Domain Names

New Zealand’s Top-Level Domain Manager Seeking New Registry Service Provider for .nz

The manager for .nz announced today that they have launched a registry replacement process and are calling for expressions of interest from potential service providers by November 29th. more

Las Vegas City Council to Debate the Support of .vegas Domain

Joe Schoenmann of the Las Vegas Sun reports: "The Las Vegas City Council will debate today whether to strike a deal with an Internet entrepreneur who seeks to use the Internet suffix .vegas -- over the objections of Clark County officials and one local company who say the city is jumping the gun and in the process likely shortchanging Las Vegas and county taxpayers. The council will consider endorsing a proposal by Dot Vegas Inc., to create the top-level Internet domain ".vegas" -- a new suffix that could be used in addition to the familiar .com, .net, .gov or .org suffixes that end most Web addresses." more

Balancing Rights: Mark Owners, Emergent Businesses, and Investors

Is there any act more primary than naming? It comes before all else and makes possible what follows. For the most part, names are drawn from cultural assets: collections of words, geographic locations, family names, etc. They can be valuable, which is why they are guarded, protected, and hoarded. The balancing of rights among those competing for names is a deliberate feature of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). more

Asserting but Not Proving Cybersquatting Under the UDRP

Having trademarks (registered or unregistered) is the prerequisite for maintaining a UDRP, but having one is not conclusive of either Respondent’s lack of rights or legitimate interests or that it registered and is using the domain name in bad faith. The cautionary tale in many of these cases, especially for the Complainant who has the burden of proof, is that it has to satisfy each of the elements in the three subsections... more

No Time Bar, No Laches under the UDRP

Two Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) decisions posted this month involved domain names registered 20 and 21 years ago, David Duchovny v. Alberta Hot Rods c/o Jeff Burgar, 21 years and Commonwealth Bank of Australia v. Registration Private, Domains By Proxy, 20 years. Complainants prevailed in both cases. The domain names stand out as being the oldest to have been found registered in bad faith, and transferred. more

Amid Shutdown, Gab.com Claims Free Speech Infringement While Many Others View Them as Hate Site

The controversial site gab.com has been shut down by GoDaddy and given 2 days to move the domain elsewhere. The deadline expires at midnight tonight Irish time. In recent days the site has seen itself become increasingly disconnected as various service providers and online platforms including PayPal have shut the door to them. At present the site is displaying this notice... more

What Modern Businesses Need to Know Regarding Geo Names and Jurisdiction in Domain Name Disputes

The Internet has provided an unprecedented number of opportunities while raising far-reaching legal issues. It has created a complex matrix of national laws, global circumstances and new definitions -- or, at least, definitions in progress. The turmoil over Brexit and the international implications of the EU General Data Protection Regulation are signs of the times; as are issues surrounding domain names. more

The Three-Character Question at the Heart of Single-Character .COMs: W-H-Y?

In the matter relating to O.COM, I've focused on the fact that VeriSign has -- in correspondence to the organization that is counter-party to its .COM and transliterated .COM IDN Registry Agreements, in earnings calls with its investors and financial analysts, and in policy published on its website for every innocent and unsuspecting Tom, Dick, and Harry in the world to be duped by -- stated an unequivocal and unwavering commitment . more

Vulnerabilities of Weak Marks and Uncurated Websites

Dictionary words, alone, combined as phrases, modified by other parts of speech, and single letters that function as marks also retain in parallel their common associations that others may use without offending third-party rights. As a rule of thumb, generic terms are not registrable as marks until they perceivably cross a threshold to suggestive and higher classifications. more

The Ageless Warning of Icarus

It wasn't that long ago that, during a visit home, my brother asked me, "Why are you so stuck on this Internet thing?" His direct question caused me to realize that I had never actually stopped and considered why I was investing so much time – and in such a highly visible manner – into Internet governance when I wasn't being compensated for doing so and, in fact, was – not putting too fine of a point on it – flat broke. more

ICANN Must Simultaneously Reveal TLD and Second-Level Registration Rules

I outline two possible drawbacks with the idea of first revealing rules for the new proposed Top-Level Domains (TLDs) and then for second-level registrations. I propose a lottery process to initially allocate second-level domain names. A number of people have voiced concerns about the idea of automatically granting the winner of the TLD a monopoly power over second-level domain registrations. We should also be worried about the financial interest ICANN has in not providing the rules for the two-level registrations simultaneously. more

Global Domain Name Registrations Reach 276 Million, Increase of Over 19M From Last Year

Five million domain names were added to the Internet in the first quarter of 2014, bringing the total number of registered domain names to 276 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of March 31, 2014, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from Verisign. more

Geeks All Trust Each Other But Not in China

Brian Krebs has a post up the other day on his blog indicating that the amount of spam ending in .cn has declined dramatically due to steps taken by the Chinese government making it more difficult to get a domain ending in .cn... A cursory glance seems to confirm that the amount of spam from .cn as opposed to .ru has switched places. Indeed, if the CNNIC requires people to start writing in application forms, with a business license and identity card, that is seriously going to slow down the rate at which spammers can sign up and register new domains. more

Nominet/SOCA Cyber Crime Proposal: Allow Cross Border Reactions

Reading the policy proposal of Nominet, I get the feeling that something is overseen here. Putting all the jurisdictional hassle aside for a moment, cyber crime is international, cross-border. So what happens if a UK domain is used for criminal activity outside the UK only? more

Does Renewing a Domain Name Count as “Registering” a Domain Name Under the ACPA?

The U.S. Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act ("ACPA") is a federal law -- part of the Lanham Act that deals with trademarks and unfair competition. It says that a person can be liable if he or she registers a domain name that contains another's distinctive trademark with a bad faith intent to profit from that mark. One issue that has arisen over the years is whether registration that can give rise to liability means only the first time the domain name is registered, or whether it applies to the re-registration... more