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. more
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... more
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). more
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." more
The Registration Operations Workshop (ROW) was conceived as an informal industry conference that would provide a forum for discussion of the technical aspects of registration operations in the domain name system. The 7th ROW will be held in Vancouver, Canada on Thursday, May 17th 2018 in the afternoon, at the end of the GDD Industry Summit, in the same venue. more
"ICANN could invoke emergency powers in its contracts to prevent Whois becoming 'fragmented' after EU privacy laws kick in next month," reports Kevin Murphy in Domain Incite. more
The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a rights protection mechanism crafted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and adopted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for trademark owners to challenge the lawfulness of domain name registrations. Cybersquatting or abusive registration is a lesser included tort of trademark infringement, and although the UDRP forum is not a trademark court, as such, in some ways it is since it empowers (assuming the right alignment of facts) to divest registrants of domain names that infringe a complainant's trademark rights. more
Adobe, Facebook, Microsoft and eBay are among a group of leading companies demanding ICANN to take a closer look at an "immediate and urgent matter" involving a subset of questionable domain name registrars. more
One of the ever-present questions in the domain name community is "have new TLDs been a success in the marketplace?" As many within the industry will appreciate, it's a difficult question to answer using traditional metrics (such as domain registration volumes), and it is important to remember that the new TLD expansion in 2012 was all about diversity, competition and choice. more
After 10 years as one of the top-level European Domaining Conferences, it is our pleasure to announce the transition of Domaining Europe into NamesCon Europe! This is an exciting new chapter for the NamesCon brand that expands into the European domaining market. The agreement between Domaining Europe and NamesCon was confirmed at the beginning of 2018. The rebranding of Domaining Europe to NamesCon Europe is in effect for the upcoming June 2018 event in Valencia. more
The Domaining Europe conference began in Valencia, Spain almost a decade ago and the first seven shows in the annual series were staged at the Hotel Sorolla Palace there. In 2016 conference founder Dietmar Stefitz decided to take the show on the road, staging that year's event in The Hague, Netherlands, followed by the 2017 show in Berlin, Germany this past May. more
Cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin) are all the rage -- so, naturally, related domain name disputes are, too. The wild fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices (Bitcoin hit a low of close to $6,000 this week, after reaching an all-time high of more than $19,000 only two months ago, and less than $1,000 a year ago) have attracted speculators, regulators and now even cybersquatters. more
With GDPR coming into effect this May, it is almost a forgone conclusion that WHOIS as we know it today, will change. Without knowing the full details, how can companies begin to prepare? First and foremost, ensuring that brand protection, security and compliance departments are aware that a change to WHOIS access is on the horizon is an important first step. Just knowing that the ability to uncover domain ownership information is likely to change in the future will help to relieve some of the angst that is likely to occur. more
The way the Internet operates drove a wedge between strings of lexical and numeric characters used as marks and alphanumeric strings used as addresses. Domain names were described by Steve Forbes in a 2007 press release as virtual real estate. It is, he said, analogous to the market in real property: "Internet traffic and domains are the prime real estate of the 21st century." more
Before the Internet, the sole competition for strings of characters employable as marks was other businesses vying to use the same strings for their own products and services. National registries solved this competition by allowing businesses in different channels of commerce to register the same strings but prohibiting competitors in the same industries from using identical or confusingly similar marks on the grounds that they were likely (at best) to create confusion and (at worst) to deceive the public. more
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