Tag Archives: legal

Mon 9th November 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Board to Consider “Expressions of Interest” for New TLDs during Dec Meeting - “Pre-application” topic to be on agenda at December meeting. The ICANN Board has instructed ICANN staff to prepare a report about accepting pre-applications or “expressions of interest” for new top level domain names. The board requested the staff to …study the potential impact of a call for formal “expressions of interest,” and provide a plan for Board consideration at ICANN’s next Board meeting, in December 2009. The plan should include possible ... read more ...
Sat 7th November 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Will “Halvarez” Face Criminal Charges? It Maybe Up To You - With all the news from Oversee.net  this week regarding the SnapNames bidding Scandal, It’s still is unclear whether Oversee has or will ever press criminal charges against Nelson Brady for his participation in the shill bidding scheme. It seems the domain community thinks that Oversee is the only party that can ask for criminal charge to be brought, however, in my opinion, Oversee is not the only party that can ask for criminal charges to be brought. Isn’t anyone who participated in an auction ... read more ...
Fri 6th November 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
After Winning Case, Man Hands Domain Name to Glenn Beck - Man gives controversial domain name to Beck after proving a point. Isaac Eiland-Hall just won a highly publicized case against Glenn Beck over the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com. As soon as he won, he did something surprising: he offered the domain name to Beck for free. In a letter (pdf) to Beck, Eiland-Hall explained that he has met his objectives with the domain name and web site, and points out to Beck that bringing the case made things ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Glenn Beck Loses Domain Dispute Over Meme Site - Glenn Beck loses challenge to parody web site. [Update: after winning the case, the domain owner has voluntarily given the domain to Beck and reopened the site elsewhere.] Conservative TV personality Glenn Beck has lost his dispute over the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com. (See Domain Owner Responds to Glenn Beck.) In order to win the domain name, Beck had to prove three things to an arbitrator: 1. The domain name was confusingly similar ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
IP Constituency Distances Itself from CADNA - Letter insinuates that CADNA does not take a balanced approach to intellectual property rights. The ICANN IP Constituency is distancing itself from the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA). In a letter to ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom, J. Scott Evans, President of the Intellectual Property Constituency, referred to a recent discussion in which CADNA was referred to as being a member of the constituency. During our presentation, Mike Silba made a reference to the ... read more ...
Thu 5th November 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Go Daddy Scores Victory to Benefit Domain Registrars and Internet Companies - Court dismisses case with prejudice over jurisdiction. Go Daddy Group has scored a legal victory involving jurisdiction, which should be a sigh of relief for other domain name registrars, parking companies, and even the internet industry as a whole. uBid sued Go Daddy for allegedly including domain names that included uBid’s trademarks in both parked domains and for sale in Go Daddy domain auctions. The court didn’t rule on the validity of uBid’s claims, but ... read more ...
Wed 4th November 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Google Steps Up Domain Name Arbitration Cases - Google steps up domain trademark enforcement for its brands. After many years of using domain arbitration as the last resort for picking up trademark domains, Google has gotten involved in the domain arbitration process in a big way this year. Either it is changing its trademark domain recapturing process or the number of AWOL trademark registrants is on the rise. When Google filed a case for GoogleAdwords.com last year, my question to Google was ‘what took you ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Atlanta.com Mistakenly Named in Domain Dispute - Atlanta.com included in UDRP by accident. My heart skipped a beat today when I saw that Atlanta.com had been served with a domain arbitration notice. But then I quickly figured out that this is some sort of clerical error. Automobile Atlanta, Inc. filed a case with National Arbitration Forum for six domains including automobileatlanta.com, autoatlanta.net, automobileatlanta.net, dr914.com, and lifeinhighgear.com. Oh yeah, and a minor domain name called Atlanta.com ... read more ...
