Tag Archives: legal

Thu 5th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Will Online Gambling Become Legal In The US? The “Internet Gambling … Act” Passes A House Committee - The Internet Gambling Regulation and Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act, HR 2267,  which would legalize online gambling in the United States, passed the House Committee on Financial Services last week. The committee voted in favor of the bill,  41-22 advancing the legislation to the House floor. The bill sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would effectively legalize online poker and online casino games such as blackjack, slots, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Zuccarini Threatens Latona’s and TRAFFIC Over Planned Auction - Court documents reveal that John Zuccarini has warned auctioneer and promoter of legal action if they go forward with auction. On Monday I wrote about a proposed court order to sell John Zuccarini’s remaining domain names at October’s TRAFFIC conference to settle tax liens and a judgment in a cybersquatting case brought by Office Depot. Now an attorney for the judgment creditor says that Zuccarini has contacted both Rick Latona and TRAFFIC organizers Rick Schwartz ... read more ...
Wed 4th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Advertise.com Wins Appeal Against AOL.com, Court Finds Advertising.com IS Generic - “””Advertise.com, appealed the district court’s entry of a preliminary injunction barring it from using a designation or trade name that is confusingly similar to Appellees’ (“AOL”) ADVERTISING.COM mark. The district court enjoined Advertise.com from using “any design mark or logo that is confusingly similar to the stylized forms of AOL’s ADVERTISING.COM marks” and from using the designation and trade name ADVERTISE.COM or any other name confusingly similar to ADVERTISING.COM. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
In AOL Advertising.com Case, Court Explains Perils of Generic Domain Names - Building a brand around a generic domain name may create trademark headaches. You usually find the real juicy stuff in a company’s annual report in the footnotes. That’s why I like to read every part of court cases, too. In the recent U.S. Court of Appeals case of Advertise.com vs. AOL Advertising (Advertising.com), the court noted the challenges of creating a brand around a descriptive and generic domain name in footnote 6: Somewhat incredibly, AOL attempts ... read more ...
Tue 3rd August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Newest Spam Hitting My Inbox: “Register A Trademark On Your New Domain Name Or Else” - The newest spam hitting my Inbox is coming from a company trying to get me to use them to register trademarks on domains I have registered: Here is how the email reads: “Dear Entrepreneur: “We are contacting you with the purpose of helping you avoid infringement problems with your new trademark or domain name!” “You might be starting a business, and as a responsible entrepreneur you should know whether the trademark you are using, or intend to use is identical or similar to trademarks already ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WSJ: Clock Ticking For VeriSign To Choose Legal Option: Chance To Appeal CFIT Ruling Expires On Oct 18th - Wall Street Journal (WSJ.com) published an article tonight on Verisign and the CFIT case pending against it. The article quotes Mark McLaughli, Chief Executive of Verisign saying that the company “has 90 days following the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ July 9 decision to decide whether it will request further appellate review … at the Supreme Court level, or have the case remanded for trial in district court.” The article goes on to quote Bret Fausett, the attorney representing the Coalition ... read more ...
Mon 2nd August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Panelist Blasts Credit Europe Bank for “Flagrant Abuse” of UDRP - Lawyer states that his client’s interests are more important than domain owner’s, so they should get the domain name. A World Intellectual Property Organization domain arbitration panelist has some harsh words for Credit Europe Bank and lawyer Novagraaf Nederland after it brought a case against the owner of CreditEurope.com. The registrant of CreditEurope.com got the domain name in 2003, several years before Credit Europe Bank started trading under the Credit ... read more ...
Fri 30th July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Who Didn’t Do Their Homework on .Co Launch? - Despite .co’s best efforts, cybersquatters pile on. Washington Business Journal published a story today about companies that didn’t register their .co domain name equivalent, and how cybersquatters snapped up a lot of these domain names. The story is somewhat amusing: Local businesses beaten to the punch by online speculators include sports teams, media companies and even tech-savvy federal contractors. “They didn’t do their homework,” said William ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Woman With World’s Smallest Waist Wins Cybersquatting Lawsuit - A domain name is a terrible thing to waist. Cathie Jung, who is in the Guinness Book of World Records as having “The Smallest Waist on a Living Person” at 15 inches, has won rights to the domain name CathieJung.com. Jung filed an Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act en rem (meaning it was against the domain name and not the registrant) case back in December 2009. Jung claimed that the domain name was registered by a corset designer. Indeed, it appears ... read more ...
