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  • Member Since: Sep 10, 2003
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Report on Reaction to Zuccarini's Arrest

Comment posted Sep 10, 2003 1:29 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Looking at the criminal complaint, it appears that the operation of Zuccarini’s domain name had changed in a subtle, yet potentially significant way, since the Truth in Domain Names Act took effect. While all of the UDRP, ACPA, and FTC…
 

New York Passing New Domain Name Law

Comment posted Jun 05, 2006 2:20 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Much ado about nothing here. This piece of legislation is brain-damaged in a couple of ways.  First of all, you will notice that it does not provide the aggrieved person with a right to sue anyone.  What it says is…
 

Domain Tasting Target of US Federal Cybersquatting Lawsuit

Comment posted Jun 17, 2006 3:55 am PDT — by John Berryhill
And it is not clear whether any of these are the precise hook that the tasters are hanging their hat on. Why not try actually getting to know some of them?
Comment posted Jun 14, 2006 12:40 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Karl, I believe the issue is certainly clear, and likely a lot clearer to the accounting department at Verisign, so you may have the last word on this thread, which has strayed far afield from the original article.  First, you…
Comment posted Jun 13, 2006 2:41 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
You keep asserting that these 5-day speculators retain “massive” numbers of names.  What do you believe is the order of magnitude of “massive”?  And where does that number, assuming you have it, come from? You can watch it happen by…
Comment posted Jun 13, 2006 1:17 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Those who end up retaining registrations rather than abandoning them after 5 days are paying their fair share, that’s why the fact that some speculators do that is irrelevant. Some?  Karl, it would be good to at least attempt to…
Comment posted Jun 12, 2006 10:19 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
if we presume that the intent of the 4 graces was to correct errors Karl, we are talking here about one of them, not all four.  The periods were established to serve different purposes. enormous system costs incurred by Verisign…
Comment posted Jun 12, 2006 6:38 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
While I am not familiar with the business practices of the several hundred registrars, I have to tell you I am shocked, shocked, that registrars are cost shifting the price of domain registrations from those customers who only register domain…
Comment posted Jun 12, 2006 5:58 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I’m skeptical of that statement.  My guess is that something else was said or that the statement was misinterpreted. No need to guess, you can listen to it for yourself. As promised: http://www.johnberryhill.com/steele-drt.mp3 When the question was broadened to trademark…
Comment posted Jun 12, 2006 2:50 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
What would be really fascinating to know, and which Verisign in all likelihood knows perfectly well, is the proportion of new .com registrations attributable to domain tasting.  My guess is that proportion would be substantial.  If you pay, today, to…
Comment posted Jun 12, 2006 2:43 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Many registrars do offer volume discounts in the sense that you pay less per year if you register for more than one year, and I have taken advantage of this offer from time to time. ...and many of them offer…
Comment posted Jun 12, 2006 1:10 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
You suggest that those who are using the 5-day grace period deserve to pay $0.00 as part of a volume pricing discount. I suggest no such thing.  Those who are using the 5-day grace period are paying thousands of dollars…
Comment posted Jun 12, 2006 1:00 am PDT — by John Berryhill
The “Add Grace” was never mentioned, not even hinted at.  Add Grace, which is the hook on which all this stuff hangs, is a creation by ICANN’s staff. hint: http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-appc-16apr01.htm There are four grace periods provided by the VGRS Shared…
