FairSearch Tries to Ground Google’s gTLD Applications

March 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The FairSearch coalition has filed objections with ICANN over Google’s application to acquire generic top level domains.

gTLDs

gTLDs (photo – icann.org)

Google has filed applications for more than 100 generic domains. The FairSearch objections are specifically related to the fly, search and map domain applications.

FairSearch claims a monopoly on these generic terms would give Google an unfair advantage. The coalition includes companies that have had their clocks fairly cleaned by Google in the search marketplace.

One of the FairSearch members is Microsoft. Google’s application for the search domain could badly hurt Microsoft’s attempts to make inroads on Google’s search monopoly.

The billions spent on the Bing launch will go down the drain. Let’s not forget the cost of their search alliance with Yahoo. It created what is now known as the Yahoo! Bing Network.

Quite a few FairSearch members are from the travel industry. Expedia, TripAdvisor, Kayak and Hotwire are members. Google has been encroaching on their turf in the past few years.

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Their main complaint is about Google’s acquisition of ITA Software. This company’s travel booking solutions are indispensable. Google has released a number of travel products on its sites. Travelers can directly book from Google Search and Google Maps.

Google is also trying to get its hands on the fly and map generic domains. This would be one more nail in the coffin for online travel companies.

Google would get to decide who gets websites under these generic top level domains. Google could push map and search traffic to these sites. The rest would have to pay to play.

FairSearch also claims that Google would be able to access data on all websites under these generic domains. Competitors would be denied this access. This would give Google another unfair advantage over the competition.

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A Lawyer, the Pope and a Domain Name

March 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The title sounds like a lame joke, but this story about the newly minted Pope Francis and his soon-to-be domain name is no joke.

Pope Francis

Chicago lawyer Chris Connors represents whistleblowers in his legal practice. He purchased the domain popefrancis.com in 2010.

You can call it divine inspiration, but Connors bought the domain in the hope that Chicago Cardinal Francis George would someday be anointed as the Pope.

He was right about the next Pope being named Francis, except that this was another Francis.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the name he took was in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, who led a simple life helping the poor.

Let’s consider the odds that were stacked against a new Pope named Francis. This is the first ever Pope chosen from the Americas. Not to mention the fact that the name Francis had not been taken by any Pope in the last 2,000 years.

If Connors had decided based on these odds, he would rationally have concluded against buying the domain. But it was just a “couple of dollars” on GoDaddy, and he was motivated by the enticing prospect of hoping to see Chicago’s Cardinal become a Pope.

Connors has decided to hand over popefrancis.com to the Vatican, and is not asking for any compensation. This despite the fact that he was been contacted with offers for the domain.

Pope Francis related domains are selling like hot cakes, with Godaddy getting more than 100 “Papal” domain registrations in the first 10 minutes after the new Pope was named. Within an hour, the number of newly registered Pope Francis domains had jumped up to 479.

None of these hundreds of domains is going to attract anywhere close to the impact and publicity generated by Connors’ purchase. It shows that being first in line still counts in the domain business, coupled with a bit of luck and maybe some heavenly assistance.

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ICANN Announces Trademark Clearinghouse

February 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment

ICANN announced that it will be launching the Trademark Clearinghouse, a global repository of trademark data.

ICANN Trademark Clearinghouse

ICANN Trademark Clearinghouse

ICANN says it the clearinghouse is the first of its kind in the domain name sector.

Once the clearinghouse is launched on March 26, 2013, verified rights holders can avail of a collection of services that will protect their rights as the mark holder.

The TC operations will have two distinct functions. One side will handle the validation of trademark rights. Anyone who holds the rights to a trademark may submit their request online at trademark-clearinghouse.com. The submission will be verified by Deloitte Enterprise Risk Services.

The second part is the database administration, for which ICANN is working with IBM. The provision of data from this database to the gTLD registrars will be active sometime in 2013.

