Verisign Lowered to Sell at Zacks (VRSN) - Zacks lowered shares of Verisign (NASDAQ:VRSN) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report released on Tuesday morning. According to Zacks, “Internet infrastructure assurance and domain registry services provider VeriSign reported strong first-quarter 2015 results with both earnings and revenues growing year over year. We believe that gTLD prospects, international expansion through IDNs and investments in intellectual properties will boost results over the long ... read more ...

IANA Transition, Accountability Will Remain Central at June ICANN Meeting in … - IANA Transition, Accountability Will Remain Central at June ICANN Meeting in Argentina By Joseph WrightJune 8 — Plans to transition remaining U.S. oversight of key domain name system functions to the global multistakeholder community and to enhance ICANN's accountability in the process will be front and center at the organization's public meeting in Buenos Aires later this month.The meeting will take place at a pivotal point in ... read more ...

Important UDRP precedent shows that TLDs are carrying more and more weight -

In a new preference underneath a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) before a World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a London-based investment government association has successfully performed a send of a domain name reproducing a heading underneath a new general top-level domain (gTLD) ‘.capital’. 

The ‘.capital’ TLD is one of the…

Via: worldtrademarkreview.com

New gTLD program continues to gain momentum – nearly 6 million new domain … - The new gTLD program, considered to be one of the most important Internet developments in recent years, continues to gain momentum since ICANN delegated its first new gTLD back in October 2013. ICANN has delegated more than 600 new gTLDs to date. Of those delegated strings, 365 are open to the general public. A little more than 1 million new domains had been purchased at this time last year; now, that number is nearing the 6 million mark. And don’t expect things to slow down. New gTLDs continue ... read more ...

Inc.com Says Guru & Ninja Are 2 of the 12 Worst Things You Can Call Yourself … - An interesting post by Inc.com on the worst things you can call (or refer) yourself on Linkedin and out of the 12 words you can use the authors says that two of the words are also new gTLD’s. “There are so many terrible words people use to make themselves sound exciting on LinkedIn.” Guru and Ninja both make the list. If these words are bad to refer to yourself on linked in by the same logic if you buy it they would also be bad to use as your domain name. Anyway here is what the Inc.com has ... read more ...

Another internet landmark as public registration opens for seven new gTLDs - Trevor Little Today, the first seven of Donuts’ new gTLDs have opened for public registration. While the extent of both public and brand owner engagement in these first strings will become more apparent in the coming weeks, for gTLD supporters and sceptics alike, today marks the first real opportunity to judge the wider appetite for the online ... read more ...

.porn and .adult gTLD Domain Names Available Today - New gTLD domain names .porn and .adult become available for registration to the public today (6/4/2015) and there has been a lot of buzz around the two, simply because there often is around the adult industry. Last night, Stuart Lawley was on Bloomberg talking about .xxx, .porn and .adult that ICM Registry operate and you can watch that video here. About 6,900 .porn domains have been registered prior to public launch with the highest amount of domains being registered with CSC Corporate Domain registrar ... read more ...

Search Engine Journal: If The .Com You Want Isn’t Available; Find Another .Com - Searchenginejournal.com,  just wrote a post asking What is “The Best Domain Extensions When a .COM is Not Available” and seems to conclude it’s another .com “”What do you do when the domain name or suffix you want is not available?”” “You may want to evaluate whether another gTLD (generic top-level domain) would work. The core group of gTLD’s is comprised of the com, info, net, and org domains. As well as the restricted gTLD’s, which includes, biz, name, and pro domains.” If ... read more ...

The Best Domain Extensions When a .COM is Not Available - What do you do when the domain name or suffix you want is not available?Finding the perfect domain name to represent your business can be harder than you think. A frustrating problem for many new businesses and startups, the domain-name competition is only getting more intense.According to Netcraft, there are currently 850 million active websites on the Internet. With that kind of volume, it’s no wonder domain name competition has become the aggressive duel it is today.Luckily, if you find yourself ... read more ...

FTC to ICANN: We Told You .SUCKS Was a Bad Idea - The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has responded to a letter from ICANN requesting the regulatory body examine the legality of the rollout of the .SUCKS new gTLD. The response (PDF) was written by FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez, and instead of ruling if any laws or regulations had been broken, it offers several recommendations for ICANN to ensure better protection of intellectual property owners’ rights. Companies are mad at ICANN for allowing registrar tactics they say are coercive and predatory. ... read more ...

