Brand Protection

Domain Name Association Outlines Healthy Practices as Part of Key Initiative

The domain name system is in good health. But it's about to get even better. The Domain Name Association (DNA), the Internet domain industry's trade association, undertook an effort in 2016 it named the Healthy Domains Initiative (HDI). It's an ambitious, self-motivated effort to build on the DNS' already secure and stable platform and meet select challenges head-on, before they develop. more

Your Trademark Sucks.com

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

In Historic Vote on WHOIS Purpose, Reformers Win by 2/3 Majority

It has taken almost three years -- by some counts, more than 6 years -- but ICANN's domain name policy making organization has finally taken a stand on Whois and privacy. And the results were a decisive defeat for the copyright and trademark interests and the US government, and a stunning victory for advocates of the rights of individual domain name registrants... more

Confessions of an Ex-Opponent of Whois Privacy

The following is the easyDNS response to ICANN's public comment period on GNSO Privacy & Proxy Services Accreditation Issues Working Group Initial Report. The public comment period is open until July 7, 2015. We strongly urge you to make your voice known by signing the petition over at Save Domain Privacy. I submit these comments as a CEO of an ICANN accredited registrar, a former director to CIRA and a lifelong anti spam contributor with an unblemished record of running a managed DNS provider that maintains zero tolerance for net abuse or cybercrime... more

How SOPA Will Destroy The Internet

As you read this, please keep in mind that I say it all with a track record nearly 14 years of being proactive and having a zero-tolerance policy toward criminal activity and network abuse on our system. We have great relationships with Law Enforcement Agencies both here in Canada and abroad. We are always helpful and (usually) happy to answer questions, and help LEA understand the complexities and nuances of the internet. We've had the good fortune to meet some really intelligent and clued in cybercrime units. We participate in numerous communities in combating net.abuse and cybercrime. more

Criticism of Trademark Owner Deemed Legitimate Interest under ICANN UDRP

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of Birmingham, Alabama, challenged registration of domain name www.biocrystpharmaceuticals.com. Respondent used domain name to criticize the Complainant's business (BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Kumar Patel, Case No. D2005-0674). Panelist Daniel Gervais denied relief, stating... more

ICANN Complaint System Easily Gamed

ICANN's WDPRS system has been defeated. The system is intended to remove or correct fraudulently registered domains, but it does not work anymore. Yesterday I submitted a memo to the leadership of the ICANN At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and the greater At-Large community. The memo concerns the details of a 214-day saga of complaints about a single domain used for trafficking opioids. more

What We’ve Learned About Upload Bandwidth

Until the pandemic hit, I rarely thought about upload bandwidth. I mostly used upload bandwidth to send files to people, and I rarely cared if they received the files immediately -- I was happy as long as files got sent. But the pandemic changed everything for millions of people. All of a sudden, homes were unable to function well due to problems with uploading. more

Problems With Defining Jurisdiction on the Internet

The term "jurisdiction" has various definitions in law, but for our purposes here we can say it is the power of some legal body to exercise its authority over a person or subject matter or territory. In the Internet today, it is territory that gives rise to many major issues. As in real estate, what matters in jurisdiction is "location, location, location". When the Internet and trademark rights began to intersect, it quickly became apparent that traditional concepts of the jurisdiction of courts and legislatures would be seriously strained by situations where a registrant in one country could use a registrar in a second country to register a domain name in yet a third country. more

DNS Policy is Hop by Hop; DNS Security is End to End

The debate continues as to whether ISP's can effectively filter DNS results in order to protect brand and copyright holders from online infringement. It's noteworthy that there is no argument as to whether these rights holders and their properties deserve protection - nobody is saying "content wants to be free" and there is general agreement that it is harder to protect rights in the Internet era where perfect copies of can be made and distributed instantaneously. What we're debating now is just whether controlling DNS at the ISP level would work at all and whether the attempt to insert such controls would damage Secure DNS (sometimes called DNSSEC). more

Five Common Issues in Domain Management, and Solutions

Has your organization ever missed renewing a domain name? You really don't want to be in the news for that. Just look up "company forgot to renew domain name" and read about the historical consequences of missing vital domain name renewals. They range from failed services or infrastructure, lost revenue, lost business partners, wrecked reputation, hefty regulatory fines, to even the collapse of a business. more

ICANN Responsible for Domain Name Trademark Mess

It is ICANN's responsibility to make sure domain names do not infringe on trademarks. To determine infringement, ICANN should rely in the short term on predictive models. Thus, domain name and trademark owners must start putting pressure on ICANN to assume its trademark responsibility. more

Registrar Influence on the Domain Security Posture of the Forbes Global 2000

In the 2021 Domain Security Report, we analyzed the trend of domain security adoption with respect to the type of domain registrar used, and found that 57% of Global 2000 organizations use consumer-grade registrars with limited protection against domain and DNS hijacking, distributed denial of service (DDoS), man-in-the-middle attacks (MitM), or DNS cache poisoning. On average, the adoption of domain security controls is two times higher for enterprise-class registrars than for those using consumer-grade registrars. more

A Brief Look at the Domain Attack Surface of Streaming Media Companies

The term "attack surface" is often heard in cybersecurity conversations. It refers to the sum of all possible attack vectors or the vulnerabilities that threat actors can exploit to penetrate a target network or damage an organization somehow. An unused and forgotten subdomain, for instance, can become an attack vector when taken over. Certain categories of companies have very large attack surfaces. Such is the case of streaming media businesses like Netflix and HBO Max. more

Curbing Cyber- and Typosquatting

We need a tax. You don't hear that too often. But right now a tax is the weapon needed by the domain name community. We face way too many cyber- and typosquatters. To drive them back, let's tax parked and unused domain names. Done right -- sized properly and phased in -- the tax will make it much harder for speculators to turn a profit while they keep domains sitting idle or parked. more