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There are quite a few advantages of having their mark entered into the TC. Rights holders will get access to sunrise registration. This means they get to register their marks as domain names before the same offer is made public.

Another advantage is that the rights holder will get notifications if a domain is registered matching the rights holder’s mark.

These services are a part of the required approval process for all the new gTLDs. If you want to learn more about the clearinghouse and how it has become a critical part of the verification and approval process for gTLD applications, Deloitte is holding a series of educational seminars in February and March. You can find these events listed on the TC website mentioned above.

One of these seminars is an online webinar on March 6, 2013. It will take you through an overview of the Clearinghouse project and clear all your doubts with a Q&A session. Last date for registration is March 5, 2013.

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Ron Paul vs. Ronpaul.com

February 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Former Rep. Ron Paul, a strident libertarian with a large fan following, is embroiled in a domain ownership controversy with owners of ronpaul.com.

Former Rep. Ron Paul

Former Rep. Ron Paul (photo – house.gov)

The site was launched back in May 2008 and has since become a resource and online community for Ron Paul’s followers.

Last month, Ron Paul expressed regret on the Alex Jones show at not owning ronpaul.com. As a result, the site’s owners decided to make him a couple of offers. One choice was to let them continue using the site, and take a free gift of ronpaul.org. Alternatively, they offered to sell the site and their 170,000 strong mailing list for $250,000.

Ron Paul’s response to this offer was to file a UDRP complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to gain control of both domains. Under normal circumstances, this would be an appropriate response.

However, the circumstances here are somewhat different. For starters, the fan site is dedicated to Ron Paul and has not been misused for other purposes that tarnish the brand. On the contrary, the site owners claim they have helped Ron Paul raise millions of dollars for his Presidential campaign and other activities.

Secondly, Ron Paul has been one of the leading critics of the UN. His fans are a bit put off that he went to WIPO, a UN agency, for arbitration.

The original post where the site owners went public about the complaint is no longer available on ronpaul.com. There have also been changes made to the ronpaul.org registration, indicating that some kind of settlement is in the works.

If they cannot agree on a solution, Ron Paul is likely to win the UDRP and get the domains transferred to his name. However, that would involve an implicit acceptance of the UN’s jurisdiction. Ron Paul has said previously that the choice is between following the UN constitution or submitting to “UN global governance.”

Filed Under: dispute resolution, domain dispute Tagged With: , ,

Domain Expert Kim Kardashian to Keynote Webfest Global

January 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The 2013 Webfest Global is scheduled to be held in Santa Monica, CA from Feb 5-7, 2013.

Webfest Global

Webfest Global (photo – webfestglobal.com)

Formerly known as DOMAINfest Global, the tradeshow says it offers “attendees an impressive roster of highly respected speakers.”

One of these respected speakers happens to be reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who is going to deliver the keynote. I think I would have preferred one of the godaddy girls over Ms. Kardashian.

Exactly what connection she has to the domain industry and how she qualifies for the keynote is a mystery. An even bigger mystery will be the subject matter of her speech.

It should be interesting to see how she manages to weave domains into her story. The official Webfest agenda says that Kardashian will “share stories about the challenges and strategies involved in building her brand and her empire via mainstream, social and mobile media.”

Consider it reality TV at its best, and watch it live to find out what happens next.

Apart from the Kim Kardashian show, the conference agenda includes live and online domain auctions by Moniker, and discussion panels on a variety of subjects that are of interest to domain buyers and sellers.

One panel will talk about the new gTLDs and IDN gTLDs, and highlight the risks and opportunities therein. Another one will discuss domain monetization options beyond parking.

There will be a workshop on how to negotiate a fair price for a domain. A panel on search engine optimization will discuss SEO best practices and strategies to avoid being bitten by the Panda and the Penguin updates. It will also discuss how to get over the negative impact of these updates.

The last day of the conference is mostly about mobile, with panels dedicated to acquiring and converting mobile users, and another discussion on mobile ad trends.