Mon 2nd November 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
HomeAway.com Evicted in Domain Dispute - Vacation rental directory loses domain name dispute. HomeAway.com, Inc. has lost its domain dispute for HomeAwayFromHome.com against Frank Schilling’s Name Administration. Name Administration was defended by domain attorney John Berryhill. Name Administration bought the domain name for $1,400 in an expired domain name auction in 2005. HomeAway.com acquired the Home Away From Home trademark from another company in 2007. The arbitration panel at National Arbitration ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO to Offer Fast Track UDRP Without ICANN Approval? - WIPO plans to make fast-track UDRP on its own. Managing Intellectual Property published an article today saying World Intellectual Property Organization will offer a fast-track UDRP starting next year. No, this is not the proposed “Uniform Rapid Suspension”. And, according to the article, WIPO says it can introduce this “Fast Track” without any interaction from ICANN. How can WIPO do this? It plans to make changes to its supplemental UDRP rules. These are ... read more ...
Thu 29th October 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN May Consider Pre-Applications for New Top Level Domain Names - New TLD backers to propose plan for parallel processes. There are a lot of uncertainties about new top level domain names, including how many applications will actually be submitted and what they will be for. This affects a number of things — root scaling, trademark concerns, and geo TLD concerns. For example, if it turns out only 50 TLD applications will be received, root scaling might not be an issue. With that, it looks like the community of likely new TLD ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WalMart Goes After PeopleofWalMart.com Typo - Walmart files for domain arbitration, but not against the actual web site. Remember how a couple weeks ago I wondered how long it would be before Walmart would file a domain arbitration case against PeopleofWalmart.com? Well, there was an interesting twist today. Walmart filed a case, not against the actual PeopleofWalmart.com site, but against a typo of it: PeapleofWalmart.com (notice the a instead of o). It should be a slam dunk case for Walmart, given that ... read more ...
Wed 28th October 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Minds and Machines Settles Food Fight with Wolfgang Puck - Consulting company settles fight with Wolfgang and Gelila Puck. New top level domain name consultancy Minds + Machines has settled its lawsuit brought against restaurateur Wolfgang Puck and his wife Gelila. Minds + Machines, along with its parent company Top Level Domain Holdings and Frederick Krueger, sued the Pucks last month, alleging that Gelila Puck inserted herself into all of the plaintiff’s business dealings and that Wolfgang Puck had not upheld his end ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lawsuit Against Tucows Provides Glimpse Into Domain Theft - Lawsuit provides complete correspondence in alleged domain heist. A lawsuit against Tucows provides a rare, detailed glimpse into a possible domain theft. The suit was brought by Mrs. Jello, LLC against Tucows with regards to a domain name purchased by Mrs. Jello (MJ). MJ bought the domain name W9.com for $20,000 from someone purporting to be the owner of the domain name. MJ completed the transaction through Escrow.com and received the domain name. Several days ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Asks for Input on What Its Priorities Should Be - Fill out survey to (hopefully) shape ICANN priorities. ICANN has opened a survey listing a couple dozen priorities and asking stakeholders to rank each priority as Low, High, or Very High. Examples of priorities include: -The introduction of new top level domain names -Introduction of internationalized domain names -Security concerns and DNSSEC -ICANN complying/meeting Affirmation of Commitments -Compliance of existing contracts I’m not sure how seriously ICANN ... read more ...
