Yep, .Jobs Dispute is Now Going to Cost YOU Money - Employ Media files for arbitration. On Tuesday I surmised that the .jobs dispute between Employ Media and ICANN was about to cost you — the domain name owners that pay hefty fees to ICANN — a lot of money. Indeed, it appears the lawyers’ clocks have already started billing hours. Yesterday Employ Media filed for arbitration with ICANN. This will be a very expensive process, even if ICANN wins. In its complaint (thanks Domain Incite), Employ Media says that ... read more ...

Company Behind “SkyCam” Sports Cameras Loses Domain Dispute - Kevin Ham’s company wins case brought by SkyCam. SkyCam, the company behind those overhead cameras used during football broadcasts, has lost a domain name dispute with Kevin Ham’s Vertical Axis. A three person panel was split on whether or not the domain name was registered in bad faith. Two of the panelists ruled that it wasn’t registered and used in bad faith because: – the skycam.com domain name is comprised entirely of common terms that have many meanings ... read more ...

My Commentary on Commentary.com, Which Just Survived a UDRP - Domain owner wins case but panelist’s rationale is troublesome. The owner of the generic domain name Commentary.com has successfully defended his domain name from The American Jewish Committee (AJC) in a UDRP. AJC has operated Commentary Magazine since 1945, thus its interest in the domain name. The owner of Commentary.com registered it all the way back in 1997. He immediately started using the site to publish executive summaries of Chinese commentaries in English. ... read more ...

FriendFinder Pulls Down FacebookofSex.com - FriendFinder Networks, Inc., has pulled down the site FacebookofSex.com over which Facebook filed suit over two weeks ago. The domain name now goes to a page saying the “site has been deactivated and if you are an existing member you can log in”. I’m not sure where the log in will take you because I’m not a member,  but maybe someone out there can let us know. FacebookofSex.com is ranked as the 648th business site on the net according to Alexa and Compete shows the site getting over 4,000,000 ... read more ...

Full Tilt Poker Has Its Name Back, Now Gets Typos Too - Full Tilt Poker wins more typo domains through arbitration. Wouldn’t it have been ironic had Full Tilt Poker not been in possession of FullTiltPoker.com when it won rights to several typos? Pocket Kings Limited, which owns Full Tilt Poker, picked up 3 domain names through UDRP this week. That makes a dozen total typo domain names it has won in April. The latest three were fulltiltepoker.com, fulltiltpokar.net, and fultiltpocker.net. Most of the typos are of the ... read more ...

Unlike Seized Cars & Jewelry, The Government Will NOT Sell Seized Domain Names - Its a questions that many have been asking ever since the first domain name seizures, what will happen to the seized domains? When the government seizes a drug dealer’s car, after legal means to challenge the seizure expire, it puts the car up for auction, same for Jewelry, Boats, and other seized property. I assumed that the Feds would eventually do the same with the domains it has seized but today according to Cnet.com, the “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) said today that ... read more ...

Data Collection Of Your Location On Apple’s iPhone & iPad: Big Deal Or No Deal? - There were a lot of stories last week about the data Apple is collecting from on your iPhone, iPad and/or iTouch’s products, which apparently track where you go, where you have been and then keeps a file with that information on your device for at least 10 months. The Wall Street Journal reported that the products collect and store location information even when location services are turned off. So even if you keep clicking”no” on the phone whenever it prompts you to use your location, the ... read more ...

Congress Preparing to Beat adult ICANN Again - ICANN will be called to task over new top level domain names next week. Next week The U.S. House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet will hold an “ICANN Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) Oversight Hearing”. You can be assured that someone from ICANN will be asked to attend. Hopefully it won’t be the train wreck the non-profit experienced in June 2009. In 2009 the same committee took then ICANN President/CEO Paul Twomey to ... read more ...

NameMedia Sued. It’s a Cost of Doing Business. - Company mad about having to pay for domain name. Files a lawsuit instead. NameMedia — the company behind BuyDomains and Afternic — has been sued by a small business that’s upset it needs to pay to get the domain name it wants. New World Solutions, Inc. filed suit (pdf) against NameMedia over the domain name NewWorldSolutions.com. The company claims to own a “copyright” for the “New World Solutions” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It has ... read more ...

For American Eagle, SeventySeven (.com) is an Unlucky Number - Popular clothing outlet finds Seventy-seven to be an unlucky number. A National Arbitration Forum panel has found that clothing retailer American Eagle is not entitled to the domain name SeventySeven.com, despite the domain owner showing clothing pay-per-click links on the domain name. Retail Royalty Company’s American Eagle stores have a clothing line with the 77 mark. The decision came down to whether or not the domain name owner should have known about American ... read more ...