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Second Move Your Domain Day Raises $44K for EFF

January 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment

On Jan 22, 2013, Namecheap held its second annual “Move your Domain Day” with domain transfers at $3.99. Namecheap had announced that it would donate some
amount from each transfer to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Move Your Domain Day

Move Your Domain Day (photo – NameCheap/wikimedia)

They pledged to donate $1.50 per domain to EFF if more than 20,000 domains were transferred using the special coupon.

As it turns out, 29,541 domains were moved, so EFF will be getting $44,311.50.

The donation to the EFF has special significance because of the history of this event in support of internet freedom. It was held last year for the first
time as a form of protest against GoDaddy’s perceived support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA).

GoDaddy started back-pedaling on its support for SOPA after online protests began on reddit, but did not denounce the bill. The inspiration for “Move Your
Domain Day” likely goes to Wikipedia, which was the first major organization to announce that it was moving its domains out of GoDaddy.

The first Move Your Domain Day was held on Dec 29, 2011. Namecheap racked up 32,000 domain transfers with their coupon for the event. Name.com was another
participating, along with DreamHost and HostGator.

As GoDaddy started losing domains by the bucketload, they put out an announcement midway through the day explicitly denouncing SOPA.

Since it was so successful, Namecheap decided to make it an annual event to raise money for the EFF even though SOPA and PIPA are now dead and buried.

Shari Steele, executive director of EFF, said they are pleased to “to join Namecheap in celebrating digital rights within the greater the Internet
community.”

The Los Angeles, CA-based Namecheap was founded in 2000 by Richard Kirkendall. It now manages millions of domains and has 800,000 clients.

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Go Daddy Super Bowl Ad to Feature .CO Domain

December 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The Go Daddy Super Bowl ad is probably the domain industry’s best known and most widely seen ad campaign. For the third year running, Go Daddy has chosen to feature the same .CO domain in a 30 second ad that will feature NASCAR star Danica Patrick.

Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick

Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick (photo – emetsger/flickr)

Juan Diego Calle is the founder of .CO Internet SAS. He says that the ad is in a unique spot.

They get to share the message with more than 100 million people who will be tuning in to watch the commercials. Calle says the ad will inspire people to seize the moment and launch their big ideas online.

Their 2013 Super Bowl ad will revolve around the core message of how easy it is to start your own business online and use the internet for fast growth. The shooting for the commercial will be done by Deutsch NY in Los Angeles early next month.

The 2012 body paint advertisement drove a record amount of traffic to the GoDaddy.co website. Before that, Joan Rivers hogged the limelight as the surprise Go Daddy Girl. Domain registrations jumped a stunning 466 percent within fifteen minutes of the 2011 Super Bowl slot being aired.

Back in 2008, Go Daddy’s Super Bowl XLII ad campaign was very controversial. They had planned on airing an ad called Exposure. It featured Danica Patrick and animatronic beavers.

Fox refused to allow the ad to be broadcast, so Go Daddy created another ad. This ad directed viewers to go see the banned advertisement on the GoDaddy.com website. They scored 1.5 million visits to the website and a million views for the banned video before the game was over.

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God First in Line for New gTLD

December 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

God and the Internet both work in mysterious ways, and in this case they seem to be working together.

ICANN held a prioritization draw this week to decide the order in which they will expand generic top-level domains (gTLDs).

There are the 1,930 applications for gTLDs. Guess who came in first place in the draw? That would be God himself, represented in this earthly abode by the Vatican.

The Vatican’s application for the .catholic domain in Chinese characters came in first.
Was it a Christmas miracle or just coincidence? If it was God’s handiwork, it proves beyond any doubt that GOD is more powerful than GOOG.

Representatives of a huge number of applicants were on hand for the draw, but everyone from Google to Go Daddy, Apple and Amazon will now have to get in line behind the Vatican.

There is always the possibility that it was just a stroke of luck. If God wanted to fix the draw, he would have put the Vatican’s other applications on the fast-track too.

