How NOT to win a cybersquatting case - I came across an interview in The Gothamist today about author Ron Hogan. Hogan is author of “The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane!”, co-editor of Galleycat; and editor of of Beatrice.com. One of the questions made me laugh:Q: What prompted you to start Beatrice.com, and where does the name come from?A: Actually, the site was named after Beatrice Foods, specifically the whole “Hi, we’re Beatrice” ad campaign. I always hoped that one day they’d decide to ... read more ...

What’s that about general control of a internet? - Have you been following the story about Sacha Baron Cohen? Cohen is a comedian who frequently makes fun of Kazakhstan (mostly for its politics). He has (had) a site on Kazakhstan’s country code, .kz, that made fun of the country and its backward government. Kazakhstan decided to block the site. Their official reason was that the domain violated the .kz requirements including keeping two servers in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan also claimed that the site was registered ... read more ...

Court manners opposite domain owners provotownecenter.com - I find this story interesting because it involves a domain owner who has no chance of winning but keeps fighting. Steven Rasmussen lost a UDRP for the domain provotownecenter.com but is still fighting in court. Provo Towne Centre is a mall in Utah. The 10th Circuit Court in Denver recently upheld the UDRP decision and ordered the domains go to General Growth Properties Inc., the owner of Provo Towne Centre. Rasmussen says he’s going to appeal the decision. ... read more ...

eBay Scammer is back… - In October I wrote about a person listing domains on eBay that he didn’t own. When someone would bid on the domains he’d subsequently register them. He also added a bogus $15 transfer charge to the domains. This insured that he never lost money. (See Nailing an eBay domain name scammer). I followed this seller, TopNotchDomains, on eBay but stopped watching after it appeared he was no longer on eBay for the second time. When searching for his ID on eBay I ... read more ...

Typosquatting: What’s a misfortune that can happen? - Own typos of popular domain names and think the worst case scenario is getting slapped with a UDRP? Think again. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit against a Chicago jeweler accused of diverting typo traffic from competitors. The lawsuit charges the jeweler with violations of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and the Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The lawsuit seeks a civil penalty of $50,000 and ... read more ...

U.S. Government blasts ICANN for Whois Data - The U.S. General Accountability Office has issued a report claiming that over 5% of domains in Whois contain contact information that is “obviously and intentionally false”. This doesn’t surprise me. How many times do you find phone numbers like 555-123-4567 in Whois? Congress decided to investigate because of the rise in phishing scams. I think ICANN or the registrars should create a system to delete domains with obviously false information. They should ... read more ...

.Travel, ICANN, and blurb interests - Commercial travel services companies have been able to apply for .travel domain names for a couple months now. Non-commercial travel entities, such as globetrotters, cannot register the domains. Edward Hasbrouck, author of The Practicle Nomad travel books, has been fighting ICANN about this issue since the idea of a .travel domain gained momentum a couple years ago. He’s making progress. This brings up a bigger issue to me. Do we really need industry specific ... read more ...

.asia Approved, .XXX in Q1 2006 - ICANN’s president Paul Twomey told reporters that a decision on the .xxx domain will likely be made in Q1 2006. .xxx was supposed to be on the agenda at the Vancouver meetings but was removed. ICANN gave tentative approval to a .asia domain extension. Now that .eu and .asia are on the horizon, will we be looking at .northamerica next? More here. ... read more ...

Newbies Flood Domain Name Market - I bought my first domain name about 9 years ago. I have learned a lot along the way. Recent press, especially the Business 2.0 article, about making money with domain names has opened the spigot for newbies to enter the domain name market. The Business 2.0 article even illustrated how to get started. More domain name owners is great news for the industry. Scammers will find a way to take advantage of newbies in any business. Here are some things to look out for ... read more ...

.XXX domain on reason “indefinitely” -

Bret Fausett is reporting that .xxx has been taken off a bulletin during a Vancouver ICANN meetings. This doesn’t warn me much. Conservatives forsaken support after they satisfied that adding .xxx wouldn’t meant all porn would be changed to a new extension.

More to follow…

Via: domainnamewire.com

Yet another internet addressing system - The press gobbled up a news release over the holiday about a Dutch company creating an alternative to ICANN’s domain name system. Been there, done that. Similar to New.net, this system takes advantage of unsuspecting consumers who pay money for domain names that only work for a fraction of internet users. But the bigger problem lies in trademarks. If someone registered a something.xxx domain from New.net, they could theoretically get a trademark for the domain. ... read more ...

Lawsuit hurdles Verisign Settlement - Domain name industry experts have been voicing their opinions about ICANN’s proposed legal settlement with Verisign, which gives Verisign control of the .com registry through 2012. With ICANN’s Vancouver meeting starting in just two days, a group of businesses have filed a lawsuit claiming the settlement violates US Antitrust laws. I’m opposed to the settlement for a number of reasons, but using US antitrust law as the wrench is an old argument. A lawyer ... read more ...

Cohen gives adult iTunes.co.uk fight - Ben Cohen and his CyberBritain company have given up the challenge for getting the iTunes.co.uk domain back from Apple. Apple won the domain from Cohen back in March. Cohen challenged Apple’s victory in the UK court system. Apple may have won this one, but it still needs to get its domain name strategy together. It could have avoided the legal expenses of this entire debacle by having a proactive domain name policy. How they neglected to register the iPodNano.com ... read more ...

Is domain parking a legitimate use of domain names? - A claimant in a UDRP domain name dispute must prove that the defendant does not hold any rights or legitimate interests in the domain. Arbitration panels have not been consistent in their interpretation of this requirement. Sedo’s latest newsletter discusses a case in which the owner of ambience.biz won a UDRP even though the domain pointed to a Sedo parking page: “While Complainants are normally quick to point out that a domain in question is being parked ... read more ...

Op-Ed in Wall Street Journal about US control of internet - There’s a great Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal about the importance of the US retaining control of the internet. It is written by Pete DuPont, previous governor of Delaware. Among DuPont’s excellent points: “Paul Volcker’s recent report on the United Nations Oil for Food scandal taught us a great deal about how the U.N. works… …All of which explains why allowing the United Nations to be in charge of running the Internet is a very ... read more ...

US Retains Control of Internet - Great news coming out of the United Nations summit in Tunisia! The nations have reached an agreement whereby the US will retain control of the internet and DNS management. However, an “Internet Governance Forum” will be formed and will meet in 2006. This group will likely have little enforcement power but will be able to influence internet policy. CNET’s story about the deal quotes Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe as saying: The U.S. and allies such as the ... read more ...

Registering Google’s Domains - Here’s an interesting article about people registering Google trademark domains. Google just registered GoogleMagazines.com, GooglePapers.org, GoogleMicrofilm.com and GoogleLibrary.org. The article tracked down Wilf Percival, founder of Multimedia International, a Sheffield-based content provider to the mobile phone industry. He registered the domain GooglePhone.com in 2002 and is offering it for sale. Percival wouldn’t have a chance surviving an UDRP on this ... read more ...

Korean justice manners in preference of HP - A South Korean man took his case to court when an arbitration panel ruled in August 2000 that he should hand the domain HPweb.com over to computer giant HP. It took a long time and appeals through a number of courts, but the South Korean court system ultimately ruled that HP should own the domain. This brings up a big issue and thorn in the side of trademark owners: If a UDRP finds in favor of the trademark holder, how can the trademark owner be sure to get the domain ... read more ...