Internet domain names are the theme of this week's column, thanks to QuoVadis, which sent me a graph of a recent survey on the current state of '.bm'.

The '.bm' top level domain name is the country code assigned to Bermuda on the Internet. Thus sites ending with the '.bm' domain are marked as having been assigned by an agency of the Bermuda government.

Hence you can find the Royal Gazette on the Internet simply by surfing to "www.royalgazette.bm". In its survey, conducted this month, QuoVadis found that about 2,655 URLs (site addresses) had been granted under the ".bm" domain.

Of these, about 28 percent were currently in operation. The rest, 72 percent, were found to not be in use, that is, the owners had not yet created sites to which the URLs referred.

Of the sites in operation, an astonishing 69 percent were hosted on servers overseas. Only 31 percent of the sites actually resided on servers in Bermuda. In other words (and this is my conclusion), server providers in Bermuda - such as Cable & Wireless, IBL, North Rock and TeleBermuda - need to convince a lot more domain name holders to stay at home to make the "Cyber Island" dream come true.

Domain names have always been a source of contentious dispute. Look at what happened to the Cayman Islands government, which has only now regained full control of its '.ky' top level domain name.

On 30 June, after an eight year battle by the Cayman Islands government, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) ruled that the administrative functions for the '.ky' domain should be placed back in control of the government. The ruling was a formal one.

The Caymans had regained control of '.ky' for about a year. Here's how the government fell asleep at the wheel. IANA is responsible for the management of the domain-name system root, that is for top-level domain name assignments such as '.bm' and '.ky'.

In April 1995, the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (which then performed the IANA functions) approved a request for establishment of the '.ky' top-level domain as the code for the Cayman Islands.

The '.ky' was delegated to Clint Mole, who was employed by the Cayman Islands government as the network manager for its computer services department.

Mole was the administrative contact and Andrew Rubin was the technical contact. In December 1995, Mole left the Cayman Islands government service.

According to IANA the Cayman Islands government only became aware that Mole was serving as the administrative contact for ".ky" in 1996! Government then attempted to have the administrative and technical contact responsibilities transferred to Cable and Wireless Ltd. Somehow Mole and Rubin never got around to completing the transfer.

In 1998, Rubin decided he wanted to be relieved from his responsibilities as technical contact for ".ky" and began negotiations with Domain Name Trust (DNT), a company in the US.

Mole signed a contract with DNT that provided for DNT to collect registration revenues and to place a portion into a charitable trust established to benefit the Cayman Islands. Again in February 1999, the Cayman Islands Government sought to have all administrative matters relating to the .ky domain transferred to the Government.

Mole agreed to transfer the responsibilities to the Government, if it honoured the contract with DNT. The Government rejected the proposal.

During this time, DNT's interest in the contract was transferred to a new company called DNT(KY), which in turn was purchased by a company called Internet Management Services Inc. (IMS). IMS appointed Scott Englund to serve as the technical contact. In September 2000, the Government formed the Ministry of Information Technology.

In April 2002, the Cayman Islands Legislative Assembly enacted the Information and Communications Technology Authority Law 2002.

The law established the Information and Communications Technology Authority (ICTA) as an independent body with the sole responsibility "for the management and control of the top level of the global internet Domain Name System held in trust for the Internet and the Islands".

The law also stipulated that "any person who, without the written consent of the Authority acts or purports to act as, or hold himself out as being authorised by the Authority to act as" the administrative or technical contact for the ".ky" domain is guilty of an offence.

With the passing of the law, Mole immediately quit his responsibilities as administrative contact for ".ky".In May 2002, the Government asked for the '.ky' domain to be re-assigned to the ICTA since Mole had withdrawn from serving as administrative contact.

Now, after all that humbug, the Cayman Islands can reassure businesses that their '.ky' URLs will continue to work. Whew! As an aside, Bermuda came close to suffering the same hassle about the time the Cayman Islands woke up the fact that '.ky' was not under its control.

Astute diplomacy by a very able administrator at the Bermuda College (which administered the '.bm') saved the day. I can say no more due to a promise I made to the man on the job.

The dispute over the ownership over the lucrative "sex.com" domain name continues to produce important rulings and guidelines for the Internet community.

Last week a three-judge panel in he US unanimously ruled that Network Solutions Inc. can be held liable for mistakenly handing over ownership of the lucrative "sex.com" name to Stephen Cohen.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that property laws and liability applies to the Internet and hence, the real owner of the domain, Gary Kremen, was entitled to sue Network Solutions for the mistake.

Back in the mid-90s Cohen had sent a forged letter to Network Solutions, which is now known as VeriSign Inc., asking the company to reassign the rights to the domain to himself.

Without bothering to contact Kremen, Network Solutions completed the transfer. Cohen turned the domain name into a money-spinner for himself but lost it after Kremen sued to get it back. Cohen is now a fugitive while Kremen attempts to recuperate about US$65 million in damages.

"Negligent or not, it was Network Solutions that gave away Kremen's property. Kremen never did anything," one of the judges wrote in the latest ruling in the case.

"It would not be unfair to hold Network Solutions responsible and force it to try to recoup its losses be chasing down Cohen." In defending its case Network Solutions had claimed that domain names do not qualify as tangible property. Lawyers say that the ruling may mark the first time that traditional property law has been applied to the Internet.

Tech Tattle deals with issues in technology. Contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com.