Domain Names |
Sponsored by |
|
Whenever you register a domain name, your contact details are published in a publicly visible database called "Whois", where your contact details are instantly harvested by spambots and marketers who proceed to email and postal mail you marketing offers, deceptive "domain slamming" attempts, ads for dubious products, and perhaps even telemarketing calls. Nobody likes that, so over the years people started resorting to various tactics to protect themselves from the deluge of crap that inevitably comes with simply registering a domain name... more
A triumph by the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) over tactics and legislation detrimental to domain name owners might end up being a case of winner's curse, a triumph bought at the expense of the industry. In picking this one battle to win, the association ignores a broader war, the range of issues our industry needs to address. more
As ICANN introduces new generic top level domains (gTLDs) and separates itself from US oversight, it has the opportunity to distance itself from the taint of cybersquatting, brand abuse, and criminal activity involving domains... To underscore the scope of the issue, consider this research on just 30 top Interbrand-ranked global brands. The most recent MarkMonitor Brandjacking Index found cybersquatting incidents increased over 40% in the last year for the brands that were studied; these leading brands suffered as many as 15,000 incidents per brand... more
I've always been a fan of co-ops. In New York, we shop at greenstar.coop and my wife banks at alternatives.coop, in the UK we shop at co-operative.coop. So when the .COOP domain opened, I wondered if I could get my own clever domain name, but found that chicken.coop was taken by a small producer co-op in the southern U.S. Drat. more
ICANN has sent EstDomains a termination notice: "BBe advised that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) for EstDomains, Inc. (customer No. 919, IANA No. 943) is terminated..." more
Criminals are now looking to use established domain names, via phishing targeted at domain registrars. This is possibly related to ICANN finally moving to stop the black hat registrars of the world. According to the first report on the matter sent yesterday to Registrar Operations (reg-ops) mailing list, the attacks seem to be run by gang of child pornography spammers. 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
According to the draft of new Generic Top-level Domains (gTLD) contracts for Section 7.3, "Price controls have been removed for 2008 in favor of the transparent pricing model outlined above." Section 3.2.b) of the .com registry agreement states: "ICANN shall not apply standards, policies, procedures or practices arbitrarily, unjustifiably, or inequitably and shall not single out Registry Operator for disparate treatment unless justified by substantial and reasonable cause." In my opinion, VeriSign (and other existing gTLD operators) are almost being invited to ask for their contracts to be amended... more
Regular readers of this site would be familiar with the ongoing legal battles involving the practice of typosquatting; the registration of misspelled domain names of well know brands with the intention of making a profit. Taking advantage of the fact that millions of online users mistype addresses of websites they intend to visit, typosquatters register common misspelled versions of popular sites and make money by displaying ads. Google's AdSense for Domains (AFD) program, often used for displaying such ads, has been particularly targeted by trademark owners which according to McAfee's SiteAdvisor, serves ads on more than 80% of typosquatting sites recently uncovered. more
This week ICANN held a public consultation in Washington, D.C., where ICANN's President's Strategy Committee (PSC) solicited remarks from a packed audience of intellectual property (IP) lawyers, domain name registrars and other Internet stakeholders on how the organization can improve institutional confidence. No surprise, ICANN's decision to add new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to the Internet was on many participants' minds. more
If you have rules and regulations but don't enforce them then there's little point in having any rules or regulations in the first place. One of the criticisms that is often leveled at ICANN is with regard to compliance issues. There are a number of areas where ICANN accredited registrars may be flounting the rules, but if nobody does anything about it then none of the registrars will have any incentive to actually comply. more
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, was officially incorporated on 30 September 1998 as a nonprofit public benefit corporation. Headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California, United States, ICANN was assigned to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks originally performed directly on behalf of the U.S. government by other organizations, such as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Back in 1998, there was only one domain name registrar; now there are over 900 ICANN-accredited registrars in the world and over 168 million domain names registered. more
Ever sat at one of the VeriSign "State of the domain" meetings at any of the ICANN meetings? Or read their reports about countries with the greatest opportunity in domains? Almost without question you will learn that Japan is earmarked as the country with the greatest opportunity for growth in the domain market. They take into consideration important factors such as GDP of a country, internet population, and current domain registration levels... more
Byte Level Research has released a new version of its world map illustrating country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) in use by Google for its local search engines. Using information available on Google's Language Tools page, the new map shows over 160 ccTLDs that Google has currently in use including Andorra, Kenya, Ukraine, and Ghana. Why pick Google? John Yunker president of Byte Level Research says that he knows of no other company that hosts localized websites across so many different ccTLDs. Countries the Google currently serves even include Cuba — "I doubt many Americans are aware of that."... more
I first outline a brief history of free file-sharing technology, then draw some general and domain name lessons, then outline the what, how, and why that make your activism effective and necessary... The domain name industry is decentralized and atomic in that anyone from anywhere in the world can register a domain name, keep the ownershp name and address private, and host it from a country where the U.S. and European legal systems don't apply. Thus, legal action will only drive domain owners further underground. more
A World-Renowned Source for Internet Developments. Serving Since 2002.