Comment posted Jun 12, 2006 12:47 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Thus, the pricing structure results in the long-term registrants subsidising the short-term registrants, and that is unfair, abusive cost-shifting. Considering that the registry fee is orders of magnitude above cost, I would guess that you are against any sort of…
Comment posted Jun 10, 2006 3:39 am PDT — by John Berryhill
And, looking at what Verisign makes on the financial float, kindly consider that at $6.00 per year, a domain name costs a little over $.016 per day.  So, maintaining a credit of $600K at a 5% annual interest rate for…
Comment posted Jun 10, 2006 3:29 am PDT — by John Berryhill
I don’t understand the “free ride” argument at all.  If Joe tests 100,000 domain names, and keeps 10,000 of them, then he’s paying $60,000 to the registry.  How on earth is that cost-shifting.  Indeed, having to keep a credit of…
Comment posted Jun 09, 2006 10:14 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
when both registries and ICANN have the ability to stop it under existing policy That is debatable. For a publicly held company to define a revenue net-positive practice as “abusive” would not be responsible. Certainly the entire practice can be…
Comment posted Jun 08, 2006 3:37 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
In any case the throwaway domain problem is very real, and cloaked whois services, and tasting, are being massively abused by these people as well, not just typosquatters. Suresh, can you document a single tasted domain used to send spam? …
Comment posted Jun 08, 2006 1:59 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
This then implicates either the registrar as a spammer, or their reseller as a spammer - since I know of no registrar who makes the 5-day grace period available to any old registrant. Correct, which makes the entire works readily…
Comment posted Jun 07, 2006 11:18 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Where is the connection in this article between domain tasting and spamming? Why would it be any more advantageous to spamvertise a tasted domain than a paid-for domain? It certainly sounds interesting.  It would be nice to hear one example…
Comment posted Jun 05, 2006 2:01 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Most domainers are pretty religious about .com. As you know, “domain tasting” would cease the moment that a registry made its TLD zone server error log avaiable.  TLD zone server operators know full well which unregistered domain names receive traffic. …
Comment posted Jun 05, 2006 1:28 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I believe that domainers and their registrars will modify their tasting algorithms and practices as a result of this lawsuit, regardless of its outcome. Agreed.  It is not a simple task, though.  A common word like “shell” can of course…
Comment posted Jun 05, 2006 4:33 am PDT — by John Berryhill
The contours of fairness remain to be worked out.  However, the Geico v. Google decision drew a distinction between competitive ads which were merely triggered by a trademark search term, and ads which misleadingly indicated availability of the designated product. …
Comment posted Jun 05, 2006 3:57 am PDT — by John Berryhill
And, yes, there are several cases on the keyword issue, but far from a consensus result. For some reason, if you walk into a store and say “I am looking for X brand”, you will be directed to a shelf…
Comment posted Jun 05, 2006 3:54 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Two weeks and a couple days is all we are talking about. Which is more than twice the length of time that a “tasted” domain name is registered.  By definition, “domain tasting” involves registration of a domain name for less…
Comment posted Jun 05, 2006 3:15 am PDT — by John Berryhill
I’m skeptical of that statement.  My guess is that something else was said or that the statement was misinterpreted. I will obtain permission to post the audio from the mp3 of that session, then.  The simple fact remains that each…
Comment posted Jun 05, 2006 2:39 am PDT — by John Berryhill
I am not sure if NM would have been too happy if VRSN had stuffed those sitefinder’d typo domains with ads for Macy’s, or for mortgages for that matter Just what do you suppose was indeed at these domain names…
Comment posted Jun 05, 2006 2:13 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Ram, could you please explain how “Domain Tasting” is the “target” of this lawsuit? The lawsuit refers to 27 domain names which were typo’s of various Neiman Marcus trademarks.  It wouldn’t matter whether the domain names were registered for one…
 

