Brian McWilliams

In a goodwill gesture to the no-name musicians who made it famous, pioneering digital download music site MP3.com, Inc. announced Wednesday it is letting artists in on its much anticipated IPO. MP3.com said it is reserving up to 1.8 million shares of its common stock at the initial public offering price to eligible registered artists, […]

As corporate trademark attorneys scour the Internet for sites that infringe on their registered marks, some so-called cybersquatters are discovering novel ways to battle back and protect their domains. The latest case involves an Inglewood, California computer technician named Lawrence Tolliver, who had hopes last July of getting in on the e-commerce boom by building […]

Friday was supposed to be a major milestone in opening up competition in domain registration — a day when testing of the new shared registration system built by Network Solutions was to be completed by the initial five accredited registrars. But so far, only register.com has come online. And Network Solutions appears to be locked […]

Some subscribers to Excite@Home’s cable-based Internet service are griping openly about the company’s handling of a forthcoming cap on users’ upstream data rates. News of the nationwide 128-kbps upload limit leaked out recently when an internal memo from @Home to cable system operators was posted to several Internet newsgroups. The document detailed the company’s strategy […]

A Web developer in New York claims she’s the victim of reverse domain-name hijacking by America Online Inc. Cybele Emanuelle, owner of WebmasterFX Digital Systems said she registered the domain aolsearch.com back in September of 1998 and subsequently built a site at that address called African-American OnLine Search. According to Emanuelle, aolsearch.com was a guide […]

A new Internet land grab is on the horizon. Now that most of the prime real estate is taken in generic top-level domains ending in .com, .net. and .org, there’s renewed pressure to expand the gTLDs to include new domains such as .shop, .firm, and .web. “There just is a dearth of relevant domain names […]

Esther Dyson, the acting chairperson of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, Tuesday accused Network Solutions of “mudslinging” and trying to stall ICANN’s attempts to privatize the governance of the Internet and domain registration in particular. Dyson made the comments in response to a June 11 letter from consumer advocate Ralph Nader and […]

Microsoft Wednesday was accused of trying to downplay a security flaw in its Web server software. The company issued a bulletin late Tuesday about the so-called “malformed HTR request” vulnerability in Microsoft’s popular Internet Information Server 4.0 software. According to Microsoft, the flaw could allow denial of service attacks or, under certain conditions, could allow […]

Porsche Cars North America has lost a closely-watched lawsuit involving domain names and trademark infringement. Porsche Thursday said a Virginia federal court in Virginia dismissed its lawsuit against holders of 138 Internet domain names on June 8. All of the defendants had registered names which contained the words Porsche or Boxter, trademarks of the Germany-based […]

3COM Corp. Tuesday agreed to settle a class action lawsuit over claims that it falsely advertised the performance of its 56K modems. In a May 11 order from a California Superior Court, 3Com has agreed to give a $15 rebate to anyone who purchased one of its X2 modems or before May 31. The company […]

Two former America Online Inc. volunteers have filed a class action lawsuit against the company in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The suit alleges that Brian Williams and Kelly Hallisey, along with an estimated 10,000 AOL volunteers, should have been paid for their work in AOL’s forums, chat rooms, and bulletin boards. Damages have not […]

Register.com Tuesday responded to published reports that its service has become a haven to cybersquatters or domain speculators. One of five organizations selected by the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers to test a new shared registration system and ultimately to compete with Network Solutions, Register.com claims that it already handles more registrations than […]