New York Domain Name Bill to Become Law - Law creates a civil penalty for registering person’s name with intent to sell it to them. In May 2006, Domain Name Wire reported that New York state senator Betty Little, R-Queensbury, was working on a bill to make cybersquatting on a person’s name illegal in the state (see New York wants to regulate domain names). The bill has now become law and will go into effect later this year. On the surface this isn’t a big deal. After all, registering a famous person’s ... read more ...

$200,000 Sofa.com Domain Name Stolen by Employee - $200k sale of Sofa.com in 2005 was unauthorized by employer. The Sheboygan Press is reporting that a Sheboygan man was charged with selling his employer’s domain name for $200,000 and using corporate credit cards to finance international trips with a stripper girlfriend, according to complaint filed today in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. The domain in question is Sofa.com, which DNJournal reported sold for $200,000 in December 2005. The complaint alleges that ... read more ...

CADNA Steps adult Assault on Domain Name Owners - The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) released its first news release today, which also identifies members. CADNA, a non-profit whose web site sparked interest a few months ago with its vague language, mission, and lack of disclosure about its backers, has released its first press release and identified its founding members. According to the release: The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) is announcing the launch of its national campaign against ... read more ...

New Domain Name Renewal Scam Hits Inboxes - The latest domain name renewal scam hits, and it’s a particularly ruthless one. Domain name renewal scams have been going on for years. Typically, the scammer sends a fake invoice in the mail or an e-mail that says a domain renewal fee needs to be paid or the domain will be deleted. By paying the “invoice”, you are actually agreeing to transfer your domain to the scammer’s registrar. I just received a renewal scam in my e-mail this morning, and this one’s ... read more ...

10 US Laws Every Domainer Needs to Know - Domain sniffing, legal entities, domain donations: 10 things every domainer should know. An article published at Aviva Directory is perhaps the most straight-forward, best-researched legal article that every domainer — newbie or experienced — should read. The article covers some of the basic of domaining, such as trademarks, but also covers a variety of topics many domainers may have never considered (such as which form of legal entity to form, how to avoid ... read more ...

Domain Name Whois Privacy Creates Suspicion - Using a private registration for a web site creates suspicion. I was driving through my neighborhood today when I saw a sign with the domain name “StopLake35.com” on it. That caught my attention. When I got home I checked out the web site. StopLake35.com is dedicated to stopping the development of a planned 180 boat marina just down the road from my house on Lake Austin. (35 is a busy highway that runs through Austin). The site suggests that the marina will ... read more ...

Article Labels Domainers as “Spammers” - Article in Indianapolis Business Journal tells one side of the story, mislabels domainers An article in the Indianapolis Business Journal labels domainers, who are people who invest in domain names, as the “equivalent of e-mail “spammers””: “Domainers,” the equivalent of e-mail “spammers,” run programs that automatically search for unclaimed letter combinations, snatching up everything they find. Then they hold Web sites hostage, hoping to ... read more ...

Domain Name Industry Threatened - Phil Corwin, representing Internet Commerce Association, discusses threats to domain name owners. Phil Corwin, representing Internet Commerce Association (ICA), addressed more than 50 domain name owners today at the SedoPro conference in New Paltz, New York. He warned that there are many threats to the value of domain names. Corwin referenced Jimi Hendrix’ song “Castles Made of Sand”: Castles made of sand fall into the ocean eventually. Domain names are castles ... read more ...

Proposal Suggests Changes to Domain Name UDRP - Czech Arbitration Court wants to provide arbitration services; proposes radical changes. Ask any large company or small time domainer and each will tell you that the UDRP domain name dispute process is flawed. But UDRP doesn’t have much reason to change. Between WIPO, National Arbitration Forum and the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre, UDRP dispute providers don’t need to do much to win competition. They just need to court large companies to their ... read more ...

Los Angeles Angels Lose Fight for Angels.com Domain Name - Angels lose UDRP for Angels.com. The Los Angeles Angels Major League Baseball team has lost its fight for Angels.com. The organization filed for a UDRP in February claiming rights to the trademark “Angels” and that the current registrant was using it in bad faith. The Angels filed for arbitration after the owner of the domain, Lee Dongyeon of South Korea, offered to sell it for $300,000 to an unidentified agent. Dongyeon purchased the domain for roughly $25,000 ... read more ...

