The body responsible for maintaining Irish-based Internet domain names has publicly presented its proposed new rules for registering names. The registry, known as the IEDR (.ie domain registry) was keen to stress the integrity of .ie domain names, but the substantive issue of the future of the registry itself was not addressed at the presentation in UCD earlier this week.

The public symposium was described by IEDR general manager, Dr Niall O'Reilly, as the first stage in a process of public consultation over the proposed changes to the rules. The changes broadly categorise acceptable names and acceptable name-holders, as reported in The Irish Times on July 3rd last. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Internet service providers, legal and trade marks bodies, the Government's Information Society Commission, and the US embassy.

With Net-based electronic commerce expected to boom, Dr O'Reilly said the IEDR is aiming to "promote the use of the Internet for business", while the director of UCD Computing Services, Dr Dennis Jennings, stressed that Internet users should be able to trust that there are valid businesses behind Websites.

For this reason, the IEDR's proposed new rules are much stricter than, for example, the US-based .com domain where any names may be registered in a first-come, first-served, free-for-all. In future, individuals will only be able to register .ie domain names based on their initials, while other bodies including businesses will be able to register corporate names, trading names, trade marks, and initials, such as cie.ie.

Dr O'Reilly also said the registry is taking legal advice on publicising the owners of the registered names, as is common practice in other domains. This is usually implemented via a who is application on registry Websites.

The issue of the future ownership of the registry was not discussed at the meeting. UCD has said it wants to divest itself of the IEDR, which currently maintains a list of more than 5,000 names at roughly £50 each per year.

Dr O'Reilly said the public consultation over the proposed rule changes will continue until the end of August, and the IEDR hopes to publish its new policy at the end of September. The proposed new rules may be viewed at www.ucd.ie/hostmaster.