Nominet Releases Reverse Whois System - Nominet releases full version of reverse whois system. Nominet just released a full production version of what essentially amounts to a reverse whois tool for .uk domain names. [Update: the service has been around for a while but Nominet just released a new version, including similarity searching and email alerts.] Public Register Search Service lets users search for domain names registered by a particular legal entity and/or those of a similar name. This is very ... read more ...

Hey Bit.ly, What Do we Have to Say About .ly Domains Now? - Another example of the dangers of .ly domain names. Ever since unrest broke out in Libya Bit.ly has been saying they have no worries about their domain name. They point to the .ly caches outside of Libya. (.ly is the country code domain for Libya.) But as I’ve pointed out, they should be worried. Just because some of the root nameservers are located outside of Libya doesn’t mean .ly domain names are safe. Libya could decide to simply delete a particular registration. ... read more ...

IndianOil.com Beats Back A WIPO Challenge from Indian Oil Corporation Who Won A UDRP On IndianOil.Org In January - Back In January we wrote and criticized a WIPO decision handing the generic domain name IndianOil.Org to the Indian Oil Corporation Limited of New Delhi, India Back at the time we asked, knowing that the same company filed a UDRP against the com version , whether IndianOil.com would be next? Today we got an answer. No. In a three member panel WIPO decision entered today, the domain holder represented by Ari Goldberger, beat back a challenge by Indian Oil Corporation  on the domain name IndianOil.com On ... read more ...

Domain Registries Blast ICANN Over .Jobs Breach Notice - Registries ask for prior communications prior to sending a breach or termination notice. Last month ICANN sent a breach notice to .jobs registry Employ Media. This came as a surprise to Employ Media (for good reason) and probably freaked out some .jobs registrants as well. Employ Media complained that ICANN “publicly defamed” it. Now the Registries Stakeholder Group is asking ICANN to take a different approach going forward. The group sent a statement (pdf) ... read more ...

Is Cybersquatting Up or Just Enforcement of Cybersquatting? - WIPO’s headline is misleading. Today World Intellectual Property Forum (WIPO) did its annual release of how many UDRP cases it handled last year. It was a record 2,696 cases. That’s a lot of cases, and National Arbitration Forum also saw an increase in cases this year. But I take issue with WIPO’s headline: Cybersquatting Hits Record Level A more accurate headline would be Cybersquatting Enforcement Hits Record Level. It reminds me of when the border patrol ... read more ...

From A.com to Z.com, Single Letter .Com Domains Have Been Gamed during a Trademark Office - The incredible game of duping the USPTO to get single letter .com trademarks. Did you know Amazon.com has a registered trademark for A.com? It’s true. A company filed for a trademark on A.com back in 2005, and submitted evidence of its use in commerce by showing a screenshot of a-dotcom.com. The company later assigned the trademark to Amazon.com. This got me thinking — how many other companies have registered for single letter .com with the U.S. Patent and Trademark ... read more ...

Court Awards DigiMedia $100,000 for Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Domain investor and developer scores penalty against company that attempted reverse domain name hijacking. A judge has awarded Scott Day’s DigiMedia.com LP $103,717.66 stemming from a finding of reverse domain name hijacking against GoForIt Entertainment (pdf). GoForIt made an interesting claim against DigiMedia back in 2006. It filed a cyberpiracy lawsuit over a number of domain names, ranging from WebDesign.com to Recipes.com to Org.com. GoForIt’s argument? ... read more ...

EU Might Place Restrictions On Trademark Keyword Advertising - According to the New York Times an adviser to the highest European Union court recommended Thursday that some restrictions be placed on the rights of advertisers to use the names of rivals as keywords to generate sponsored links on Internet search engines.” The New York quotes Kirsten Gilbert, a partner at Marks Clerk Solicitors in London who said: “With this opinion, Google’s customers may well reconsider how extensively they want to use a competitor’s mark as an AdWord,” “The opinion ... read more ...

Trademark Office Again Rejects AOL’s Attempt To Trademark Ad.com - In yet another finding by the USPTO dated march 21st 2011, AOL.com application to trademark Ad.com was rejected. “In the present case, the proposed mark is generic because it consists of the generic term ‘AD” combined with the top level domain (TLD), “.com”, which is perceived by the public to indicate an Internet address. The compound term AD.COM is thus generic of the applicant’s services.  Therefore, the mark AD.COM is unregistrable on the Supplemental Register or on the Principal ... read more ...

