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When it drafted the .eu regulation EC 874/2004, the Commission reserved for itself a (long) list of domain names. One of them was galileo.eu. For obvious reasons, Galileo Lebensmittel GmbH & Co. KG claimed before the Courf of First Instance that the Commission's decision to reserve galileo.eu should be annulled... more
ICANN has released to the public a report they commissioned called "Revisiting Vertical Separation of Registries and Registrars," written by CRA International. It is being referred to as the "CRAI Report." Readers in the U.S. and the U.K. may not know it, but most top-level (TLD) domains in the world don't have registrars-you go straight to the registry and buy your domains from the source. more
Many industry onlookers and potential future applicants may be aware of the significant step the New gTLD Round 2 Program took recently when ICANN's policy body, the GNSO Council, unanimously approved the recommendations put forward in the final report from the community-led Subsequent Procedures Working Group and sent it to the ICANN Board for approval. more
I've writen several blog entries about the continued downward swirling motion of Tralliance, the company that runs the registry for .TRAVEL. In this month's installment, as told in their quarterly 10-Q SEC filing, they flirt with bankruptcy but may well end up more stable than before. One of the more eye-catching paragraphs says... more
Donuts Inc., a global leader in new top-level domains (TLDs), has announced that it has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Abry Partners, a private equity firm. more
Public Interest Registry (PIR) announced the creation of the DNS Abuse Institute about two months ago as it believes that "every .ORG makes the world a better place" and "anything that gets in the way of that is a threat," notably in the form of Domain Name System (DNS) abuse. To show support for the initiative, WhoisXML API analyzed monthly typosquatting data feeds for December 2020, January 2021, and February 2021 to identify .ORG domain trends... more
In light of recent announcements regarding Cameroon's country code Top-Level Domain, .CM, being opened to public registration, Tresa Baldas reports on Law.com: "Trademark attorneys are warning companies about a new target for cybersquatters known as '.cm,' which is the country code -- or top level domain -- for the West African nation of Cameroon. The dot-cm domain is a hot target for scammers, they say, due to 'cm' being a common typographical error for 'com' in the popular dot-com domain. Attorneys say this is significant to brand owners because Internet users searching for brand owners' Web sites frequently mistype dot-com as dot-cm and wind up on a bogus site. Not only is Web traffic lost, they say, but a brand name can get diluted or tainted along the way." (Also see, Nation of Cameroon Typo-Squats the Entire .com Space from 2006) more
With all the buzz surrounding new Top-Level Domain (nTLDs) at the last ICANN meeting in Mexico, I am sure many of you have already encountered or read information regarding the latest applications. For those who haven't been staying abreast of the latest, here is a quick review... There are two different general types of TLDs -- gTLDs and ccTLDs. ICANN is now opening the possibility of adding further TLD extensions, which can virtually be anything... more
As I wrote in December 2015, some Internet commerce companies - including domain name registries, registrars, advertising providers, social media platforms, payment processors and shippers - are doing right by patients in taking voluntary action against illegal online drug sellers. This is no small feat as 97% of the roughly 35,000 active online drug sellers are operating illegally. more
The merits of a Registry Service Provider accreditation programs have been debated across the Domain Industry since the most recent round of Domain Name Registries were introduced starting in 2012. This post discusses the early reasoning in support of an accreditation program; changes in the policy considerations between 2012 and now; the effects of competition on the landscape; a suggestion for how such a program might be implemented; and why such a program should be introduced now. more
One of the topics that keeps coming up in ICANN policy discussions and as part of the new TLD application process is "transparency". ICANN, and the internet community in general, has had plenty of issues in the past with "bad actors" who have caused a lot of issues for everyone (think of many of the registrars who have lost accreditation in the last couple of years for example). On more than one conference call or policy discussion the issue of a company or a person's track record has come up. more
Professor Denis Carlton was asked by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to submit a report on (or justify!) the impact of new top-level domains (TLDs) on industry competition. After he did so, Dr. Michael Kende posted an elaborate comment on the report on behalf of AT&T, to which Professor Carlton published a rebuttal. This essay outlines some of the errors in Professor Carlton's rebuttal and Dr. Kende's comments. more
As I noted on May 26, the final decision issued on May 20 in the Independent Review Process (IRP) brought by Afilias against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rejected Afilias’ petition to nullify the results of the public auction for .WEB, and it further rejected Afilias’ demand to have it be awarded .WEB (at a price substantially lower than the winning bid). Instead, as we urged, the IRP Panel determined that the ICANN Board should move forward with reviewing the objections made about .WEB, and to make a decision on delegation thereafter. more
Afnic, the association responsible for several Internet Top Level Domains, including the .fr country-code TLD, shares its annual global domain name market analysis. In this new report, the association deciphers global trends and highlights the specific characteristics of the different segments and the regional particularities. more
As each day passes, I spend more time immersing myself with prospective clients who are weighing up our offering over those of alternative providers. The more I become entrenched in this competitive process, the more it becomes increasingly clear that many of the competing RSPs pitching their wares to hopeful applicants are misleading them by hiding critically important information in fine print disclaimers or feeding them rubbish in order to whittle down the competition. Competition is a great thing; it just needs to be on the same playing field. Make sure you are comparing apples with apples. more
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