As it is, their applications for the .catholic domains in Arabic and Russian characters came in at the 25th and 96th spots respectively. Their main .catholic application for the same domain in Latin was way behind in 1,366th place.

If they want, the Vatican’s Chinese .catholic domain could be up and running in early 2013. Once they have all the language domains operational and are able to distribute addresses worldwide, it would be an easy way to determine which catholic institutions in the world are approved by the Vatican.

Any institution which has a .catholic address would necessarily have to be approved by the Vatican. They will not be making any money from it, but it provides the Vatican with a lot of digital fire power that is more valuable than hard cash.

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Rep Zoe Lofgren Crowdsourcing Domain Name Seizure Legislation

November 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

In other domain seizure news, U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA16) wants to introduce a bill in the United States Congress on regulating the process for domain name seizures for infringement. The kicker here is that Rep. Lofgren wants Reddit users to crowd source the legislative proposal.

U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA16)

U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (photo – house.gov)

Getting input from Reddit users as to what they would like to see in the bill is smart from many different angles.

She will actually get a lot of useful suggestions about what protections should be built into the process before the federal government is allowed to seize a domain for infringement.

Rep. Lofgren does say that while all suggestions will be considered, there is no guarantee that everything will find its way into the bill. The intended goal for the legislation is to make sure the government provides notice and an opportunity for website operators to defend themselves prior to seizing or redirecting their domain names.

She adds that the bill would focus on operators whose digital properties are being seized based on accusations of copyright infringement. The bill would not grant the same rights to domains being seized for libel or obscenity.

As of now, the Reddit thread has 118 comments. Suggestions include intimations to the site owner with a period for rectifying infringement problems before a seizure can be authorized. Some users also suggest penalties to be paid by complainants in case of false seizures.

For example, hip-hop music site Dajaz1.com was seized for copyright infringement and held by the federal government for 13 months as they tried to build a case. There was ultimately no evidence for a case, and the domain was returned back.

The current legal process only offers individuals a period of time to file a petition in federal court after the domain seizure. After this “Notice of Seizure” period, there is another “Notice of Forfeiture” period. If no federal petitions or claims are filed during these two periods, the domain automatically becomes the property of the U.S. government.

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132 Domain names Seized Under Project Cyber Monday 3

November 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE), in co-operation with law enforcement agencies from Belgium, Denmark, France, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the European Police Office (Europol), seized 132 domain names that were illegally selling counterfeit merchandise online to unsuspecting consumers on Cyber Monday.

IOS Project Cyber Monday 3 - Domain name sizures

IOS Project Cyber Monday 3 – Domain name sizures (photo – ice.gov)

The operation, named as Project Cyber Monday 3 and Project Transatlantic, was coordinated by the Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) in Washington, D.C.

The “3” in the project name is because this is the third year that the IPR Center has pushed for this operation on Cyber Monday.

There were 101 domain name seizures and one arrest in the United States under Project Cyber Monday 3. Europol and its European member states participated in the seizure of 31 country-level TLDs such as .eu, .be, .dk, .fr, .ro and .uk under Project Transatlantic.

The domain names seized are now in the custody of the relevant government. Anyone visiting one of these 132 seized domains will now see a banner at the top that informs them of the seizure and the nature of copyright infringement as a federal crime.

Apart from the domain names, officials also instigated the process of recovering more than $175,000 in payments received by the site owners.

The law enforcement agencies ran a sting operation wherein agents purchased goods from online retailers suspected of selling counterfeit items. Actual copyright holders of the purchased goods were contacted to verify the fakes or unauthorized sale. Federal magistrates were then requested to sign off on seizure of the domains concerned.

Project Cyber Monday 3 was part of the ongoing Operation In Our Sites (IOS) initiative which began in June 2010. Since then, 1,630 domain names have been seized, and the seizure banner put up on each of these domains has received 110 million page views.

Filed Under: domain dispute, legal Tagged With: , , ,
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