Domain Names

Domain Name Brand-Sharing Starts With Embracing Web 2.0

Irrespective of which solution to the current domain name brand-sharing impasse ends up being adopted by brand owners (option 1, option 2, or a combination), the owners must first understand and embrace current trends in online communications, information gathering, and entertainment. Thus, for a solution to succeed the corporate mindset toward new technologies needs to change; after that brand owners can work cooperatively with the domain name industry (owners and institutions) to increase the aggregate pie. more

ICM Registry Publicly Posts Filings for Independent Review Panel Against ICANN on .XXX Domain

ICM Registry (proponents of the .xxx initiative) and Stuart Lawley, Chairman and President of the organization, have filed a 522-page brief in the ongoing Independent Review Process that began last June. "In what may prove to be the biggest sleeper Internet governance issue of the year, ICM Registry has publicly posted its filings for the Independent Review Panel that will decide whether ICANN acted improperly in rejecting its application for a .xxx domain," writes Brenden Kuerbis in a post on the IGP blog.  more

Network Solutions Under Large Scale DDoS Attack, Millions of Websites Potentially Unreachable

Network Solutions is having problems with "all" its name servers, according to their tech support and a recent post on North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) mailing list indicates that it has been under very large-scale UDP/53 DDoS attack for the last 48 hour period. As a result, domain names hosted with Network Solutions' Worldnic have been affected. Network Solutions is one of the leading domain registrars and DNS hosting providers in the world, managing more than 7.6 million domain names. more

Outdated Whois Information Might Lead to False Light Tort: Meyerkord v. Zipatoni

It's a late entry, but this opinion may be a dark horse candidate for the most bizarre case of 2008. Meyerkord was a Zipatoni employee and listed as the registrant on domain names at Zipatoni's Register.com account. Meyerkord left in 2003. In 2006, Zipatoni ran an astroturfing viral campaign for Sony to promote the Play Station Portable at the domain alliwantforxmasisapsp.com... Unfortunately for Sony -- and Meyerkord -- the campaign did not go well. more

Pattishall Client Prevails in Ground-Breaking Domain Name Class Action

My Pattishall colleagues Brett August, Bradley Cohn and Alexis Payne recently won another round in a closely watched lawsuit involving Google and others regarding allegedly unfair use of domain names. The plaintiffs had attempted to bring a class action against multiple defendants for purported trademark infringement, cybersquatting and deceptive trade practices. more

CircleID’s Top 10 Posts of 2008

Here is a list of the most viewed news and blog postings that were featured on CircleID in 2008... Best wishes for 2009 and Happy New Year from all of us here at CircleID. more

Vulcan Golf v. Google Class Certification Denied

This is a complex lawsuit by trademark owners attacking domaining and the role of the Google AdSense for Domains program in funding domaining activity. When I first blogged on the case in 2007, I wrote: "the lawsuit could effectively fall apart if the judge rejects formation of a class. Trademark class action lawsuits are rare for good reason..." Last week, the court ruled on class certification, and perhaps not surprisingly, the court denied certification -- giving Google and the other defendants an early Christmas gift. more

US Department of Commerce Doesn’t Like ICANN’s New Domain Plan

ICANN's authority to manage top level of the DNS comes from a two-year Joint Project Agreement (JPA) signed with the US Department of Commerce in 1997, since extended seven times, most recently until September 2009. Since the DoC can unilaterally cancel the JPA which would put ICANN out of the DNS business, when DoC speaks, ICANN listens. On Thursday, the US DoC sent a scathing letter to ICANN about the proposed plan to sell large numbers of new top-level domains (TLDs). There's a long list of issues... more

Re-Examining the Domain Name Registry-Registrar Split

ICANN has released to the public a report they commissioned called "Revisiting Vertical Separation of Registries and Registrars," written by CRA International. It is being referred to as the "CRAI Report." Readers in the U.S. and the U.K. may not know it, but most top-level (TLD) domains in the world don't have registrars-you go straight to the registry and buy your domains from the source. more

Judges Grants Stay in Kentucky Domain Seizure Case

A Court of Appeals in Kentucky has granted a motion to delay a forfeiture hearing that will determine the fate of 141 domain names related to online gambling and poker sites. The Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA), an Internet trade association based in Washington, D.C., asked the three-panel appeals courts to grant a stay so that the appeals court could consider iMEGA's petition to have the lower court seizure ruling overturned. more

ICANN: Termination of Registrar EstDomains to Go Ahead

The termination of ICANN-accredited registrar EstDomains is to go ahead, effective 24 November 2008. On 28 October 2008, ICANN sent a notice of termination to EstDomains, Inc. based on an Estonian Court record reflecting the conviction of EstDomains' then president, Vladimir Tsastsin, of credit card fraud, money laundering and document forgery. Pursuant to Section 5.3 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), ICANN may terminate the RAA before its expiration when, "Any officer or director of [a] Registrar is convicted of a felony or of a misdemeanor related to financial activities..." more

Domain Registrar Hide and Seek

In the past year ICANN has been putting a lot more effort into its compliance activities, which is a good thing, since the previous level was, ah, exiguous. That's the good news. The bad news is that while they're paying more attention to misbehaving registrants, the registrars, gatekeepers to the world of domains, have serious issues that ICANN has yet to address. more

In Response to CADNA: Cybersquatting is Not Criminal But a Civil Matter

The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) recently released a statement that implied that cybersquatting is a criminal activity. It said, "CADNA has been working diligently to further international and national policies that combat the practice of cybersquatting... As brands continue to learn about the prevalence and practice of online criminal activities..." While, Internet Commerce Association (ICA) vigorously opposes cybersquatting, it is important to note that cybersquatting is a civil matter, not a criminal one. There is a good reason that cybersquatting is a civil matter... more

What’s Going on at ICANN in Cairo

Following up on the big decision at the Paris ICANN meeting in June to make new Top-Level Domains available, there's lots of activity at the ICANN conference in Cairo, Egypt this week. A few of the hot topics of discussion that we are following are the applications process for new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), Registry/Registrar Cross Ownership, and restructuring of the ICANN Board. more

Domain Slammers Go Phishing

ICANN introduced a requirement for domain name registrars to send out annual notices to all their customers (registrants) to check the Whois on their domain names to ensure the information is correct. While this seemed fairly reasonable (if cumbersome), the fact is it confuses the heck out of people -- and creates a whole lot of confusion for registrants. But that was a problem we could deal with. Fast-forward to October, 2008... more