It is ICANN's responsibility to make sure domain names do not infringe on trademarks. To determine infringement, ICANN should rely in the short term on predictive models. Thus, domain name and trademark owners must start putting pressure on ICANN to assume its trademark responsibility. more»
Legal trademark issues related to domain names will take a long time to resolve. Meanwhile, using a statistical model to determine infringement benefits all parties. The legal system has not yet established comprehensive and easy to understand rules under which a domain name is considered to infringe on a third party's trademark. The vacuum allows trademark owners and their agents, such as the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), to sue domain name owners pretty much at will, but doing so is not always in the best interest of trademark holders. more»
A registrar who also engages in domain tasting can inadvertently create ripple effects throughout the domain name industry. Thus, domain name owners must exert pressure on ICANN to reduce this risk. We are now experiencing ripple effects from the subprime market and its repercussions on related markets. ...there can be a problem when registrar functions and domain tasting are conducted by the same entity. Unmonitored coupling of seemingly unrelated markets can be devastating to our industry. more»
A triumph by the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) over tactics and legislation detrimental to domain name owners might end up being a case of winner's curse, a triumph bought at the expense of the industry. In picking this one battle to win, the association ignores a broader war, the range of issues our industry needs to address. more»
We'll only be able to tell whether domain names are recession proof by waiting for the performance of e-commerce sites during the holiday shopping season. Domain name owners and buyers have to remain in suspense a while longer. Some domainers are experiencing drops in sales and prices. However, it is not clear whether those drops are because of changes in valuations by buyers, sellers, or both. more»
Domain owners are bearing tremendous risk that someone else is better equipped to absorb. In this post, I outline the motivation of risk ownership, the sources of risk associated with owning a domain name, and the ways by which some of these risks have been transferred to institutions that are better equipped to handle them. I close by pointing out that we would be better served by having a trademark risk-management entity. more»
I first outline a brief history of free file-sharing technology, then draw some general and domain name lessons, then outline the what, how, and why that make your activism effective and necessary... The domain name industry is decentralized and atomic in that anyone from anywhere in the world can register a domain name, keep the ownershp name and address private, and host it from a country where the U.S. and European legal systems don't apply. Thus, legal action will only drive domain owners further underground. more»
ICANN recently commissioned a report from Power Auctions LLC to investigate the merits of auctioning new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). Below I outline some of the issues related to stakeholder interests and mechanism design... Successfully managing the design of an allocation mechanism for new TLDs will entail coordinating functions across various competencies. To rely on a standard auction mechanism for the allocations would be a historic setback for the domain name industry, as successful allocation design is all in the details. more»
What do iTunes and a cooperative domain-name Intellectual Property (IP) regime have in common? They are market solutions to illegal activity: free downloading of music and free use of brands in domain names, respectively. The music industry tried to fight the free downloading of copyright-protected music by taking legal action against free downloaders under the pretext that their activity siphons industry revenue... more»
Professional domain name appraisals have acquired a dubious reputation, and I understand the rational skepticism regarding their usefulness. In my recent paper, "Statistical Domain Name Appraisal: Same as What You're Doing, +/-," I try to demystify the statistical approach by pointing out its commonality with methods intuitively adopted by active domainers. It will also underscore some of the sources of skepticism toward various appraisal methodologies, and point out the advantages and limitations of statistical models. The paper concludes with a list of the conditions that can make a professional appraisal value adding, and with a plea for transparency. more»
David Kesmodel's to be released book The Domain Game, irrespective of how it is received, will undoubtedly catapult the industry into a new era: that of the neodomainers, the super crunchers. To analyze the impact of the book on the industry, let's look at stylized exchange scenarios featuring a domainer as intermediary (an intermediary in that he or she acquires from the seller and then hopes to resell to the buyer)... more»
Some domainers, having forgone parking revenue to avoid any claims of trademark violation, have then found themselves thrown into legal trouble with trademark claimants because of actions taken by a third party (ISPs and PC manufacturers). In addition to the resulting direct legal cost, the possibility of action by a third party heightens uncertainty and steals management's attention away from its real job. The troubles for the domain name owner start when a surfer who enters in the browser an inactive domain name is redirected to a Web page with advertising instead of getting a page that says there is an input error... more»
The essay expands a cooperative solution to third-party use of brands in domain names. Like any approach that depends on cooperation, the solution will require both sides to change behavior but also allow both sides to take credit for the resulting benefits, i.e. a triangular solution. If not immediately addressed, the problem of third-party use can become a major threat to the industry. But we already know one thing: when it comes to this issue, legal action and bullying don't work. more»
Typosquatting's negative effect on the surfing experience can be easily eliminated, and in a way that allows all parties to make money. What's called for is an affiliate program. You would not be happy if you typed a domain name into your browser and wound up in nowhere land because of a simple misspelling. That's the negative surfing effect of typosquatting... more»
There are two types of domain name appraisers, designated here as type "1" and type "0," with the former being appraisers who rely on a scientific approach. A large number of domain owners use the services of type "0" -- the nonscientific -- or do the appraisal themselves. Approaches used by scientific appraisers include regression-type statistical modeling, discounted cash-flow analysis, and reliance on the Law of Large Numbers. This post looks at some of the typical erroneous arguments against taking a statistical approach and provides an example from law... more»
One issue that a large number of domainers agree on is that domain tasting under the current ICANN-approved policy is bad for the industry. For one thing, a healthy portion of the practice involves trademark use that not only is illegal but also destroys value. Of course, particular segments of the domain name ecosystem can suffer value destruction because of tasting that doesn't infringe trademarks. But most criticism is directed, and rightly so, at tasting that raises trademark issues. Litigation over the trademark issues has done little to stop the practice and destroys value for trademark holders and domainers alike... more»
A new type of domain-name hijacking is being carried out unnoticed. It involves third-level domain-names associated with affiliate programs. If you had been an online affiliate of, say, company xyz.com, your affiliate Internet address could have looked like YourCompanyName.xyz.com. more»
