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Throughout my childhood, I was a practicing member of the Religious Society of Friends (the 'Quakers'). Now, for the first time, I am participating in an ICANN meeting (specifically, the 34th in Mexico City). While at first blush these to two experiences seem to have little in common, it is actually striking how much they are alike... more
Today, four years after the launch of the Catalan linguistic and cultural registry, Google reports that there are 90 million pages of Catalan content under the some 36 thousand .CAT domains. As imperfect as Google's tools are as a metric, the correct observation is that the use of .CAT by Catalans vastly exceeds the expectations of its initial proponents... more
The new gTLD program continues to throw up last-minute debates on what is acceptable as a TLDs and what is not. The latest such verbal joust centers around closed generics. These are generic terms being applied for by applicants whom, should they be successful, will not open the TLD up to everyone on an equal access basis. As an example, think .book being run by Amazon and only available to Amazon customers. more
In May of this year, I questioned whether the continued legal maneuvering of a company called Altanovo Domains Ltd. (Altanovo) could further delay the launch of .web. After reading its second Independent Review Process (IRP) complaint, and ICANN's response, it seems that the unfortunate answer is a resounding "yes," or at least that is Altanovo's intent. more
One of the topics that keeps coming up in ICANN policy discussions and as part of the new TLD application process is "transparency". ICANN, and the internet community in general, has had plenty of issues in the past with "bad actors" who have caused a lot of issues for everyone (think of many of the registrars who have lost accreditation in the last couple of years for example). On more than one conference call or policy discussion the issue of a company or a person's track record has come up. 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
With all the buzz surrounding new Top-Level Domain (nTLDs) at the last ICANN meeting in Mexico, I am sure many of you have already encountered or read information regarding the latest applications. For those who haven't been staying abreast of the latest, here is a quick review... There are two different general types of TLDs -- gTLDs and ccTLDs. ICANN is now opening the possibility of adding further TLD extensions, which can virtually be anything... more
EuroDNS, the Luxembourg registrar, used its well attended New Year party last Wednesday to invite the Minister of Telecoms, Jean-louis Schiltz to talk about a law voted at the end of December 2007. According to the Finance and Budget Commission Report on Draft Law 5801, Revenues generated from use of, or license to use, a Domain Name are exempted from Luxembourg corporate taxes up to 80%. more
If web address registrations are any indication (and they may not be), the hundreds of new Internet domains (where .guru competes with .com and .berlin intrudes on .de) are seeing slow, but steady success. By one count, there are about 2 million new online addresses. Slow and steady may wind up being the best business model, but if the effect of the top level domains is to be felt in business, culturally and socially, there needs to be more done than create the opportunity to register a new name... more
The .web Independent Review Process (IRP) Panel issued a Final Decision six months ago, in May 2021. Immediately thereafter, the claimant, Afilias Domains No. 3 Limited (now a shell entity known as AltaNovo Domains Limited), filed an application seeking reconsideration of the Final Decision under Rule 33 of the arbitration rules. Rule 33 allows for the clarification of an ambiguous ruling and allows the Panel the opportunity to supplement its decision if it inadvertently failed to consider a claim or defense, but specifically does not permit wholesale reconsideration of a final decision. more
Professor Denis Carlton was asked by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to submit a report on (or justify!) the impact of new top-level domains (TLDs) on industry competition. After he did so, Dr. Michael Kende posted an elaborate comment on the report on behalf of AT&T, to which Professor Carlton published a rebuttal. This essay outlines some of the errors in Professor Carlton's rebuttal and Dr. Kende's comments. more
As I noted on May 26, the final decision issued on May 20 in the Independent Review Process (IRP) brought by Afilias against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rejected Afilias’ petition to nullify the results of the public auction for .WEB, and it further rejected Afilias’ demand to have it be awarded .WEB (at a price substantially lower than the winning bid). Instead, as we urged, the IRP Panel determined that the ICANN Board should move forward with reviewing the objections made about .WEB, and to make a decision on delegation thereafter. more
A secret weapon is falling into dangerous hands. Organized cybercriminals are building up portfolios of cybersquatting domain names. A smart operator with such a portfolio can go beyond simple stealing and competing full out for traffic and revenues. Rightful brand owners, feeling the squeeze, will find out too late that the bandits have the money to fight legal action. The time to act is now, before pieces of the playing field have been bought up by the enemy. more
I've just arrived in Singapore, where ICANN's board will almost surely vote to launch an unprecedented expansion plan for generic top-level domains (gTLDs). As the new gTLDs start lighting-up over the next two years, we'll look back on this week as the "end of the beginning" since it ended several years of planning for the actual expansion. After the vote the real work begins: evaluating applications, implementing new mechanisms, and contract compliance on a scale far greater than ICANN has ever seen. more
The Shimkus Amendment to the $601 billion National Defense Authorization Act (HR 4435) passed the House of Representatives on May 22nd by a mostly partisan vote of 245–177. While all 228 Republicans present and voting supported the amendment only 17 Democrats voted "aye", with 177 in opposition. Final passage on the entire bill was a bipartisan vote of 325–98. The Senate has not yet passed its version of a FY 2015 Pentagon funding bill, and once it does all the differences between the two versions must be reconciled before it can be sent to President Obama for his signature. more
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