Brand Protection |
Sponsored by |
|
A Swedish court on Friday found all four defendants guilty in a copyright test case involving one of the world's biggest free file-sharing websites. "The Stockholm disctrict court has today found guilty the four individuals that were charged with accessory to breaching copyright laws," the court said in a statement. "The court has sentenced each of them to one year in prison." more
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been taking a lot of people to court -- basically, harassing folks in an attempt to curb file-sharing. The $220,000 verdict against Jammy Thomas got a lot of news (and probably worried a lot of folks). However, on appeal (i.e., after a new court not cherry-picked by the RIAA to try the case looked things over), the RIAA lost... again. ...At its heart, the verdict reaffirms that simply making a copyrighted work available is not the same as actually distributing the work. more
Have you ever thought of how reputation is created in cyberspace? Beth Noveck wrote an article, 'Trademark Law and the Social Construction of Trust: Creating the Legal Framework for On-Line Identity' in which she argues that, to determine what rules should govern on-line identity, we should look to trademark law, which has the best set of rules to deal with the way reputation is created in cyberspace. more
Recent attention to the Eighth Circuit decision in Coca-Cola v. Purdy brings to mind the class of sometimes difficult cases involving the use of another's trademark as a domain name for criticism. An ICANN UDRP decision, Full Sail Inc. v. Ryan Spevack, Case No. D2003-0502 (WIPO October 3, 2003), by Mark VB Partridge, presiding panelist, with Frederick M. Abbott and G. Gervaise Davis III, included a review and analysis of the "your trademark sucks.com" cases that remains a useful reference worthy (I hope) of the lengthy quote below. more
The domain name system (DNS) is vital for businesses as it facilitates customer access to online services and resources. Strategic DNS management plays a pivotal role in cybersecurity, safeguarding against threat vectors and ensuring secure global connectivity across online channels including apps, email, websites, application programming interfaces (APIs) and more. more
A recent news story, following research from security provider Infoblox, highlighted the case of the 'Revolver Rabbit' cybercriminal gang, who have registered more than half-a-million domains to be used for the distribution of information-stealing malware. The gang make use of automated algorithms to register their domains, but unlike the long, pseudo-random ('high entropy') domain names frequently associated with such tools, the Revolver Rabbit domains instead tend to consist of hyphen-separated dictionary words (presumably so as to obfuscate their true purpose), with a string of digits at the end. more
In the Converse.co dispute, a three-member UDRP panel unanimously ordered the transfer of the disputed domain name to the Complainants, All Star C.V. and Converse, Inc., owners of the well-known brand CONVERSE for shoes and apparel. The panel drew the inference that the Respondent, by setting of an asking price of around $300,000 after having acquired the domain name for $306, was primarily motivated by a bad faith intent to target the Complaint. more
Domain name monitoring - that is, the detection of domains with names containing a brand-term (or other string) of interest - is a very well-established element of brand protection services. Branded domain names are of key importance to brand owners (as the basis for business-critical infrastructure (i.e. 'core' domain names), and as part of a 'tactical' portfolio of strategic and defensive registrations), but also to infringers, who can utilise domains as a means of impersonation, passing off, claimed affiliation, or traffic direction and monetisation. more
Digital communications systems always represent a collection of design trade-offs. Maximizing one characteristic of a system may impair others, and various communications services may choose to optimize different performance parameters based on the intersection of these design decisions with the physical characteristics of the communications medium. more
As the new-gTLD programme - the ICANN initiative to add a large number of new domain extensions (top-level domains, or TLDs) to the Internet - continues to see ongoing launches of new TLDs, we conduct a new retrospective of the activity landscape of the most recent extensions to have been launched. This new study focuses on all new-gTLDs to have entered their Sunrise or General Available periods since the start of 2023, following a previous overview by Stobbs of the full new-gTLD landscape. more
I recently had the opportunity to speak on a podcast with Dave Bittner at CyberWire to discuss how .AI is giving cybercriminals a new avenue to take advantage of some of the largest companies in the world based on research findings from CSC's 2023 Domain Security Report. Below is a summary of the key points discussed during this podcast. more
In the last year, the company that runs the Turkish Domain Registry has made many changes to how the extension is run. First, it has a brand new portal for registrars to interact with, liberalizing the extension .COM.TR, so registrants are no longer required to meet local presence rules, and it has launched a new dispute process to help brand holders recover domain names. more
It seems that every day, a new artificial intelligence (AI) capability emerges, posing exciting possibilities for technological advancements -- but also great potential to equal or greater risks. Cybercriminals have taken notice of this rapid surge in the popularity of AI technologies and are attempting to take advantage. more
The '.sucks Top Level Domain (TLD), by Vox Populi, which initially faced criticism from brands due to its launch fee of $2,499 is now listed on the world's largest domain registrar, GoDaddy. more
Domain names give your intellectual property visibility, as well as provide function for your company's infrastructure. Vital domain names are simply too important to be left exposed. To protect them, you can add extra layers of security to your digital brand with easy, secure, server-level protection in addition to multi-level locks that combat domain name system (DNS) hijacking and protect against unauthorized changes and deletions to your critical domain names. more
A World-Renowned Source for Internet Developments. Serving Since 2002.