Antigua & Barbuda Tells The US That Its Poker Crackdown Violates International Law - According to Reuters.com, Antigua and Barbuda officials accused the U.S. on Wednesday of violating international trade law with the indictment of the  alleged operators of three offshore-based Internet poker companies and the domain seizures. Both Antigua and Barbuda license Internet gambling companies. The Caribbean nation’s finance minister, Harold Lovell, issued a statement saying: “I am concerned that at this point in time United States authorities continue to prosecute nondomestic suppliers ... read more ...

World’s Shortest UDRP Decision? - This UDRP decision is missing a few details. I was curious about a recent National Arbitration Forum case for boston-opera-house.org and clicked over to read the opinion granting the domain name to Boston Opera House Ventures, L.L.C. The decision is exactly 185 words (about the size of my typical blog post) and seems to cut out everything between the parties to the last sentence or two of bad faith. A cut and paste job gone awry? Someone hit the delete key? I dunno, ... read more ...

Porsche Wins Rights to Cyrillic Script Internationalized Domain Name - Porsche wins dispute over IDN. Porsche has won a UDRP for the domain name порше.com, which is xn--e1arcf4b.com in punycode. The company claims that the internationalized domain name translates as “Porsche”. This case created some challenges for the panel. There have been numerous UDRP cases involving IDNs, but each panel needs to grapple with an arbitration system created before the use of IDNs. Facing this issue, the panel wrote: In this case, ... read more ...

Righthaven Gets Punked By Invalid Whois - “Copyright Troll” domain name suspended due to invalid whois information. Copyright enforcer Righthaven LLC has been punked thanks to allegedly invalid whois information. The company’s web site Righthaven.com currently shows an invalid whois notice from Go Daddy. Anyone can make a complaint about invalid whois information. In Go Daddy’s case, the company sends a notice to the customer and gives them time to respond (assuming the email doesn’t bounce right ... read more ...

.Jobs Foes Question ICANN Commitment to Contract Compliance - Group questions if ICANN’s compliance operations are up to the task with new TLDs on the horizon. JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition, made up mostly of job board operators, is calling into question ICANN’s commitment to contract compliance after ICANN gave a short reprieve to .jobs operator Employ Media. ICANN sent a breach notice to Employ Media in February, giving it 30 days to cure two major breaches. The first was what ICANN calls lax rules for registering ... read more ...

Breaking News: US Government Allows FullTiltPoker.com & PokerStars.com To Use The Domains To Allow Poker Players To Get A Refund - According to a Press Release from the US Attorney General (pdf) For the Southern District Of New York, the Government has reached an Agreement which will Restore the Use of Domain Names PokerStars.com and FullTiltPoker.com to Facilitate Return of U.S. Player Funds. “Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that the United States entered into domain-name use agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, two of three online poker companies ... read more ...

Stupid Domainer Of The Year Award: Domain Holder Loses Geo Domain, NewportNews.com & Made To Pay 80K In Damages & Attorney Fees - The 4th Circuit of Appeals  has just upheld the ruling of a lower court against the domain holder of NewportNews.com awarding the domain to the trademark holder . (pdf) Virtual City Vision is  the owner of the domain  NewportNews.com Of course there is a city by the name of Newport News and its in Virginia. There are also cities named Newport around the world, for which the domain Newport News would be relevant and fair use. The problem is there is also a clothing chain with the same name, Newport ... read more ...

Warner Bros Picks Up WizardofOzMovie.com Ahead of Remake - Movie studio gets key domain name for future Wizard of Oz remake. Turner Entertainment, owned by Warner Bros, has picked up the domain name WizardofOzMovie.com ahead of a planned remake of the 1939 classic Wizard of Oz. The domain name was owned by a Canadian man who had noted “this domain is for sale” in the whois record and listed it for $500 on Sedo. But Warner Bros didn’t end up paying the owner directly for the domain name name. It filed a UDRP at National ... read more ...

Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars Web Sites Are Coming Back - Poker domain names to be restored and open for business. Internet users will soon be able to access and play poker at popular poker sites FullTiltPoker.com and PokerStars.com soon. Last week the U.S. government had seized the domain names in response to alleged financial crimes by the companies to get around U.S. laws for receiving payments for gambling. The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the deal today (pdf), and said it would ... read more ...

Comparing a Toll Free Phone Numbers to Domain Names - AP sheds light on using toll free numbers to capture business. The Associated Press published a story this morning about companies that reserve mass quantities of toll free phone numbers, either to capture callers or sell them to businesses that might want to use them. On the surface this is very similar to domain names. You register a domain name, capture visitors looking for something related to it, and then sell the domain name to a business that wants to use ... read more ...