Welcome:
Login
|
Sign Up
|
About CircleID
Follow:
|
|
|
Think of trademarks situated on a continuum with famous and well-known at one end and less well-known or unrecognized by average consumers at the other. On one end there is certainty of infringement... at the other end, certainty of having the complaint denied either for lack of proof or overreaching... At some point along the continuum, it becomes uncertain whether respondents registered accused domain names in bad faith, and the question has to be answered by examining the facts.
Have you ever sold a domain name that was just sitting in your registrar account? Maybe it was for that idea you had, but never found the time to develop. Perhaps it was for a business or website you once ran and then let go by the wayside. Then one day, out of the blue, that dormant domain turned into a winning lottery ticket. You got a random call or email from an interested party and the next thing you know that domain (which you've forgotten why you even renew it each year) is sold for $3,000 or $30,000 or more.
When a new TLD goes into General Availability or Land Rush, the first few days are filled with registrations that reflect how the market perceives the TLD. Registrants may register domain names to develop or for speculative purposes. Others register to protect their brand. The first major web usage survey for a new TLD is generally a Signs of Life survey where the early stages of development can be detected. These surveys were based on the May 19th, 2018 .APP zone file.
Last week, several hundred commercial parties involved in the ICANN ecosystem gathered in Vancouver for their annual Global Domains Division (GDD) meeting. Over 600 individuals took part in the meeting which brought together representatives from ICANN's contracted parties. This meeting differs from traditional ICANN meetings as no policy work takes place and discussions are more focused on commercial and operational matters.
On Friday I was on a surprisingly interesting session at Rightscon 2018 in Toronto about GDPR and WHOIS. The panel consisted of Eleeza Agoopian from ICANN staff; Avri Doria who was recently appointed to the ICANN board; Elliot Noss who runs large registrar Tucows; Stephanie Perrin who has done a lot of privacy work for the Canadian government and as an ICANN volunteer, and me; Milt Mueller, who is now at Georgia Tech, moderated.
I always geek out a little when I see something ICANN-related breaking out into the real world, like when the bus-stop display has borked, and its LAN is vainly searching for an IP number so it can reboot. Or the ICANN Paris meeting back in 2008 when the board gave the thumbs up to the GNSO policy to launch new gTLDs. One day we were an obscure Californian organisation doing something technical-seeming most people had never heard of, and the next we were working two phones each, giving journalists quotes and information for dozens of front-page news stories around the world.
GDPR. It's the four-letter "word" everyone is talking about, and there are lots of questions still swirling around the topic. We wanted to provide a summary of where we are and what we believe the next ten days will bring... GDPR enforcement will begin May 25, 2018. After this date, those found in violation of the regulation can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover or 20 Million Euros, whichever is greater.
A discussion is presently underway about the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) (and in Phase 2 next year of the Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy (UDRP)), whether it is performing as intended. The URS is less than five years old, and there are not an overwhelming number of decisions. Since 2013, rights holders have filed less than one thousand complaints (with three providers, the Forum being the most active), which translates into less than 170 decisions annually...
If we traveled back in time, we would discover that unauthorized squatting on someone else's property is an ancient tort, but in cyberspace, it dates from the mid-1990s. Its emergence brought together governments and intellectual property stakeholders to demand a rights protection mechanism devised to deal with this new form of squatting. In 1999 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) completed its work on a proposal for an online rights protection mechanism which ICANN crafted into the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) launched the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) (2013) in anticipation of the marketing of new gTLDs that became available from November 2013. It is one of four new rights protection mechanisms (RPMs) designed to combat cybersquatting. It is not intended for legacy gTLDs, and for new TLDs, it is planned only for that class of dispute colloquially referred to as a "slam dunk."
A World-Renowned Source for Internet Developments. Serving Since 2002.