Thu 29th July 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Trademark Typo Linkdin.com Sells For 22K during SnapNames.com - The trademark typo domain, Linkdin.com just sold on SnapNames.com today for $22,000. $22K There were 50 people in the auction but there were 10 active bidders (bidders that put in a bid above the minimum). Its amazing in this day and age there are so many people willing to pay this kind of money for a domain that would be taken in a UDRP if a complaint is filed. Yes I know the domain has traffic,  but its a bang on typo trademark domain with no other conceivable meaning. No Bueno. Google+Michael ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Hack DealsPl.us Loses Case for DealsPlus.com - Company tries to get “proper” version of its domain through UDRP but fails. I’ve argued many, many times that you shouldn’t create a web site at a “domain hack”, where the top level domain name is part of the keywords. Here’s just another example, courtesy of a decision at World Intellectual Property Organization. Sazze, Inc, which operates DealsPl.us, has lost a case brought against the owner of DealsPlus.com. DealsPl.us is a big web site, getting ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New UDRP Provider Applies to ICANN, UDRP Status Back on Agenda - UDRP on the docket for ICANN meeting next week. ICANN’s Board of Directors will again consider its contractual relationships with Uniform domain-name Dispute Resolution Policy providers at its August 5 meeting, as well as consent to post an application from an entity wishing to become a UDRP provider. The topic of contractual relationships with UDRP providers was on the April agenda but was tabled because the board ran out of time. It wasn’t on the agenda in ... read more ...
Wed 28th July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO Panelist Calls Juice Bar’s Assertions “Mystifying” - Juice bar wants .com, but will have to pay for it. A WIPO UDRP panelist has ruled against a juice bar called “Juicy Details”, calling the complainant’s assertions about bad faith registration of JuicyDetails.com “Mystifying”. Juicy Details, based in the Netherlands, filed the complaint against Another.com, which owns JuicyDetails.com. But the panelist thought Juicy Detail’s accusations didn’t add up: The Panel finds these assertions mystifying. From ... read more ...
Tue 27th July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Court Rules in BME.com Cybersquatting Case, Could Affect Domain Owners - BME.com case ruling could affect domain owners. A United States District Court ruling in a case between Gregory Ricks and BMEZine over the domain name BME.com has some interesting implications for domain name owners. (For background on the case, see Ricks Files Lawsuit to Retain Control of BME.com) Without getting into all the details of what was argued, here are some of the court’s decisions (large pdf) worth noting: 1. The court held that a re-registration of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
My Comments on Inter-Registrar Domain Transfers - Have you submitted comments about inter-registrar transfers? Earlier this month I made a call-to-action on an important comment period at ICANN. At issue is the “Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy Part B Initial Report”. Part of the report suggests a mechanism by which victims of domain thefts can regain control of their domains. But important safeguards must be in place to not disrupt the domain name aftermarket. Here are the comments I submitted to ICANN. You ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GM-Volt.com Getting Lots of Traffic, But is a Site Owner during Risk? - Even if you’re a company fan, resist the urge to use a trademark in your domain name. The GM Volt electric car is getting quite a bit of buzz lately, including this article in the New York Times. The article links to GM-Volt.com, which it notes is unaffiliated with GM. Compete.com shows that GM-Volt.com gets about 75,000 visits a month, which is nothing to sneeze at. It probably brings in a bit of revenue for the site owner, too, which is why I would never recommend ... read more ...
