New Domain Regulations
September 17th, 2008 | Posted in Omani Websites
I finished reading the new Domain Name Policy Frame work I told you about yesterday. It’s pretty interesting. The main highlights of it are:
- A new department in the TRA called .OM Domain Administration (omDA – We can call it 3umdah in Arabic I guess!) will be created and will be responsible for .OM domain names.
- 3umda will grant a license for companies to become Domain Name Registrars so that any company can offer domain name registration services and not just OmanTel. (They call it accreditation instead of license).
- Only companies with a working capital of more than RO 50,000 (sorry this was a typo) RO 20,000 can apply to become a registrar. The company (or some of its staff) must have at least six month experience in the domain name business before it can apply for accreditation. The application fee is RO 500, there are no annual fees. 3umda can terminate the service of non-performing registrars.
- 3umda will not specify retail prices and will give all companies the same wholesale price. Companies can set their own retail price. If only one company ends getting accredited then 3umda will have to agree to the retail prices with it.
- Companies will have to buy domain names from Registrars, not from 3umda directly.
- Individuals CANNOT buy domain names. Nobody can buy a domain name for personal use.
- Omani Tribe names are reserved names, you cannot register a domain name that is also a tribe name.
- Domain names cannot be sold. The policy says that people who register domain names do not own it, they merely have the right to use it and they cannot sell that right. If a registrar or 3umda learns of a sale transaction of a domain name the domain name will be suspended and neither the buyer or the seller will have it.
- 3umda  will suspend your domain name if a government authority or the police request that.
- You cannot buy a domain name that contains a trademark, a word close to it or a misspelled version of it.
The Framework has a lot of things which I thought were great and well thought out, make sure you read the whole thing if you are interested in learning about the domain name business.
I have issues with some of the points I mentioned above, especially the fact that individuals cannot buy .OM domain names – Oh my God that is so stupid. Individuals can have mobile phones, faxes, PO Boxes, land properties, computers, and internet lines, but they cannot have domain names, why? Because the internet is a place exclusive for businesses to sell us products. I find this so stupid I do not know where to begin.
Another major issue I have with this is the fact that people here do not understand the basics of trademark law and think that the safe way to prevent problems is by not allowing anyone to register a domain name that has a trademark. This does not make sense because a trademark does NOT grant its owner a global monopoly over the use of a term or a mark, but protects him from the use of the same trademark in a manner that will confuse other people in regard to the source of a product/service in question. Two people can legally register the same trademark for different businesses as long no customers are confused to the source of the product/service. Example:
Khaled decides to create a restuarant in Al Khode which he names “Cisco”. He applies for a trademark for the term Cisco under the one of the categories related to restaurants and catoring services. Cisco’s trademark is not violated because nobody would think that Cisco the restaurant is the same as Cisco the technology company.
This is clear from the meaning of Article 36(2)(vi) and Article 39(1)Â of the new Industrial Property Law (Royal Decree 67/2008)Â as both of these articles talk about “connected services and products”. This is the international position of this matter, but it is clear that the TRA has no idea about this as their framework does not take it into consideration.
The deadline for submitting your feedback about the new domain name framework is the 8th of November 2008. There is more than a month to read the framework and send your feedback to the TRA if you have any comments on it. I am going to sleep on this, do some research a bit and then write a response to the TRA. No idea if they will listen to what I will say but I would have done my part and tried to stop bitching and start a revolution.
