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Minds + Machines reports: "A quantitative analysis of UDRP data for all open generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) concludes that the introduction of new gTLDs will result in approximately 316 new cases of cybersquatting, and that the resultant cost to trademark holders, overall, will be $870,000 per year -- less than less than $.10 for each trademark registered worldwide, or about $.44 per trademark registered in the United States. The data show that cybersquatting correlates to registration volume across all open gTLDs, not to the number of gTLDs, but is more prevalent in .com." more
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
For the upcoming 25th anniversary of .com Top-Level Domain, VeriSign, the registry operator of the domain will launch a year-long initiative to celebrate the event. From the announcement: "In March 1985, the first .com domain was registered, igniting the birth of the consumer Internet that, 25 years later, continues to transform communications, commerce and our society as a whole. Beginning in March 2010, VeriSign, the long-time operator of the .com domain, will lead an industry-wide initiative to recognize the innovators and leaders that have shaped the first 25 years of .com and in doing so transformed our economy and society. The celebration of "25 Years of .com" will kick off with a policy-focused event in Washington, DC on March 16." more
Royal Pingdom has put together a list of top ten places with designated country code Top-Level Domains that are barely inhabited. The list starts off with '.hm' for Heard and McDonald Islands, an Australlian territory, with zero population. Others include '.pn' for Pitcairn Islands (Population: 50), '.tf' for French Southern and Antarctic Lands (Population: 140), '.cc' for Cocos (Keeling) Islands (Population: 596) and '.va' for the Vatican City (Population: 826). more
Internet 2009 in numbers as reported by Royal Pingdom: In 2009 there were 90 trillion emails sent; 100 million new email users; 24 percent increase in spam; 47 million new websites; 8 percent increase in domain names with the total reaching 187 million; 18 percent increase in overall Internet users with the worldwide total reaching 1.73 billion; and new zombie computers created reach 148,000 per day. more
Garth Bruen reports on a paper published by the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics of Boston University School of Law authored by Bryan A. Liang and Tim Mackey titled, "Searching for Safety: Addressing Search Engine, Website, and Provider Accountability for Illicit Online Drug Sales". From the paper: "Online sales of pharmaceuticals are a rapidly growing phenomenon. Yet despite the dangers of purchasing drugs over the Internet, sales continue to escalate. These dangers include patient harm from fake or tainted drugs, lack of clinical oversight, and financial loss. Patients, and in particular vulnerable groups such as seniors and minorities, purchase drugs online either naïvely or because they lack the ability to access medications from other sources due to price considerations. Unfortunately, high risk online drug sources dominate the Internet, and virtually no accountability exists to ensure safety of purchased products." more
Clifford J. Levy of the New York Times reports: "[Russian] computer users are worried that Cyrillic domains will give rise to a hermetic Russian Web, a sort of cyberghetto, and that the push for Cyrillic amounts to a plot by the security services to restrict access to the Internet. Russian companies are also resisting Cyrillic Web addresses, complaining about costs and threats to online security." more
VeriSign today announced that effective July 1, 2010 there will be an increase in registry domain name fees for .com and .net, per its agreements with ICANN. According the press release, the registry fee for .com domain names will increase from $6.86 to $7.34 and the registry fee for .net domain names will increase, from $4.23 to $4.65. more
ICANN and the Swiss-based Universal Postal Union (UPU) have signed an agreement giving the UPU managing authority over .post as a top-level domain (TLD). At the highest conceptual level, the agreement represents linking the TLD with the real-world physical networks of the postal system, with 600,000 global physical offices and proximity to most humans. To enable its customers to take advantage of the services the UPU envisions for .post, the UPU is already installing the first computers in many villages in their local post offices to provide those services, says the announcement. more
Managing Intellectual Property, in association with Finnegan, has released an article based on a recently hosted discussion regarding ICANN's approved plans to open the domain name system to an unlimited number of generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and how the Implementation Recommendation Team's (IRT) recommendation will affect brand owners. Topics included the main concerns with new gTLDs from a brand owner's perspective, the role of IRT, enforcement issues, and navigating the new domain name space. Finnegan partners David Kelly and Jonathan Gelchinsky participated with J Scott Evans of Yahoo! Inc., Elisabeth Roth Escobar of Marriott International, Inc., Erik Wilbers of WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, and Kurt Pritz of ICANN for the roundtable. more
A class action lawsuit was filed today in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court on behalf of lead Plaintiff Carlos A. Cueto and others who participated in online auctions for domain names. In the lawsuit, Mr. Cueto alleges that an executive of the company conducting the auctions acted as a shill bidder to manipulate bids. The domain names were auctioned online by Oversee.Net, Inc. subsidiary SnapNames.Com, Inc. "The domain name industry is the wild west of intellectual property because it remains unregulated. The online community has been up in arms over what they feel has been an opaque system that just begs for transparency. It is impossible to know whether you are bidding against someone that isn't working or affiliated with the company conducting the auction," said attorney Santiago A. Cueto. more
According to a report released today by Nominet, UK's domain name registry, 77% of British consumers prefer to use a .uk rather than a .com when searching for information on the Internet. The report also indicates that despite the current economic climate, the global domain name industry has seen an 8% growth with 187.6 million domain names registered worldwide. "Generic top level domains (gTLDs), such as .org and .com, have grown on average by 6% whilst the country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) including .uk and .de (the German registry) fared slightly better and together generated a 10% average growth in registrations," says Nominet. more
During its board meeting today in Seoul, South Koria, the ICANN board has approved the Fast Track Process for Internationalized Domain Names which will enable Internet addresses to be completely made up of non-Latin characters -- including Top-Level Domains (TLDs). The process is set to launch next month, November 16, 2009, after which nations and territories can apply for TLDs in their national language to be approved by ICANN. more
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
The Universal Postal Union (UPU), one of the world’s oldest international organizations, has concluded negotiations with ICANN for the launch of the .POST Top-Level Domain. Paul Donohoe, e-business manager at UPU headquarters, responsible for the domain application and ICANN negotiations said: “A top-level domain for a service-oriented industry such as ours is an opportunity to develop a trusted space on the Internet for integrating physical and electronic postal services ... .POST will be a unique and focused Internet domain with the potential to connect the entire postal community and its customers. The domain will enable the UPU and the postal sector at large to work on delivering new innovative Internet-based international postal services, such as hybrid mail, e-commerce, e-identity, e-communication and e-government, and built on UPU standards.” more
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