Google Publishes Requests From Governments To Remove Material & The US Wants Police Brutality Videos Off - Google has just published on its blog, a summary of the requests it received from Governments around the world to remove content from Google or one or more of its operated sites like YouTube.com The report is for the period from January 1, 2011-June 30, 2011. As for the US: “” We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal ... read more ...

TechDirt: 20 More Domains Seized Over The Weekend - According to TechDirt.com 20 more domain names were seized over the weekend by ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security. The domain names all allegedly involved sale of unauthorized NFL merchandise The list of domains seized:   Google+Michael Berkens ... read more ...

Did You Know? No Policy Against Registry-Registrar Cross-Ownership - ICANN has never had a formal policy against registry-registrar cross-ownership. ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom has responded to European Commission Commissioner Neelie Kroes on the issue of cross ownership between domain name registrars and registries, also know as vertical integration. Kroes sent a letter to Beckstrom in June expressing concern over vertical integration and potential competition concerns. Beckstrom explains (pdf) that ICANN has never had a strict policy ... read more ...

Registrars Work to Amend ICANN Agreement to Address Security Concerns - Accredited domain name registrars and ICANN work to amend RAA. During the ICANN meeting in Dakar, ICANN and registrars will announce that they’re working to amend the current Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) to address security concerns and provided “increased protections for registrants”. Apparently this has been in the works for a while and is not a snap reaction to increased pressure by law enforcement agencies during the meeting. ICANN accredited ... read more ...

Software Company Sues Research in Motion Over Blackberry BBX Name - New Mexico company claims trademark infringement over BBX name. Software company BASIS International Ltd yesterday filed a lawsuit (pdf) against Blackberry maker Research in Motion over the company’s choice of name for its new Blackberry operating system, following up on a legal threat it made last week. Research in Motion announced its next generation Blackberry BBX last week, and BASIS says it immediately began receiving confusing inquiries from its customers. ... read more ...

How Secure is a .Secure Trademark Application? - Company that filed .secure trademark application is now apparently using it in commerce. People will try to game the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office all day long. In August I wrote about how Asif LLC applied for the .secure trademark. It later applied for .bank. Now Asif alleges actual use of the term in commerce. How did the company allege it’s using the top level domain .secure in commerce? Well, first of all it isn’t claiming it’s a TLD. It says it wants ... read more ...

Minnesota Lawyer Magazine Claims MinnesotaLawyer.com Violates Its Trademark - The challenges of a descriptive trademark. The Dolan Company, owner of Minnesota Lawyer Magazine, is claiming that MinnesotaLawyer.com is violating its trademark. MinnesotaLawyer.com is maintained by Minnesota lawyer Aaron Hall. His law firm Twin Cities Law Firm, LLC also owns MinnesotaAttorney.com. Dolan company sent him a cease desist letter (pdf). Hall says he has a right to blog on the web site. In a press release, he provides a comparison: This is like a company ... read more ...

Cybersquatting May Become A Crime In Nigeria - According to a report in AllAfrica.com out today, Nigeria is considering criminalizing Cybersqautting. “”Cybersquatting is the registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.”” The bill also makes “Data interference” a criminal offense. Data Interference is the “damaging, deletion, alteration and suppression of data within computer systems or networks, including data transfer from a computer ... read more ...

Lego Loses First UDRP - Lego finally loses a UDRP case. LEGO Juris A/S, makers of the popular legos toy, has filed nearly 300 UDRP cases to date. It hadn’t lost a single one — until now. In a decision dated October 1 (but for some reason just published this week), a single member panel found against Lego in its case for the domain name legoworkshop.com. The domain was just registered this year. When Lego looked at the site it still had the registrar’s coming soon page with parking ... read more ...

Validus Holdings Says Former Contractor Used .Co Domains to Intercept Confidential Emails - Former contractor allegedly intercepted emails using .co domain names. Validus Holdings, a publicly traded (NYSE: VR) reinsurance and insurance company, has filed a lawsuit against the owner of several .co domain names. The company claims that the owner of some of the domains, Musa Kiana, previously was a third party contractor providing accounts services for Validus. In October of 2010 Validus discovered that Kiana had registered .co domain names including Validus’ ... read more ...

ICANN Threatens to Shut Down Cheapies.com - Registrar failing to escrow whois information. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has sent a breach notice (pdf) to Cheapies.com, threatening to de-accredit the domain name registrar. Cheapies, which bills itself as “domain registrations for the cost conscious”, apparently hasn’t been escrowing its whois information. ICANN has communicated with the company about the escrow problem since January of this year, with the registrar finally telling ... read more ...

