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Domain Names / Most Viewed

ICANN’s Uniform Rapid Suspension: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

With so many new gTLDs moving into their respective general availability periods, and incidents of cybersquatting beginning to appear, many companies are now looking towards the URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension) as a possible solution for quickly remediating abuse. As a reminder, domains that are the subject of a successful URS ruling are suspended for the remainder of the registration term, or can be renewed for an additional year at the current registrar. more

NIS 2.0 and Its Impact on the Domain Name Ecosystem

I recently appeared on the 419 Consulting podcast to discuss the European Union's NIS 2.0 Directive and its impact on the domain name ecosystem. I encourage all TLD registries, domain name registration service providers, and DNS operators to listen to the recording of that session which Andrew Campling has made available. more

June Court Decision Detrimental to Domaining Practices

In a June court ruling, domainer Navigation Catalyst and registrar Basic Fusion lost a cybersquatting lawsuit to Verizon... This is an extremely interesting and potentially precedent-setting case regarding domaining and domain name tasting. The court condemns both practices, leading to a preliminary injunction against the domainer and its registrar based on the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). As far as I can recall, this is the first time that a domainer has lost an ACPA lawsuit in court, and it provides an important data point confirming that domaining can be cybersquatting (a previously unresolved issue)... more

Super Bust: Due Process and Domain Name Seizure

With the same made-for PR timing that prompted a previous seizure of domain names just before shopping's "Cyber Monday," Immigration and Customs Enforcement struck again, this time days before the Super Bowl, against "10 websites that illegally streamed live sporting telecasts and pay-per-view events over the Internet." ICE executed seizure warrants against the 10 by demanding that registries redirect nameserver requests for the domains to 74.81.170.110, where a colorful "This domain name has been seized by ICE" graphic is displayed. more

UDRP Dilemma In Proving Bad-Faith Domain Registrations - Part II

In the second part of this 3-part series article, the issue of UDRP in proving bad-faith domain registrations is examined with respect to the trademark's characteristics. The first part of this article can be found here. In assessing whether there is a passive holding of a domain name, panels look carefully into the trademark's characteristics in question, namely what is the degree of reputation and distinctiveness of the trademark in question. more

ICANN Violating Free Enterprise?

Message to ICANN: Let those who want to create a TLD, simply register it with ICANN. If the TLD is not already taken, if they have the technical capability to mange the TLD, and they have the desire to market domain names on that TLD, then let them do so. ...Do you present a businesss plan to the city you live in before they allow you a business license? Does the city ask you to prove you are financially stable before issuing you a business license? If you apply for a business license to open a clothing store, does the city ask how you will run your clothing store or if you have the necessary expertise to run a clothing store? Does the city think you will hurt them economically if your clothing store goes out of business? No, it's none of their business... more

Exploring the Impact of WHOIS Data Redaction on Unsolicited Emails

In the digital age, personal data protection has become paramount, with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) shaping global practices. One area significantly affected is the public availability of WHOIS data, a critical resource in the domain name system. WHOIS traditionally provided detailed contact information for domain registrants, but privacy measures have redacted much of this data in recent years. more

Domain Name Theft Part II: Did ICANN Leave Foxes Guarding the Chicken COOP?

When it comes to stealing domain names, I suspect that there are two reasons why so many web bandits appear to be immune from ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers uses the acronym ICANN): the first reason I discussed in my last column on domain name theft (where I described a substantive void in domain name "regulation" as a primary factor for the increasing incidence of domain name theft), the second reason, which is the focus of this column, is the procedural anomaly that currently infuses ICANN's uniform dispute resolution process (UDRP) by providing no administrative forum for domain name registrants who become victims of domain name theft carried out by ICANN's registrars. more

Why I Support Canadian Presence Requirements for .CA Domain Names

It nearly goes without saying that if ".CA" means and should continue to mean, "Canada", the registration of a .CA domain name ought to involve some tie to Canada. As Canadian Internet Registration Authority ("CIRA") CEO, Byron Holland, aptly put it, "The fundamental requirement of having a Canadian presence in order to get a dot-ca domain name make sense...because it is a country code and there is an assumption that there is some "Canadian-ness". And that is why, in a nutshell, I support a Canadian 'presence requirement' for the registration of .CA domain names. Nevertheless, the question of what constitutes an appropriate 'presence requirement' is an interesting issue... more

Wall Street and Virtual Space Data: Internet Domain Name Index (IDNX) Listed on Bloomberg, Reuters

The financial industry is all about pinstripe suits, excessive Excel sheets and boring data. Or is it? Financial markets are more colorful than their reputation: take a look at Bloomberg's or Reuters' sites, and you'll see that pork belly is as much an object of investment speculation as coffee, electricity, bananas, hides, or fishmeal. Recently, the universe of data available to financial analysts and investment bankers grew further, with the addition of the Internet Domain Name Index (IDNX) to leading financial data distributors Bloomberg (ticker symbol: IDNX <Index>) and Reuters (ticker symbol: .IDNX). more

Spamming the News Cycle: Spamhaus Non-Story Goes Viral

Google News now shows more than 300 stories about Spamhaus, most about a proposed court order following a district court default judgment. To me, the most interesting is the meta-story -- why the non-event of a proposed order has the blogs scrambling with claims of constitutional crisis and even the notoriously close-lipped ICANN issuing an announcement "in response to community interest expressed on this topic." more

Domain Ads Generating Twice the Conversion Rate of Search Ads

A case study by Efficient Frontier mentions how using the Google Adsense for Domains network doubled the conversion ratio of search ads for their clients. According to their website, "Efficient Frontier manages more than $400 million in annual PPC spend under management, counts 80 of the top 500 search advertisers as clients and manages over 30 million keywords"... "When we analyzed the results, we were shocked. We didn't expect to see that domain park sites can bring in the quality of traffic necessary..." more

What Is the Domain Name Expiry Cycle and Why Should You Know About It?

Domain names are registered by the thousands every day. In July 2021, 236,336 domains were newly registered daily on average across all top-level domains (TLDs). Tens of thousands were also newly expired. Other months could be just as busy. "Newly registered" and "newly expired." Those are two terms I often get questions about. Newly registered domains are domains that someone just reserved, typically through a registrar or web hosting company. Newly expired domains, meanwhile, are those domains that someone had reserved but decided to let go for one reason or another. more

IDN Introduction Biggest Technical Change to Internet in Its 40-Year History, Says ICANN Chairman

The Internet is on the verge of undergoing one of its most significant changes in its 40-year history. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is finalizing plans to introduce non-Latin characters such as Arabic, Korean, Greek, Hindi, Japanese and Cyrillic. Non-Latin domain names -- commonly referred to as Internationalized Domain Names or IDNs -- could be up and running as early as middle of next year according to ICANN. Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the ICANN board, told reporters: "This is the biggest change technically to the Internet since it was invented 40 years ago... [a] fantastically complicated technical feature." more

A Day Which Will Live in Infamy: ICANN Board Approves VeriSign Settlement

ICANN's Board voted to accept the latest settlement proposal by a vote of 9 to 5: "Today, ICANN's Board of Directors approved, by a majority vote, a set of agreements settling a long time dispute between ICANN and VeriSign, the registry operator for the .COM registry. These settlement documents include a new registry agreement relating to the operation of the .COM registry..." more