Research reveals that around two-thirds of internet users are unaware of … - Trevor Little Research published by ICANN has pointed to a growing awareness of new gTLDs, although such strings lag significantly behind legacy TLDs in terms of familiarity. Arguably more of a surprise is the finding that just over one in three internet users are aware of cybersquatting. We have previously reported on studies that have examined awareness ... read more ...

Prudential Denied URS On Rocksolid.financial Despite Trademark & Parked Page - The Prudential Insurance Company of America just lost the attempt to get the new gTLD domain name rocksolid.financial suspended through a Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) proceeding. The domain owner is Terrance McQuilkin who was represented by Mark Jeftovic of Toronto. The Examiner Antonina Pakharenko-Anderson, denied relief to Prudential despite having a trademark going back to 1986 for financial services and the domain being parked, finding the term Rock Solid was generic Here are the highlights: “”The ... read more ...

The .Sucks Domain Name Launch Delayed While Lawyers Scramble - Every business these days needs to have a solid domain name, and the scramble for a unique .com domains has long been a problem for companies looking for their home online. But there are new problems coming for companies as a result of the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLD) like .sucks. The .sucks domain sales were initially supposed to finish their ‘sunrise’ period today. Sunrise is when domains are available to brands who own a trademark and wish to protect it from someone ... read more ...

.sucks-gate: How about listening to us the first two times, exasperated FTC tells … - The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has responded to questions over the legality of .sucks domain pricing with a three-page "I told you so" letter to domain name overseer ICANN. ICANN is upset that Vox Populi – the company in charge of .sucks – is charging people $2,500 (£1,700) to defensively register dot-sucks domains before the trolls do. This is the same ICANN that opened the floodgates to waves of new dot-word domains on the internet. ... read more ...

All 32 NFL Teams Register a .Football Domain, But Only 10 Colleges Do - All 32 NFL teams applied for its domain name in the new gTLD .Football that launches into general availability next week. Interestingly some applied with their city and team like the BaltimoreRavens.football and the AtlantaFalcons.football while other teams just went with their name like 49ers.football and Bengals.football. If your keeping track 15 NFL teams went with their city and nicknames while 17 just registered the name of their team sans the city. A team that registered just its city and nickname ... read more ...

Announcement: New gTLD Applicant and GDD Portals Update – ag-IP - Home / Announcement: New gTLD Applicant and GDD Portals Update / LOS ANGELES - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) provided an update on its investigation into a data exposure issue in the New gTLD Applicant and GDD (Global Domains Division) portals, first reported on 1 March 2015. According to the Corporation, in its 30 April announcement, ICANN noted its intention to disclose to affected users the identity ... read more ...

ICANN Reports On Security Breach Of New gTLD Applicant Portal: 60 Searches … - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today provided an update on its investigation into a data exposure issue in the New gTLD Applicant and GDD (Global Domains Division) portals, first reported on 1 March 2015 In its 30 April announcement, ICANN noted its intention to disclose to affected users the identity of any user(s) that viewed their information without authorization by May 27th 2015. This activity has been completed. Specifically, ICANN: Notified the users whose ... read more ...

One Company Just Spent Over $150K In .Apartments Domains & Donuts Makes … - Donuts just I believe set a new gTLD record for selling 21 new gTLD’s on the 1st day of the Early Access Program (EAP) in which wholesale prices are $10K and retail prices range from around $11K to $12,500. Meaning that Donuts took $210,000 in just EAP fees for day 1 of EAP plus many of those domain name also had a premium price. One company, registered 16 domain names on the 1st day EAP spending what basically amounts to what they could have spent to apply for the whole .apartment new gTLD by ... read more ...

The new internet layer and what it means for trademark counsel - Trevor Little While trademark practitioners are still coming to grips with the implications of the new gTLD expansion, Frogans technology is set to add a layer to the Internet in the form of Frogans sites. The introduction of Frogans does not represent a tidal wave of online change in the same way that new gTLDs have, but it is worth reporting on, ... read more ...