Mon 26th October 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Most Important Domain Conference is Happening in Seoul - ICANN #36 kicks off in Seoul. Hundreds of domainers are gathering in New York this week for the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference. It should be a great time and good for business. But the conference that will have a bigger long term impact on domainers’ pocketbooks is going on some 7,000 miles away in Seoul, South Korea. That’s where ICANN is holding its 36th international meeting. A number of game-changing decisions will be influenced or decided at the meeting: -Registry/registrar ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
As Google Listen Launches, Domains Already Squatted - Squatters picked up Google Listen names many years ago. Google has launched a new music and audio servicecalled Google Listen, which was sometimes referred to as Google Audio as news about the launch leaked over the past couple days. Unfortunately for Google, relevant domain names have already been snatched up. GoogleListen.com was originally registered back in 2005. The owner let the domain expire in 2006, and then the new owner let the domain name expire earlier ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Kate Hudson Fights for Her Domain Name - Actress files for arbitration to get domain name. Actress Kate Hudson is fighting for the right to the domain name KateHudson.com. [Update: she won the case.] The actress, famous for roles in Almost Famous, You, Me and Dupree, and My Best Friend’s Girl (pictured), has filed for arbitration at National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name. The domain name is currently parked and shows links for “kate hudson pics”, “celebrity photos”, “kate hudson”, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Noss Calls Out WIPO during ICANN Meeting - WIPO’s inconsistency called out at ICANN meeting. Tucows CEO Elliot Noss seized an opportune moment to call out UDRP provider World Intellectual Property Organization during the first day of ICANN’s Seoul meetings. During a session on Post-Expiration Domain Name Recovery, WIPO’s Eun-Joo Min commented that one of the problems with domain expiration is that registrars handle it inconsistently and in a non-transparent manner: I think it is really important for ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New gTLD Timeline Slips, Frustration Boils Over in Seoul - Frustration, anger greets session on new top level domain names. In the opening session on new gTLDs at ICANN’s meeting in Seoul, frustrations boiled over after it became apparent the timeline for introduction of new top level domain names has slipped. Kurt Pritz, Senior Vice President at ICANN, led the session. The transcript tells an ugly tale. Pritz didn’t talk about specific dates, but basically said things would be slowed down to get it right. One example: The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Australian Company Wants .Com, Gets Nailed for Reverse Domain Hijacking - Web site company apparently doesn’t understand domain names. An Australian web site development company, Bwired Group Pty Ltd, has failed in its attempt to get the domain name Bwired.com through arbitration — and was found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. There are two interesting things about this case. First, it shows that companies can’t rely on their country code domain name alone — they still need .com. Bwired uses bwired.com.au as its domain. ... read more ...
Fri 23rd October 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bloomberg Loses Domain Name Dispute - Media giant loses case against small town real estate agent. Financial media company Bloomberg Finance has lost a domain name dispute with a small town real estate agent over the domain BloombergRealty.com. Bloomberg filed a case with National Arbitration Forum, arguing that the domain name BloombergRealty.com violated the media company’s trademark. The domain’s owner is Nancy Shulman, a real estate agent whose married surname was Bloomberg. Bloomberg Finance ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dow Jones Loses Marketwatch.net Domain Name Case - Second domain arbitration loss for financial media company today. Earlier today Domain Name Wire wrote about financial media company Bloomberg losing a domain name arbitration case for BloombergRealty.com. Apparently today isn’t a good day for financial media companies and domain names: Dow Jones just found itself on the losing end of a case for Marketwatch.net. Dow Jones runs the popular Marketwatch.com web site, which it launched in 1997. About a month after ... read more ...
Thu 22nd October 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Arkansas Company Spills Hot Coffee on Rival’s Domain Name Claims - Respondent in domain dispute successful against rival online coffee retailer. An Arkansas company has successfully defended a domain arbitration case brought against it by a rival online coffee retailer. Discount Coffee.com Inc. filed an arbitration case against WCM Investments of Arkansas, which operates Coffee.org. WCM had registered the domain names discount-coffee.net, discountcoffee.net, and discountedcoffee.com to drive traffic to Coffee.org, and DiscountCoffee.com ... read more ...
Wed 21st October 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Breaking News: British Court Refuses To Enforce Kentucky Domain Seizure Order - In a court ruling out of the UK, a British court has ruled against the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s attempt to seize gambling domains. As you will just over a year ago, before the TRAFFIC NY 2008 show, the the Commonwealth of Kentucky sent a seizure order to the registrars of 141 gambling domain names, demanding that those domains be forfeited to Kentucky.  The 141 domains ranged from parked domains, to some of the biggest gambling sites on the Internet. Pocket Kings Limited which owns the domain ... read more ...