Tag Archives: legal

Tue 27th March 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN: Let’s Learn from RegisterFly - ICANN is reviewing policies in the wake of the RegisterFly fiasco. Many in the domain name community are blaming ICANN for not taking action sooner against disgraced (and disaccredited) domain registrar RegisterFly. The company imploded earlier this year, placing valuable domain names in limbo. ICANN intervened after it was too late, say critics. An article from the Associated Press says policy reviews are on the agenda. There about 860 registrars now and growing. ... read more ...
Mon 19th March 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Sniffing: Fact or Fiction? - Does “domain sniffing”, in which a third party registers domains you’ve searched for, really happen? I’ve always been skeptical that domain sniffing happens on a wide scale. Here’s what domain sniffing is about: you query a whois site or domain registrar for a domain to check its availability. You wait a few days and then go back to register the domain. To your surprise, it has been registered by someone else. Domain sniffing means that someone was able ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Whois Taskforce: New Rules for Maintaining Whois Data - The “Whois Taskforce” delivered its final recommendations to ICANN. The “Whois Taskforce” delivered its final recommendations to ICANN for changing whois going forward. The taskforce did not receive a supermajority vote on any of its proposals, but did receive simple majority votes. Whois is the database of contact information and data for registered domain names. One of the recommendations deals with correcting inaccurate whois data. Whois accuracy is ... read more ...
Fri 16th March 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Johnson & Johnson’s Splenda Domain Name Strategy - Johnson Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) took a proactive approach to domain registration for its Splenda product…or did it? Johnson Johnson registered hundreds of domains related to its Splenda sugar substitute in 2005, as revealed by Sustainable is Good and Ecologist. The blog looks at this as a negative thing, but it’s a sign that a large company is paying attention to the importance of domain names. Unfortunately, Johnson Johnson is missing some key typo domains. Among ... read more ...
Thu 15th March 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Invalid Whois? GoDaddy Charges $9.95 - Administrative fee “nothing new” according to GoDaddy. GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, charges a $9.95 administrative fee to contact customers after receiving a complaint of invalid whois information. According to Director of Domain Services Camille Ede, this is a long standing practice. The company often charges an administrative fee when it has to do more than send an automated e-mail to handle a non-typical issue. A GoDaddy customer ... read more ...
Wed 14th March 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Microsoft Has Success Against Cybersquatters - Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) scores judgements against cybersquatters. Microsoft is redoubling its efforts to go after cybersquatters (and specifically typosquatters) that have registered typos of its brand names, such as Microsoft and Xbox, according to several news reports today. Instead of filing UDRP disputes, which at best result in the return of the domain to the trademark holder, Microsoft has sued a number of typosquatters. It won two U.S. lawsuits, according ... read more ...
Tue 13th March 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Makes Reporting Invalid Whois Easy - Want to report an invalid whois record? Just click the link. It’s been a couple weeks since the story broke about the registration for FamilyAlbum.com being “deleted” by GoDaddy for an invalid whois e-mail address. Here’s what we know: 1. GoDaddy took the domain registration away from the previous domain owner after it alleged he did not respond to inquiries to the e-mail address of record in whois and his account. GoDaddy was responding to a user complaint. 2. ... read more ...
Mon 5th March 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
FamilyAlbum.com and GoDaddy Update - Here’s the latest about the FamilyAlbum.com fiasco with GoDaddy. Domain Name Wire’s story about FamilyAlbum.com has garnered lots of attention. A story about the story has about 3,500 Diggs on Digg.com. Message boards are buzzing. Bloggers are blogging. But where does that leave us? Did GoDaddy have the right to “delete” FamilyAlbum.com? After taking “reasonable” steps to contact the owner of the domain, a registrar has the right to delete a domain ... read more ...
Fri 2nd March 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
An Update on GoDaddy Whois Issue and Other Registrars’ Responses - GoDaddy will not return domain; other registrars say what they would do in the same situation. It’s been just a few days since Domain Name Wire broke the story about GoDaddy deleting a domain registration due to an invalid e-mail address in whois. GoDaddy responded to the article but few people seem satisfied. Here’s another update. After agreeing to give the previous registrant of FamilyAlbum.com his domain if he indemnified GoDaddy, GoDaddy today decided that ... read more ...