Mon 26th July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Fairwinds Reduces Assumption of CPC on TypoSquatting Sites, But Still $2.03 - Fairwinds updates faulty report, but it’s still laughable. Last month FairWinds Partners, the group behind CADNA, released a report suggesting that typosquatting costs the 250 most visited web sites $327 million a year. I immediately smelled something fishy about the biggest underlying assumption in the report: the average cost-per-click on ads on typosquatted domains was pegged at a lofty $2.74 per click. The report referenced a VeriSign report for its CPC value. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
After 3,000 Emails, No Consensus on Registry-Registrar Separation - Still no general consensus on registry-registrar separation for new TLDs. With names such as RACK+, “Free Trade”, and CAM3, you can be excused for confusing proposals for registry-registrar separation on new TLDs with exotic subprime mortgage bonds or off-balance sheet Enron subsidiaries. But these are names of three of the six proposals for integrating the traditionally separate roles of registrars (e.g. Go Daddy, eNom) and registries (e.g. VeriSign, Neustar) ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Think a Domain Renewal Scam is Bad? Check out MediaNetCom. - Company will help me protect my trademark by listing it on its low traffic web site for $1,117.00. One of the more frustrating and misleading domain name shenanigans is the fake renewal notice. This notice, often sent via postal mail and disguised as an invoice, gets unsuspecting businesses to pay to renew their domain name. At the same time, they are unknowingly consenting to transferring their domain to a new registrar. It’s bad. It’s misleading. It’s ... read more ...
Thu 22nd July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GrubHub Gets It All Backwards in Domain Dispute - A battle for foodies. Online food delivery portal GrubHub.com has lost a domain name dispute against the owner of HubGrub.com, with a National Arbitration Forum panelist finding against GrubHub.com on all counts. It’s an interesting case for a few reasons. First, it points out there might be confusion of word order when you use a two word domain name. This is something for entrepreneurs to think about; they might want to get both versions of their domain name. Second, ... read more ...
Wed 21st July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Music Initiative Says It Will Use Trademarks to Block Competitors - Andrew, You are right. I do not consider myself an insider. There are many reasons why. I have felt a bit excluded in many instances from the policy making or participation in things such as the Business Constituency. I was advised to join then was rejected on the basis of running a registry, which I have not yet. Other initiatives are part of the ICANN Business constituency, so why was I not allowed to join. Same with the Vertical Integration group. If I was such an insider I would ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
JPNIC Argues Companies Shouldn’t Be Able to Get Corporate Top Level Domain Names - Group says new TLDs aren’t meant for single brands that don’t offer second level domains to the public. One of the understood use cases for new top level domain names is a company creating .brand. Canon has already expressed its intentions to apply for .canon. But in comments by Japan Network Information Center, which provides allocation and registration services of IP addresses and AS numbers in Japan, says this clearly isn’t the purpose of new TLDs: The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Glass Company Files Trademark for Company Name as TLD .Schott - Company wants trademark for .Schott. German glass and component company Schott AG has filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for “.schott” for “Registration of domain names (legal services); management of domain names; renting or leasing of domain names; allocation of domain names; trading in domain names.” This is an interesting move that means one of two things: 1. The company plans to acquire its own top level domain name ... read more ...
Sun 18th July 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Ombudsman Fails to Hide Story About Air Canada Argument - ICANN Ombudsman tries to get name taken out of public record in air travel dispute. Earlier this year DNW wrote about ICANN Ombudsman Frank Fowlie and a complaint he filed against Air Canada. A Canadian Transportation Panel found that Fowlie “engaged in abusive and offensive behaviour” on the flight. Needless to say, the complaint made Fowlie look bad. After granting an interview to the Ottawa Citizen and the media attention that ensued, Fowlie tried to get ... read more ...
Sat 17th July 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Trefis.com: CFIT Case Will “Pummel Verisign’s Stock Value” as Domain Names Prices Go Down - In an article by stock analysis site,  Trefis,  which bills itself as a site that “helps you understand how company’s products impact its stock price“, said today that VeriSign “is on the verge of losing an antitrust lawsuit filed by Coalition For ICANN Transparency (CFIT), a non-profit organization that represents website owners.” “A CFIT victory would attract new players to the market, creating competition and forcing domain name prices down. While good for domain name owners, ... read more ...