	Interbusiness Internet		commercial
	AIPA		Public Administration services	government

	plus many other...

>Please let me know what you think.
>
>David Anderson
>
>andy@localhost

I believe you probably misundertood the real situation. It is quite unlikely
that such a group, where commercial organizations are the big majority,
takes decisions in favour of governmental organizations only. The registry
of the Italian names (including domain names and ISO names) is public, and
everybody can simply check the situation:

    whois -h whois.nis.garr.it domainname

As the registration rules are just going into operation, the Italian RA
is also currently revising the historical registrations, in order to
correct eventual discrepancies or old errors.

Please contact us directly, instead of spamming around the world for 
informations, whenver you need. You're also invited, as everybody operating
a telematic service in Italy, to contribute and take part to the ITA-PE forum,
if you wish.

Thanks and regards,

Claudio Allocchio
chairman of the ITA-PE group,
coordinator of the Italian group for the ISO R.A.,
commission for Telecommunications of the Italian Ministry for Post Offices
and Telecommunications.