Tue 27th February 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Deletes Domain Name for Inaccurate Email Address - Owner of FamilyAlbum.com finds his domain was re-registered by another GoDaddy customer. The (previous) owner of FamilyAlbum.com was surprised to find that he no longer owned the domain, which had not expired. He contacted GoDaddy to task what happened and received the following response: Dear Tim, On 12/19/2006 we received a third party complaint of invalid domain contact information in the Whois database for this domain. Whenever we receive a complaint, we are ... read more ...
Mon 26th February 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Governor Eliot Spitzer Goes After EliotSpitzer.Com - Former Attorney General, known for going after Wall Street, is now making a challenge for his name. Wall Street learned not to mess with Eliot Spitzer when he was attorney general (he is know governor of New York). An entrepreneur in New Jersey is about to learn about the wrath of Spitzer. Rogers Cadenhead, who recently won a UDRP decision for his domain name WarGames.com, dug up dirt about this case. The respondent is Eric Keller, a New Jersey online candy retailer ... read more ...
Mon 19th February 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dotster Settles with Neiman Marcus over Typosquatting - Domain registrar Dotster has settled a lawsuit brought by Neiman Marcus. David Steele, an attorney with Christie, Parker Hale LLP that represented Neiman Marcus, said Neiman Marcus has settled with domain registrar Dotster over typosquatting charges. The lawsuit, made public in June 2006, alleged that Dotster was “tasting” typo domains during the registrar grace period for five days. Dotster would then keep the domains that generated enough traffic to warrant ... read more ...
Wed 14th February 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
It’s Tax Time for Domain Name Owners - Domain names are uncharted territory for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Tax time creates headaches for domain name owners, especially those with large portfolios. Sure, we know we need to report parking income on our tax returns, but how do we account for purchases, registrations, and sales? If you ask your CPA you’ll probably get a blank stare. CPA Sandra K. Brooks has released a new guide called “The Domain Tax Guide, 2007 Edition”. I just finished ... read more ...
Tue 13th February 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
It’s Time to Fix Domain Name Authorization Codes - Domain authorization codes, which are required to transfer domains between domain name registrars, should be easier to obtain. It’s been only a few months since domain authorization codes were instituted for popular domains like .com and .net. These codes, alternatively called domain keys, transfer codes, etc., are required to transfer domains between registrars. Here’s how it works. Say you want to transfer domains between registrars, such as from GoDaddy to ... read more ...
Thu 8th February 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Adam Dicker Keeps Pig.com, Keith Urban Goes After KeithUrban.com - Common sense prevails in Pig.com case; Keith Urban is misguided in KeithUrban.com case. This week Rogers Cadenhead won his UDRP with MGM over the domain name WarGames.com. Although I believe the decision was correct, there were some gray areas that at least gave MGM some inkling of rational for filing the complaint. But that’s not always the case. Take the recent case of Pig.com, owned by DNForum owner Adam Dicker. A company called New Pig Corporation, which ... read more ...
Wed 7th February 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MGM Loses Bid for WarGames.com - MGM loses UDRP decision to Rogers Cadenhead, owner of WarGames.com. Last month I analyzed MGM’s UDRP attempt to get the domain name WarGames.com from registrant Rogers Cadenhead. Cadenhead just contacted me to let me know he won the arbitration. The three member arbitration panel decided that Cadenhead proved that he planned to open a site at the domain that sold war games (not related to the trademark for the movie): The picture that emerges from this material ... read more ...
Fri 2nd February 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign Says Domain Name Price Hikes Coming - VeriSign says it will hike prices on .com, .net domains in 2007. The domain name industry knew it was coming, but VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) CEO Stratton Sclavos dropped the bomb during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday. During the 33rd minute of the call, Sclavos responded to an analyst’s question about possible price hikes for .com domains: “As it relates to .com, I think our expectation is that we’ll have some action here in the first-half of the year,” ... read more ...
