Richard Branson wants his .XXX - Virgin Group founder challenges registration of .xxx domain name. When ICM Registry released .xxx domain names to the public last month, Richard Branson must have been busy yachting. Australian Sean Truman beat him to the domain name, registering RichardBranson.xxx on December 10. That was four days after .xxx was opened up to registration. Now Branson of Virgin Group fame wants his name back. He filed a complaint with National Arbitration Forum today. It looks like ... read more ...

ICANN relaxes heading order in needy TLD applicant plan - NGOs and communities can apply for reduced fees for TLD even if the string represents a trademark. ICANN has relaxed a restriction on trademark top level domain names qualifying for its applicant support program for needy applicants. An updated guidebook for the program was released today. In the first public iteration of the plan, TLDs that were trademarks for organizations would not be eligible for a reduced application rate of $42,000. The latest version of the ... read more ...

Federal Court Throws Out Class Action Against Google Over Parked Domains & AdWords - On January 5th A federal judge tossed out a class action case against Google involving AdWords (Parked Domains). The case is In RE Google Adwords Litigation Case No.: 5: 08-CV-3369 EJD Here are the relevant facts and findings are quoted from the court’s 25 page opinion: In July 2008, Plaintiffs initiated this lawsuit, alleging that Google engaged in deceptive advertising and unfair, deceptive and unlawful business practices regarding Google AdWords.” The named Plaintiffs seek to represent a class ... read more ...

Receiver asks for typo domains to be confiscated from Apple and others - Receiver wants ICANN to reverse domain transfers. Remember that court case where the receiver, in charge of a number of domain names, said ICANN had the power to stay a UDRP decision? It’s getting a little wonkier. Now the receiver is asking ICANN to “undo” a handful of transfers that were completed under UDRP. Those transfers include typo domain names now controlled by companies such as Apple and Public Storage. The receiver asked the court to force ICANN ... read more ...

What Rod Beckstrom would do differently with a new TLD program… - Had Rod Beckstrom been involved with the new TLD program earlier… This afternoon Rod Beckstrom held a briefing call with bloggers about the new top level domain name program. He’s been on a world tour explaining the program for months, answering a number of repeated questions. Rather than beat a dead horse, I asked him what he would do differently had he been involved with the new TLD process from the beginning. (Remember, he inherited this program when he became ... read more ...

House Committe Chariman Issa Calls For Hearing On DNS & Search Engine Blocking On Jan 18th - The Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Darrell Issa (R-CA) today announced that the Full Committee will hold a hearing on January 18 to examine the potential impact of Domain Name Service (DNS) and search engine blocking system like that proposed in SOPA will have on American cyber-security, jobs and the Internet community. In light of policy proposals affecting the way taxpayers access the Internet, the hearing will also explore federal government strategies to protect ... read more ...

Perhaps heading holders should no longer defensively register domains - In the future brand owners may need to change their domain name strategy. With potentially hundreds of new top level domain names heading to the internet as early as 2013, brand owners are crying foul. They’re upset about having to defensively register hundreds or even thousands of domain names across the extensions. It’s true that some brands have defensively registered many of their marks in TLDs other than .com. But with hundreds more to manage, does it still ... read more ...

ANA proposes “Do Not Sell” list to ICANN - ANA asks for top level block list or it may proceed with legal action. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has proposed that ICANN adopt a “Do Not Sell” list for the new top level domain name application period that opens up later this week. In a letter to ICANN’s board, ANA says that it is unaware of a single constituency that has organized to defend ICANN’s plan, save for those that will profit from it. With the application round opening January ... read more ...

Federal Court Holds In Favor Of Godaddy In Suit For Cybersquatting & Contributory Cybersquatting - A Federal Court has held that Godaddy.com was not liable to a trademark holder although the domain was being “forwarded” by Godaddy to the registrants hosting company. The case is of Berhad v. GoDaddy,  and the decision was handed down by the Northern District of California on Jan. 3, 2012. We will let the court describe the facts of the case and its findings. Having read through the 20 page opinion I would say the court came to the right conclusion and the Plaintiff simply went well in the ... read more ...

