Welcome:
Login
|
Sign Up
|
About CircleID
Follow:
|
|
|
In May of this year, I questioned whether the continued legal maneuvering of a company called Altanovo Domains Ltd. (Altanovo) could further delay the launch of .web. After reading its second Independent Review Process (IRP) complaint, and ICANN's response, it seems that the unfortunate answer is a resounding "yes," or at least that is Altanovo's intent. more
Will current failed ICANN direction on the New generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) doom its Regime to follow the fate of Mubarak, Ben Ali, and soon Kaddafi's? The whirlwinds of change we all have witnessed that started blowing in Tunisia, moved to Egypt and is now engulfing Libya, Yemen, Jordan and soon many others, have signaled a revolutionary way of thinking not just at local or regional levels but I believe on global levels too. more
Sell a trademark as a keyword for directed search or online auctions and make $billions. But use a trademark in a domain name for direct search and lose the domain, or worse. The gap between how trademark law treats the two species of search has grown wider in the wake of several landmark 2010 trademark law decisions -- and provides another sound reason why ICANN should not establish any new rights protections for new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) beyond those STI-RT compromise positions already included in the fourth version of its Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAGv4). more
This is the second part of a three-part series interview by Geert Lovink with Jeanette Hofmann, policy expert from Germany, where she talks about her experiences as a member of the ICANN's Nominating Committee and her current involvement as a civil society member of the German delegation for the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS). "So much in the current debates over global governance seems to go back to the issue what place governments and individual nation states have within global governance. What has been your ICANN experience? Ideally, what would be the place of the state? Do you believe in a federal structure? Should, for instance, bigger countries, in terms of its population, have a great say?..." more
I have been thinking a lot lately on the topic of the free flow of information on the internet -- what kinds of tools are available now and in the future for governments (especially repressive ones) to control content, isolate their people and keep any contrary viewpoints censored. I had an interesting conversation with a Practice Lead from IFTF.org. The Institute for the Future (IFTF) is a California based independent, nonprofit research group with 40 years of experience in identifying emerging trends that will transform global society... Turns out they are quite concerned about the fragmentation and control of the Internet as well. But will it be an inevitability? more
The introduction of new Internet domains to the global marketplace has the potential to dramatically grow the domain name marketplace, increasing the value of domain names, driving new demand for registry services and opening new markets for registrars and registries alike. Because VeriSign operates .com -- the legacy generic top-level domain (gTLD) -- many in the Internet community have assumed that we would oppose the introduction of new gTLDs. The truth is quite the opposite. more
Last week I asked on a post elsewhere, why we, at the MLi Group, chose to consider speakers, panelists, supporters and sponsors at our Global Summit Series (GSS) as "Thought Leaders" and "Trend Setters? Many wrote me directly offering their answers and then it dawned on me that my answer may (or may not) get appreciated by many at the ICANN community. So here is why we do. more
For several years, DNS-OARC has been collecting DNS query data "from busy and interesting DNS name servers" as part of an annual "Day-in-the-Life" (DITL) effort (an effort originated by CAIDA in 2002) that I discussed in the first blog post in this series. DNS-OARC currently offers eight such data sets, covering the queries to many but not all of the 13 DNS root servers (and some non-root data) over a two-day period or longer each year from 2006 to present. more
The National Arbitration Forum today announced that a total of 1,770 cases were filed in its domain name dispute resolution program in 2008. The National Arbitration Forum, approved by ICANN, provides domain name dispute resolution services under policies like the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Nearly all 1,770 cases filed (98%) in 2008 involved UDRP domain names, like .com and .org and the rest involved usDRP domain names with the .us extension, according to the announcement... more
Members of the Domain Justice Coalition filed a lawsuit today requesting a temporary restraining order and other relief against ICANN to block the implementation of a domain name Wait Listing Service (WLS). The WLS was proposed by VeriSign, Inc. (pdf) and approved by ICANN in federal court in Los Angeles. The suit challenges ICANN's failure to comply with its internal decision-making process requirements when it approved implementation of the WLS in the face of opposition from domain name registrars, resellers and consumers. more
Verizon filed sued against iREIT and Domain Marketplace a couple of weeks ago in a Texas court, alleging cybersquatting. David Kesmodel's blog broke the story, and I used the PACER system to obtain the court filings, which are posted here. Exhibit 5 makes fascinating reading, especially when point #43 in the main statement of claim says "Exhibit 5 details only one famous trademark for each letter of the alphabet." more
ICANN's call for Public Comment on Proposed Amendment 3 to the .com Registry Agreement yielded 9,040 public comments during the six-week comment period that ran from January 3, 2020 to February 14, 2020. The public response was amongst the most robust if not the most robust, that ICANN has ever received. To put this in context, the last several Public Comment periods received under 20 comments apiece. more
I strongly believe there is a serious "breach" in the Applicant Guidebook: I checked the scoring, I checked the possible objections, I am aware of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) early warning but I really could not find how ICANN is going to avoid Community applications to be submitted as Standard ones. The role of ICANN is to offer a solution to launching new generic Top-Level Domains, it is no party in saying whether a new gTLD is a Community or not. more
"Regime Change on the Internet? Internet Governance after WGIG" was the first public event held in the United States on July 28, 2005 to review the UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) report. Here are my notes from the event: "Markus Kummer, Executive Coordinator, UN Working Group on Internet Governance, reminded the audience that the mandate of the WGIG was specifically articulated by the first part of the WSIS - "To investigate and make proposals for action as appropriate". It was not for sweeping regime change as the conference title would suggest." more
The primary focus of this article is to illustrate that the Applicant Guidebook is not supplying sufficient protection mechanisms, and creates too high financial barrier for those who are interested in applying for multiple Top-Level Domains (TLDs) that are translations/transliterations of each other and/or of an existing generic Top-Level Domains (tt-gTLDs). more
A World-Renowned Source for Internet Developments. Serving Since 2002.