Domain Names

Japanese ISP Buys Z.com Domain For Close to $7 Million

One of Japan's leading Internet services providers and domain registrar, GMO Internet, Inc., today announced the acquisition of the single-character domain name, Z.com for JPY ?800 million (close to USD $7 million). According to the company, the acquisition is part of a plan to unify its global strategy under the brand name, Z.com and building GMO's "core values and objectives into the Z.com brand" more

ICANN to IP Experts: Come Back With a Solution for Internet Trademark Protection

Trademark issues are emerging with the upcoming introduction of new generic top-level domains on the internet, and the board members of the body introducing the names has passed the ball back to intellectual property experts to find answers. The Intellectual Property Constituency of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been asked to work out a viable solution "no later than 24 May 2009." Trademark issues have been defined as one of four overarching issues still to be solved before ICANN can finalise the application procedure for the next hundreds or thousands of top-level domains from .eco to .music. more

DOTZON Study: Digital Company Brands 2022

DOTZON presents the fifth edition of the Digital Company Brands study. After having introduced the study in 2018, DOTZON continued to expand and enhance the underlying data to display how companies successfully use their Digital Company Brands. The Digital Company Brand is the digital dimension of a company brand and mirrors the "digitalness "of a company. Purely digital company brands developed for the first time in the 1990s with the emergence of Internet business models.  more

Top 10 Most Successful Digital City Brands 2019

Dotzon presents the results of their "Digital City Brands 2019" study. In the third edition of "Digital City Brands" after 2017 and 2018, Dotzon analyzed which factors determine the successful use of Digital City Brands. The Digital City Brand is the digital dimension of the City Brand and mirrors the "Digitalness" of a city. European capitals like Berlin, Paris and London were among the first to have their own Digital City Brands. more

Attacking DNS Abuse: The Next Amendments Needed

Abusive behavior that leverages the domain name system (DNS) continues to be a problem, with a reach that has been widely and credibly documented. There is little doubt that bad actors continue to use the DNS for nefarious and costly purposes. While the amendments made in 2024 to ICANN's Registry Agreement (RA) and Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) were a step in the right direction, more advanced tools are needed to bring abuse rates down. more

U.S. National Cybersecurity Strategy and Its Impact on Domain Security

Last month, the U.S. National Cybersecurity Strategy was launched, providing a new roadmap for stronger collaboration between those operating within the digital ecosystem. The strategy calls on software makers and American industry to take far greater responsibility to assure that their systems cannot be hacked while accelerating efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Defense Department to disrupt the activities of hackers and ransomware groups around the world. more

Total Domain Names Pass 252 Million Worldwide

More than six million domain names were registered in the fourth quarter of 2012, bringing the total number to more than 252 million domain names worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of Dec. 31, 2012, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief from Verisign. The increase of 6.1 million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 2.5 percent over the third quarter of 2012, and marks the eighth straight quarter with greater than 2 percent growth. Worldwide registrations have grown by 26.6 million, or 11.8 percent, year over year. more

India - The Internet’s Next Billion

Everyone seems to be talking about how the big boom is set to happen in India for domain names, and there are significant factors to ensure that this growth happens. The internet spends and E-commerce usage is fast becoming the face of modern India, a part of everyday lifestyle. Although awareness is still the biggest barrier domain name Registrars face with consumers, there are signs of significant improvement in trust, usability and the adoption of web services. more

Will Legacy TLDs Have a Long Legacy?

We all live in a world where the rapid pace of innovation can be both exciting and challenging. From keeping up with the latest consumer technologies, such as new mobile apps, social media platforms, and digital assistants like Alexa to business-driven innovations like Things (IoT) to Artificial Intelligence, the one certain thing we all face is change. In the Top-Level Domain (TLD) arena, can the same be said about legacy TLDs? more

When to Consider ‘Both Sides of the Dot’ in a Domain Name Dispute

In the case, filed by Michelin, the panel found the domain name 'tyre.plus' confusingly similar to the trademark TYREPLUS. Specifically, the panel wrote: "If one ignores the 'dot' between the Second-Level Domain ('tyre') and the Top-Level Domain ('plus'), the mark and the Domain Name are identical..." It's an issue that's arising with increasing frequency -- just as I had predicted. more

Co-Operation to Make the Domain Business More Secure

In order to provide more security for the Domain Name System (DNS), a group of large domain-name registries and registrars has got together with IT security providers and government agencies to launch a new workgroup: the "Registry Internet Safety Group" (RISG). The announcement was made by the Public Internet Registry, which operates the .org domain, and its backend provider Afilias. more

Explaining the Legal Enforceability of the PIC Proposed by Ethos for .ORG

Ethos Capital has recently announced that it has voluntarily proposed to add an amendment to Public Interest Registry's (PIR) .ORG Registry Agreement with ICANN in the form of a Public Interest Commitment, also known as a "PIC." In the press release Ethos indicated that the PIC would become "legally binding" and "enforceable" both by ICANN and by members of the community. I anticipate that some would ask a number of logical questions: How would that work in practice? more

New CSC Report Emphasizes Need for Holistic Domain Security Amid Surge in Popularity for AI

It seems that every day, a new artificial intelligence (AI) capability emerges, posing exciting possibilities for technological advancements -- but also great potential to equal or greater risks. Cybercriminals have taken notice of this rapid surge in the popularity of AI technologies and are attempting to take advantage. more

New Data on Domain Name Contact Availability and Privacy

Nearly 90% of the internet's generic top-level (gTLD) domain names do not have identifying contact information in the Registration Data Directory Services (RDDS) system, according to a report by Interisle Consulting Group. A key finding of the report is the rapid growth of registrar-provided proxy service offerings and the inclusion of these services for both new and existing registrations. more

Domain Name Security Gains Prominence in German-Speaking World

The 2010 Domain Pulse, hosted by SWITCH (the .CH registry) was held in the snowy Swiss city of Luzern. Domain Name Security (DNS) was of particular importance in this year's meeting with DNSSEC being implemented in the root zone in 2010 by ICANN, and by many registries in the next few years. ICANN plan to have all root servers signed with DNSSEC by mid-2010 Kim Davies, Manager, Root Zone Services at ICANN told the meeting, starting with the L root server, then A root server with the last being the J root server as all are gradually signed. more