Apple Starts Enforcing Its “App Store” Trademark Against Amazon & Adult App Site Even Though Microsoft Is Appealing The Trademark - Apple seems to have gone on the offensive to defend it App Store trademark, although the mark has not been approved and actually has a pending objection from Microsoft. According to Bloomberg.com,  Apple Inc. filed suit against Amazon.com, “saying the online retailer is using Apple’s “App Store” trademark to sell software applications for mobile devices.” The case is Apple Inc. v. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), 11-1327, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. “Apple, ... read more ...

India May Try to Block .XXX - Government may block access to .xxx. India’s government will block access to the .xxx top level domain name, according to an article in The Economic Times. A senior official at the ministry of IT said that the domain goes against the country’s IT Act and Indian laws. Other countries will certainly block the top level domain name, but this shouldn’t worry adult site operators. After all, many countries currently filter the web sites accessible within their borders. ... read more ...

Tim Gordon Can Keep Gordons.com Despite Jeweler’s Complaint - Jewelry giant goes after guy’s last name. Tim Gordon registered Gordons.com back in 1995. It was an obvious domain name for him given his family’s last name. But in 2011, more than 15 years after he registered the domain name, a Zale Corporation subsidiary that runs Gordon’s Jewelers filed a complaint with National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name. Tim Gordon just won the case. The single person panel ruled that Gordon has rights or legitimate interests ... read more ...

PokerStrategy.com Gets Flushed in Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Case - Poker site nailed for reverse domain name hijacking. PokerStrategy.com operator Anachusa Ltd. has lost a UDRP for five clear typos of PokerStrategy.com. Not only that, but a three person panel also found the company guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. So how does the owner of PokerStrategy.com lose a case for pokersrategy.com; pokerstategy.com; pokerstratgy.com; pokerstrtegy.com and pokrstrategy.com? It attempts to mislead the UDRP panel. Anachusa Ltd. acquired ... read more ...

ICANN Plans to Vote on Final New TLD Guidebook in June - New TLD approval won’t come until June at the earliest. Today the ICANN Board of Directors provided a timeline for approving the new top level domain applicant guidebook. The new planned date for “board consideration” of the guidebook is June 20 at the Singapore meeting. Here’s the timeline: -Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) feedback is expected by March 25. -The final GAC scorecard for constituency comment is expected by April 15 with a public comment ... read more ...

ICANN Approves New .XXX Top Level Domain - ICANN Board approves new .xxx domain name. Today the ICANN Board of Directors authorized the CEO of ICANN to execute the proposed registry agreement for the .xxx sTLD with ICM Registry. ICANN’s Board of Directors didn’t agree with GAC advice on the issue. It’s unclear if Free Speech Coalition will file a lawsuit in an effort to block the implementation. They mustered only a couple dozen protesters yesterday at the ICANN meeting. At least two board members recused ... read more ...

French Open Is Latest To Win .Co Domain Name - French Open organizer awarded domain name by arbitration panel. Fedération Française du Tennis (FFT), organizer of the Grand Slam tournament French Internationals of Roland Garros (French Open), is the latest group to win a .co domain name through a UDRP case. This was an easy case for the tennis organization. The registrant of the domain name sent an email to the Federation that read: Bonjour, I own the domain frenchopen.co, which I recently bought when the ... read more ...

25 Adult Webmasters Protest .XXX during ICANN Meeting - Adult site owners protest at ICANN meeting. About 25 adult webmasters — and one homeless guy who’s been hanging out outside the ICANN meeting all week — joined together to protest the .XXX top level domain name this afternoon in San Francisco. The protest was organized by Free Speech Coalition. Protesters held signs with .XXX inside a ‘no’ symbol and chanted various slogans against the approval of the domain name. Among their complaints: they’ll have to ... read more ...

For New TLDs, a Last 10% is a Hardest - The home stretch is always a long stretch. It’s been a while since I’ve moved, but in the late 90s/early 00s I moved from dorm to dorm to several apartments. There’s one thing (other than a sore back) that I remember from all of these moves: the last 10% is the hardest. Just when I thought I was 90% done moving my stuff, I’d find that the last 10% remaining in my apartment was actually a lot more than I thought. Maybe I left some of the difficult stuff for ... read more ...

Verizon Sues Above.com and Serves it During DOMAINfest - Company sued over trademark domain names; served during DOMAINfest. Verizon has filed a federal lawsuit against Above.com, parent company Trellian, and some of the company’s key employees (pdf). Trellian offers a number of keyword and SEO tools. Above.com is best known to the domain name industry for split testing parked domain traffic. It also has an ICANN-accredited domain registrar. The suit alleges that the defendants use a number of false identities to traffic ... read more ...