Defensive Domains Registered for Miami Casino Fight - Brand protection company Mark Monitor registers defensive domains for Las Vegas Sands. Casinos may be on their way to sunny Miami, and Las Vegas Sands corporation is going on the defensive when it comes to domain registrations. Last week Michael Berkens spotted that the company had registered a number of domains related to casinos in Miami. Now the company is going on the defensive, snapping up domains that may have been used by the group’s detractors. Among the ... read more ...

Stuart Lawley Doesn’t See Competition for .XXX - ICM Registry CEO doesn’t expect adult TLDs to be introduced in New TLD round. Will the new top level domains round that opens next year mean competition for the .xxx top level domain name? Stuart Lawley doesn’t think so. Lawley, CEO of .xxx registry ICM Registry, doesn’t think domains like .sex will be approved. Yesterday Lawley told the crowd at the TRAFFIC conference in Fort Lauderdale that he thinks some of the new objection procedures in the new TLD guidebook, ... read more ...

Got Milk Domains? - If so, you might be in trouble. If you have “Got Milk” domains, the milkman is a’coming. The California Milk Processor Board, which has a trademark on the slogan, just filed UDRP cases against the owners of GotMilk.me and GotMilk.biz. I’ve written before about the group’s frequent use of UDRP to get domain names including the “Got Milk” slogan. It recently won the domain GotMilkBand.com from a punk rock band that didn’t understand trademarks when ... read more ...

ICANN’s Reply Cycle Falling Flat - Circular-reference comment period not eliciting more comments. If you held a comment period about comment periods, then tested a new comment period idea called “reply cycle” on that same comment period about comment periods, would anybody come? Not yet. At the end of August ICANN opened a comment period for “Public Comments Process Enhancements”. In other words, a comment period about comment periods. The comment period closed September 30 with 8 comments. ... read more ...

VeriSign Withdraws Request for Domain Takedown - VeriSign cancels request to ICANN to allow it to offer new anti abuse service. Just two days after formally proposing a controversial mechanism to scan domain names and take down web sites used for certain malicious purposes, VeriSign has withdrawn the request. No information about the withdrawal is available on the company’s web site. The plan, dubbed Verisign Anti-Abuse Domain Use Policy, raised a lot of concern about government involvement on the internet. It ... read more ...

4 Biggest UK ISP Will Make You Opt In If You Want To View Porn Sites - According to the guardian.co.uk the four biggest internet service providers (ISP’s) in the UK is going to require users to have to “opt in” if they want to view sexually explicit websites. The service providers involved are BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin. Customers who do not opt in to adult content will be unable to access pornographic websites. This has nothing to do with .XXX. domain names. This would apply to any “pornographic website” using any TLD. According to another report on the ... read more ...

Twitter Close To Getting Trademark, Tweet - According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter is about to get the trademark of the word Tweet by  settling a suit with Twittad which currently holds the trademark to Tweet “”On Monday, James Eliason, CEO of Twittad, said in an interview that Twitter would drop a lawsuit it filed against his company last month that sought to nix Twittad’s registered trademark of the word “tweet.” In return, Des Moines-based Twittad would transfer its registered trademark of “tweet” to Twitter, he said.’”” You ... read more ...

Ping Golf Considers .Ping Top Level Domain Name - Company behind Ping golf brand applies for .ping trademark, but it might be just a defensive play. Companies continue to file trademark applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office despite ICANN saying it will give no weight to .TLD trademarks (and the USPTO not permitting such trademarks). One of the latest may be a .brand play, with Karsten Manufacturing Corp., otherwise known as PING Golf, filing an application for .ping and “ping” for “Domain name ... read more ...

VeriSign Proposes Takedown Procedures and Malware Scanning for .Com - New registry service seeks to eliminate sites knowingly spreading malware. VeriSign is asking ICANN to approve a new Verisign Anti-Abuse Domain Use Policy. The policy (pdf) would allow VeriSign to run malware scanning of .com, .net, and .name domain names, as well as create a suspension system for domain names that knowingly host malware. The malware scanning would occur quarterly. Domain name registrars would be able to opt out of the malware scans. The suspension ... read more ...

After Losing UDRP, Save The Children Federation Sues to Get Domain Name - Non-profit sues after losing UDRP. Save the Children Federation is suing the owner of MySaveTheChildren.org after failing to win the same domain name in a UDRP proceeding. The non-profit filed a UDRP case against the domain owner ProServices in April. ProServices forwards the MySaveTheChildren.org domain name to its zulufamily.net web site, which collects donations. Save the Children Federation lost the UDRP, apparently hinging on whether or not ProServices knew ... read more ...