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We read and hear a lot of complaints from trademark interests about allegedly rampant cybersquatting and other forms of trademark infringement, but it's rare to see a story about reverse domain name hijacking and other abuses committed by them. That's what made it so refreshing to see an article in the Saturday, April 4th Wall Street Journal titled "The Scariest Monster of All Sues for Trademark Infringement – Fancy Audio-Cable Outfit Defends Its Brands; A Mini Golf Course Fights Back". more
Where does this idea that the employees of all non-profit organizations alike shall lead a public-transportation lifestyle come from? ICANN's monetary resources do not come from war widows and pensioners, for ICANN to feel guilty about every penny that it spends on administration. Nor does its resources, wherever they come from, are any that are earmarked to be spent on famine relief or on basic health care for the most unfortunate. more
The year 2022 was a turning point. We started emerging from the covid emergency and could return to traveling and meeting our peers at industry events worldwide. But it was also a year of taking stock, with numbers returning to pre-covid levels. After two years of sky-high domain registrations, figures returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2022. The domain sector shows a good mix of strength and adaptability to change compared to other industries. more
The Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA) recently commented on the Competition, Consumer Trust and Consumer Choice Review Team (CCTRT) Draft Report of Recommendations for New gTLDs. In particular, on the primary questions posed: The CCTRT is seeking input on its Draft Report, which assesses whether the introduction or expansion of gTLDs has promoted competition, consumer trust and consumer choice in the DNS... more
This past week brought word that the first nine Latin / ASCII "new Generic Top Level Domains (newgTLDs)" were delegated by ICANN and are now found in the root of DNS. This means that the registries behind these newgTLDS can now start the process of making "second-level domains" (the ones we normally register) available in each of these TLDs. more
On the morning of Wednesday 15th October, the The Domain Name Association (the DNA) held an important working group meeting during ICANN 51 Los Angeles. The topic was to discuss several operational issues between registries and registrars. The meeting's unofficial ongoing name is the Registry-Registrar Operations Working Group. The meeting was a continuation of an inaugural meeting that was held back in June of this year, and covered in a Industry Association: An Implementation Model circulated by the DNA from September 17, by Executive Director Kurt Pritz. more
We read carefully Scott Hollenbeck's call to form a Domain Name Industry association to promote consistency in technical operations across the many moving parts of the industry and we, the Board and members of the Domain Name Association, largely agree. More formal coordination among registry operators and domain name registrars would improve the domain name registration experience for registrants and business operations for the domain name industry in general. more
I have not submitted any comments on ICANN's new gTLD process, mostly because many other people have said more diplomatically what I think, but I thought I could blog about it. My main concern from the beginning was that the process should allow any serious candidate to run with a reasonable chance to be able to actually start running a gTLD. This includes small and medium sized communities and startup companies with little seed money. This also includes registry models that may not favour mass registrations. For all these, the current model is flawed. more
When the ICM Registry initially launched .XXX last year, the notion of a 'registration block' was a fairly novel idea. Essentially, the ICM Registry allowed companies who were not part of the "global adult entertainment industry", to seek permanent removal of names matching their trademarks from the general pool of names available for registration for a low-cost fee. Many saw this move by the ICM Registry as a genuine attempt to protect the rights of brand owners, while others saw it as yet another mechanism for generating revenue from rights owners under the guise of a "Sunrise Period." more
On November 2, 2009, Microsoft released its seventh edition of the Security and Intelligence Report (SIR). The SIR provides an in-depth perspective on the changing threat landscape including software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software. Using data derived from hundreds of millions of Windows computers, and some of the busiest online services on the Internet, this report also provides a detailed analysis of the threat landscape and the changing face of threats and countermeasures and includes updated data on privacy and breach notifications. The following is an excerpt from the SIR, pp 29-32, about the Conficker worm and the industry response that showed an incredible amount of collaboration across vendors. more
I've mentioned the topic of personal IE domains on here more than once in the past [also discussed here on CircleID] and in my conversations with the IE Domain Registry. Just to recap; Under the current rules you cannot register johndoe.ie if your name is John Doe. You would have to add a number to the name, thus rendering it totally useless eg. johndoe7.ie or something of that style... more
ICANN issued an industry-wide six-month deadline for the deployment of the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) - a replacement for the WHOIS protocol. more
2013 was one of the most exciting and forward-looking year for our Industry, and here we are, right at the beginning of 2014. Shall we look into the crystal ball and see what the horizon up ahead likely holds for us? We hope and foresee that a lot of everyone's hard work will eventually begin to pay off this year. We also believe that the industry will witness a huge change; opportunities and possibilities that were never before thought of. more
The debate surrounding "closed generics", which has been covered several times in the past, has attracted a lot of attention in recent weeks. At the centre of the debate were a number of new TLD applications from large companies including Google, Amazon and others. Google had stated that they planned to establish a number of domain extensions and operate them as "walled gardens". At the ICANN public meeting in Toronto Google attempted to defend their plans and their position until today was unchanged. more
ICANN's authority to manage top level of the DNS comes from a two-year Joint Project Agreement (JPA) signed with the US Department of Commerce in 1997, since extended seven times, most recently until September 2009. Since the DoC can unilaterally cancel the JPA which would put ICANN out of the DNS business, when DoC speaks, ICANN listens. On Thursday, the US DoC sent a scathing letter to ICANN about the proposed plan to sell large numbers of new top-level domains (TLDs). There's a long list of issues... more