Valero is third association to belatedly ask .xxx domain name - Energy company complains to WIPO about Valero.xxx. San Antonio, TX based energy giant Valero Energy is the third company to ask an arbitration panel to give it a .xxx domain name. The company filed a complaint last week with World Intellectual Property Forum (WIPO), seeking control of Valero.xxx. The domain name was registered by someone in the Netherlands on December 6, the first day .xxx domain names became available for general registration. This is the second ... read more ...

Court grants rough injuction underneath ACPA for personal name - ACPA can protect your name even if you aren’t a celebrity. I come across a number of lawsuits and UDRPs about celebrities and cybersquatting. But a decision handed down in district court in New York today is notable because it involves a non-celebrity who believed he was being extorted to pay big money for his personal name as a domain name. The case involves New Yorker Paul Bogoni. He’s not a celebrity, although he considers himself a “prominent real estate ... read more ...

Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan can keep the domain - Local hotel can keep its domain name — which may seem trivial given the day-to-day challenges of operating a business in Kabul. Looking for a weekend getaway to Kabul, Afghanistan? Perhaps you’d like to stay at the Intercontinental Kabul, given Intercontinental’s international reputation. But the hotel in Kabul hasn’t been licensed by Intercontinental since Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979. That made for a rather interesting domain name dispute brought ... read more ...

First dual .xxx UDRP disputes filed - First of many .xxx UDRP cases filed. The first two uniform domain name dispute resolution (UDRP) cases for .xxx domain names have been filed. As with any new TLD launch, you can expect many more in the months to come. The honors for the first case go to VIPINDIRIM for the domain name markafoni.xxx. The case was filed December 29 with the World Intellectual Property forum. Runner up is a dispute at National Arbitration Forum filed December 30 for HEB.xxx. Although ... read more ...

US Justice Dept Now Said “Not To Oppose Online Gambling Other Than On Sports” - The opinion said that the Act did not prohibit the states from accepting online lotto purchases from residents within the state. According to the Times, In a separate request in July, Senators Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, and Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, asked the Justice Department to clarify its position on Internet gambling, seeking either to affirm that federal law prohibits gambling over the Internet or to make sure that Congress has a role in drafting any expansion of online betting. Nevada ... read more ...

Activists win, GoDaddy pulls support of SOPA - GoDaddy changes mind on SOPA. [Update: Read my interview with Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman about his company’s changed stance on SOPA] A growing call for a boycott of GoDaddy over its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has achieved its goal — GoDaddy just announced it no longer supports the bill. GoDaddy general counsel Christine Jones had been steadfast in her support of the bill, and GoDaddy had posted her commentary on the bill on its web site. That ... read more ...

Receiver: “ICANN thumbing a nose during a Court”, asks justice to find ICANN in contempt - Them’s fightin’ words! Well this is getting interesting. Earlier this month a Texas court ordered ICANN to stay a UDRP case for FunnyGames.com. ICANN responded by saying that it had no authority to stay a UDRP proceeding and that the court had no jurisdiction to order it to do so. The court disagreed. ICANN subsequently said that it informed World Intellectual Property Organization — the UDRP provider where the case was filed — of the court decision. But it ... read more ...

No jury hearing over inducement devise in Monte Cahn v. Oversee.net - Judge says waver to jury trial in employment agreement is valid. The case of Monte Cahn v. Oversee.net, et al is scheduled to go to trial next month. Each side has listed witnesses they might want to bring to the stand, ranging from Jeff Kupietzky to Mike Berkens to NameDrive USA. But they won’t be arguing in front of a jury, at least for claims related to breach of contract of a management incentive plan. The judge in the case has ruled that a jury waver provision ... read more ...

Co-Founder Of Absolute Poker Pleads Guilty - In April of this year we told you that several gambling poker sites were seized by the Feds the owners charged with a bunch of Federal crimes. Yesterday,  the co-founder and the director of payment processing for Absolute Poker, Brent Beckley, pleaded guilty in Manhattan’s federal court to conspiring to violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and commit bank fraud. “I knew that it was illegal to accept credit cards from players to gamble on the Internet,” Beckley reportedly ... read more ...