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Yesterday's Wikipedia outage, which resulted from invalid DNS zone information, provides some good reminders about the best and worst attributes of active DNS management. The best part of the DNS is that it provides knowledgeable operators with a great tool to use to manage traffic around trouble spots on a network. In this case, Wikipedia was attempting to route around its European data center because... more
The ordinary run of cybersquatting cases is neither "exceedingly close nor difficult." Quote from Harvest Dispensaries, Cultivations & Production Facilities, LLC v. Rebecca Nickerson / Rock City Harvest, FA2004001892080 (Forum June 26, 2020) which is one of those rare cases in which the case was exceedingly close and difficult. For 90% of the docket (the percentage has been creeping up since 2016), even when Respondent appears (which it mostly does not), there is neither a defense nor merit to Respondent's contentions. more
Veteran domain investor Abner Duarte from PremiumDomains.com.br is featuring a new event called Domaining Americas, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in October 2018. He is puting together a major domain conference for South America. The debut edition of Domaining Americas will be held at the five-star Grand Hyatt Rio De Janiero on Saturday and Sunday, October 6-7, 2018. more
Day one of the Digital Marketing and gTLD Strategy congress is happening in London today. As we inch ever closer to new gTLDs actually launching on the Internet, business models and marketing approaches are becoming clearer and better defined. This was evident in today's presentations and workshops, with applicants and current TLD operators alike showing much greater depth of thought into how these namespaces might actually be of use to Internet users. more
Last week I wrote about accounting, reporting and promotions. This week, I want to focus on the financial department's role in launching services, renewals and foreign exchange risk management. ... In most businesses, the finance team usually takes a back seat during launch of services as business activity slowly increases in the months that follow. However, in the domain industry, with up to 30 percent of lifetime sales earned in the first three months of launch, it's essential that finance takes a hands-on role from the start. 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
Yes, that is a title of a real, current legal case and controversy. And, no, the links in this post are not spam... mostly gambling news sites seem to be reporting on this. The Governor of Kentucky, through his Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, has moved in court to have 141 gambling-related domain names transferred to the Kentucky state government, partially because other legal gambling operations in Kentucky, like horseracing, lose revenue to online gaming. Yes, you read that right: by allegedly violating KY law, the state can move to have property used in these unlawful acts transferred to the state. In this case, the "property" in question is the domain names themselves. This case is definitely novel in the realm of cyberlaw, but also is a bit controversial for how it originally proceeded... more
2015 was a challenging yet exciting year for brand owners. While new gTLDs continue to consume much of the news in the domain industry, there were other notable highlights. Global domain registrations reached nearly 300 million; ICANN had several initiatives in motion that were of particular concern to brand owners; and companies continued to face threats to their brand reputation, revenue and customer trust. Here's my top 5 domain highlights from 2015. 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
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
The year 2017 turned out to be a record-setting year for domain name disputes, in two ways: The number of complaints filed as well as the total number of domain names in those complaints. Specifically: The number of cases at WIPO crept up to 3,073 from 3,036 in 2016 (the previous record), a modest gain of just over 1 percent. Those cases included 6,370 domain names, up from 5,354 in 2016 (also a record-setting year), a spike of nearly 19 percent. more
ICANN's plan to increase competition and bring innovation in the domain space by launching top-level domains (TLD) seems to be in full swing following the resolutions at the last ICANN Board retreat in Norway. However one area that seems unclear is who will take responsibility in determining the TLD winners. After years of continuous additions, retractions and amendments, the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG) is not yet finalized. However, the word in the ICANN community is that the TLD program launch will be in effect immediately after the ICANN San Francisco meeting held in March 2011. more
The Trademark Act of 1946 defines trademarks and service marks to include "any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof." Marks composed of lexical and numeric elements (as opposed to images) also can be described as strings of characters. Before the Internet there was no commercial use of such strings other than as marks, but the functionality of the Internet depends on strings of lexical and numeric characters in the form of domain names that serve as electronic addresses. more
A web domain name is the foundational piece of internet property allowing its owner (registrant) to construct and host an associated website. On a domain, the owner is also able to construct whatever subdomains they wish -- a process that is technically achieved via the configuration of records on the authoritative domain name system (DNS) server. more
On December 9, 2009, the ICANN Board announced its intention to vote during its upcoming February 4, 2010 meeting to approve a plan by which ICANN would solicit "Expressions of Interest" (EOI) from prospective applicants for new Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) such as .BLOG. But given a number of significant governance and public policy concerns raised by the current EOI proposal, the ICANN Board should take no action on it before the next in-person ICANN regional meeting--in Nairobi, March 3-7, 2010. more
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