Tue 30th January 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Digging into GoDaddy’s Terms of Service - Taking a look at GoDaddy’s Terms of Service (TOS) It’s been a few days since GoDaddy became the center of controversy over its abrubt decision to change the DNS of one of its customer’s domains. We still haven’t heard from GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons (although he has since blogged about CBS accepting his company’s Super Bowl ad.) If we don’t hear from Parsons on his blog we can assume he has no good answers to what happened. On other domain related issues ... read more ...
Fri 26th January 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GoDaddy Faces PR Nightmare Over Domain Suspension - GoDaddy abrubtly suspends registration. GoDaddy chief Bob Parsons is a big supporter of free speech. He’s also a big supporter of privacy as a way to do this by promoting domain whois privacy services. That’s why the internet world was shocked today to learn that GoDaddy suspended a domain name, seclists.org, based on the content on that site. MySpace contacted GoDaddy to suspend the registration because the site had information about MySpace users including ... read more ...
Thu 25th January 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MGM’s Battle for WarGames.com - MGM wants the domain WarGames.com. But it faces an uphill battle to win this war. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., better known as MGM, wants the domain WarGames.com. MGM owns the rights to the 1983 film WarGames and the company is gearing up to release a sequel. There’s one small problem: the domain WarGames.com was registered in 1998 by Rogers Cadenhead. What follows is an inside look at MGM’s UDRP attempt to grab the domain from Cadenhead. Domain Name ... read more ...
Wed 24th January 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Eric Schmidt Was Right - A perspective on why click fraud won’t ruin the domain name industry. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt learned an important lesson in July 2006. When asked at an economics conference if there was an economic answer to click fraud, Schmidt said “Let’s imagine for purposes of argument that click fraud were not policed by Google and it were rampant … eventually the price that the advertiser is willing to pay for the conversion will decline because the ... read more ...
Mon 22nd January 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Understanding Domain Name UDRP - A primer on domain name arbitration. Later this week Domain Name Wire will cover the pending spat between Rogers Cadenhead and MGM regarding his domain name, WarGames.com. I have procured a copy of MGM’s original complaint and Cadenhead’s response. Before going into the details of the case later this week, let’s review what a UDRP is. UDRP stands for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. All registrars in the .biz, .com, .info, .name, .net, and .org ... read more ...
Wed 17th January 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ZDNet Article Refers to Domain Investors as “Scalpers”, “Cybersquatters” - Article puts words into mouth of domain name buyer, hits new low in biased reporting. An article by ZDNet writer Steven Deare about the sale of Tennis.com.au suggests that the seller of the generic domain name is a “scalper” and cybersquatter. The opening to the article reads: “Tennis Australia has admitted it paid a “hefty fee” to a scalper of the domain name kind in order to obtain the Web address it wanted as part of a rebranding campaign.” But as ... read more ...
Fri 12th January 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dell Sues Cybersquatters - d3ell.com, de3LL.com, d4ell.com, among the domains allegedly cybersquatted. Dell Inc (NASDAQ: DELL), the computer maker, has filed a lawsuit against three individuals for allegedly cybersquatting typos of Dell.com. The three people named in the suit, Alf Temme, Lars Crispin Temme, and Kim Temme, allegedly forwarded the domain names through a LinkShare affiliate link to land at Dell.com. By doing so, the three profited whenever someone purchased an item on Dell’s ... read more ...
Mon 8th January 2007
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Gives New Life to .XXX Domain - ICANN has published a revised proposal from ICM Registry, Inc. for providing a .xxx top level domain name. In May 2006 ICANN voted to not approve ICM Registry Inc.’s proposal for a .xxx TLD, but ICANN didn’t outright reject it. ICM has responded with changes to the contract to address ICANN’s original concerns. Among the changes, ICM must: -Take steps to protect children (including using a 3rd party to monitor) -Requires registrants to use clear content labeling -Prohibit ... read more ...