ICANN Seeks Escrow Provider for Whois Data - ICANN is seeking a company to escrow registrant data for domain names. When domain registrar RegisterFly’s crooked activities finally caught up to it, thousands of domain owners were left in no man’s land. They had difficulty transferring their domains to other registrars. Data about owners was lost and it became difficult for domain owners to get control of their domains. Last week ICANN posted a request for proposal for an escrow agent to hold registrant data ... read more ...

Satisfaction with ICANN Wanes - ICANN, the global coordinator of the Internet’s domain name system, is losing popularity. Approval of ICANN has waned in the past year, according to the 2007 Domain Name Wire survey. Only 24% of survey respondents approve of ICANN, down from 33% last year. A number of factors lead to ICANN’s drop in approval ratings. New contracts with registries that allow for price hikes are extremely unpopular with domain name owners. The domain name community is also ... read more ...

Survey: Biggest Threats to Domain Name Industry - Changes in pay-per-click market, new registry contracts threaten industry. The domain name industry is worried about changes in the pay-per-click market and new registry contracts that allow for wholesale domain name price increases, according to the 2007 Domain Name Wire survey. 36% of respondents rated “changes in the pay-per-click market” as the top concern when asked “What do you think is the biggest issue facing the domain name market in 2007?” Domain ... read more ...

How Gateway and Google Are Infringing Your Trademark - Some of the world’s biggest companies are also the web’s biggest typosquatters. I’ve written several times about how Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is one of the world’s biggest typosquatters. The company sues people who register typos of its brands, but when users type a non-existent web address into many Internet Explorer browsers they are sent to a Microsoft search page. This page includes sponsored links, from which Microsoft earns money. But Microsoft is ... read more ...

ICANN Launches Initiative to Clean Up Whois Records - Program will test registrars, registrants for accurate whois records. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) just published a report about the accuracy of domain name whois records and announced new initiatives to improve accuracy going forward. Whois accuracy is a major problem and handling by registrars is inconsistent. On one extreme, registrar GoDaddy canceled the registration of FamilyAlbum.com because of inaccurate whois information. ... read more ...

Why are .Biz Domain Prices Increasing? - NeuStar’s rational for increasing prices: Everyone else is doing it. .Biz registry NeuStar is raising wholesale prices 7% to $6.42. NeuStar’s rationalization for raising prices has nothing to do with increased security or management costs. Instead, NeuStar basically said “everyone else is doing it, so we’re going to do it too.” NeuStar’s letter to ICANN about the price increase states “NeuStar is taking this action to align .BIZ domain prices more ... read more ...

How to Beat a Domain Price Increase - VeriSign made its “official” announcement. Now what? On February 2 of this year I wrote about VeriSign’s disclosure of plans to hike wholesale domain prices later this year. VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) CEO Stratton Sclavos said they would increase .com prices and .net prices: “In essence,” said Sclavos, the .net price increases are “already locked and loaded.” VeriSign has made its semi-official announcement of price increases, and now the mainstream ... read more ...

False Positive for Phishing Wreaks Havoc - What happens when your domain is mistakenly flagged as a phishing site? Many domain name owners participate in multiple types of monetization. Pay-per-click is perhaps the most popular but is just the starting point. Many have found affiliate programs including pay-per-action and lead programs to be quite lucrative. Over the weekend I was uploading links for affiliate programs and testing them. Something interesting happened. As I followed one of the affiliate ... read more ...

RegisterFly Lawsuit Ensnares Demand Media - RegisterFly collapse creates headache for eNom’s buyer. The Dummit Law Firm of Winstom-Salem, North Carolina is leading a class action lawsuit against RegisterFly, ICANN, and eNom after the collapse of RegisterFly left about 75,000 domains in limbo. This spells trouble for Demand Media, the domain company that launched last year and has collected over $200M in investments. Demand Media purchased eNom and is now on the hook for any potential liabilities. eNom is ... read more ...