A virtual land rush for names in the new ".info" domain is turning ugly, with critics claiming that the registration system is being abused by cybersquatters and frauds who are snatching up valuable names before the general public has a chance at them.

The dot-info domain is managed by Afilias, a consortium of 18 domain registrants from around the world. On July 25, Afilias Ltd. began a "sunrise period" of registration, during which trademark and service-mark holders would be allowed to reserve their appropriate domain. The idea was that a company like The Coca-Cola Co. would be able to reserve Coke.info ahead of time, keeping cybersquatters at bay, and saving the company the time and cost involved in winning the domain through litigation. On Sept. 12, Afilias would then open the doors to the general public, which would be allowed to grab all the remaining names.

But two weeks into the sunrise period, critics say that many domains have been assigned to people inventing fake trademarks, or extending overbroad marks to grab lucrative names like business.info and sex.info. "The system was designed to placate the trademark holders, but the result isn't very fair," says Dan Tobias, a programmer and operator of Dan's Domain Site, a Web page that critiques the domain-registry process. "Anyone with a registered trademark anywhere in the world in any topic is able to extend it to a generic name, and it's been made even worse by a rampant amount of completely bogus claims." Afilias doesn't check the validity of trademark claims, he says.

Roland LaPlante, chief marketing officer for Afilias, says, "We're evaluating whether there is abusive registration going on and we're trying to figure out it there's anything we can do." Afilias does have a way for people to challenge registrations, but it costs $300 to file a dispute, which critics like Tobias say is prohibitive for many individuals. LaPlante counters, saying, "I think we need to let the process take its course," and allow challenges to proceed. Meanwhile, the company is looking at possible ways to streamline the system.

In any case, LaPlante says Afilias was expecting this sort of thing to happen. Says LaPlante, "It's not a surprise to us that people in the Internet community, being the creative people they are, are trying to game the whole process."