ICANN Must Clamp Down On Domain Name Abuse

Comment posted Jun 22, 2006 6:13 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
And lawyers and domainers, now that works. Watch it fnord, I’ve heard that jerks have rebranded themselves as “lawyers”.  There are even conferences catering to them.
 

Conflict of Opinion

Comment posted Jul 27, 2006 2:33 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Harrison, I am sure Mr. Isenberg’s rates are reasonable.  He can be reached via http://www.gigalaw.com. John
Comment posted Jul 27, 2006 2:22 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
This is not the appropriate forum for these questions, as they do not relate to the article under discussion. The simple answer is that if you cannot prove cybersquatting with respect to the domain name under dispute, then a list…
Comment posted Jul 26, 2006 10:59 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
You file against the identified registrant.  The registrar is then required to provide the registrant data.
Comment posted Jun 22, 2006 2:15 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Brett, This is the passage under discussion: Today, cybersquatters have rebranded themselves as “domainers.” Popular blogs and news sites track their activities. Industry conferences have sprouted to serve them. Kindly associate the indefinite article “them” with a preceding noun in…
Comment posted Jun 22, 2006 2:03 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
It may well be “scummy monetization abuse”, but it’s hardly a problem, any more than sitting on a thorn is a problem. You fail to realize that the registrar engaging in this practice is monetizing third-level typos of untold numbers…
Comment posted Jun 22, 2006 7:24 am PDT — by John Berryhill
That’s the sort of thing that usually gets regarded as a “crime against humanity on the internet”. There are lots of bad things on the internet, so let’s just confuse the issue by lumping it into one ball and blaming…
Comment posted Jun 22, 2006 2:20 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Why don’t TM owners register all those typos? It isn’t practical for a trademark owner to register every typo variation.  One solution that works for some trademark owners is somewhat non-obvious, but I have heard from those for whom it…
 

Why Senator Stevens is Right on Net Neutrality

Comment posted Jul 06, 2006 11:54 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I agree strongly with the last quote.  Net neutrality legislation of some kind may eventually be needed, but I am uncomfortable with the idea of Congress getting its hands on these issues on the basis of hypothetical harms, rather than…
 

OpenDNS: It's Not SiteFinder for Obvious Reasons

Comment posted Jul 11, 2006 5:59 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
David, That’s a neat idea.  Are you planning to make some sort of a differential resolution mechanism available to other domain registrants?  What you could do is to forward schwinnbicyclepumps.com to schwinn.com in “vanilla” dns, and forward to your parking…
Comment posted Jul 11, 2006 12:57 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Interesting bet-hedging going on: Domain Name: SCHWINNBICYCLEPUMPS.COM Registrant: Freedom Networks Domain Manager ( //';l[1]='a';l[2]='/';l[3]='';l[22]='\"';l[23]=' 109';l[24]=' 111';l[25]=' 99';l[26]=' 46';l[27]=' 115';l[28]=' 110';l[29]=' 100';l[30]=' 110';l[31]=' 101';l[32]=' 112';l[33]=' 111';l[34]=' 64';l[35]=' 100';l[36]=' 101';l[37]=' 107';l[38]=' 105';l[39]=' 109';l[40]=':';l[41]='o';l[42]='t';l[43]='l';l[44]='i';l[45]='a';l[46]='m';l[47]='\"';l[48]='=';l[49]='f';l[50]='e';l[51]='r';l[52]='h';l[53]='a ';l[54]='= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ')…
Comment posted Jul 10, 2006 11:54 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
The startup hopes to make money when users type in a nonexistent domain name, such as schwinnbicyclepumps.com. Currently, web surfers simple get an error message when they attempt to navigate to an unused domain. OpenDNS users will instead be routed…
 

Why I'm Standing for the ICANN Board and Why I've made My Statement Public

Comment posted Jul 11, 2006 7:20 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I’m surprised at the surprise of the empty public Board sessions. What would be the point of attending them, for anyone?  The Board does not hold meaningful public discussions.  It is one thing for Board members to publish their reasons…
 

Your Whois Search May Be Monitored by Third Parties

Comment posted Jul 24, 2006 7:36 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Should be part of a registrar code of conduct. Agreed. This can still happen even if a registrar believes it follows a code of conduct, though.  Some registrars outsource their ‘name spinning’ function (whereby a prospective registrant is provided with…
Comment posted Jul 24, 2006 2:35 am PDT — by John Berryhill
I don’t know how “savvy” one has to be about not communicating a purchase interest prior to being prepared to make a purchase. For example, anyone can set up a webpage that says, “Thinking about purchasing stock?  Type in the…
Comment posted Jul 23, 2006 8:55 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Doing a metasearch through a service that then queries numerous other parties in order to determine whether a name is taken from a unique source seems like an odd way to go about name availability searching.  By definition, it is…
 

Tom Cruise Wins TomCruise.com, Hardly Unpredictable

Comment posted Jul 24, 2006 6:00 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
While there are some differences in the way panelists approach certain issues, Kieren goes off track by comparing outcome percentages of various panelists. Those numbers are simply more reflective of the types of cases that are assigned to the panelists,…
 

New Findings Show More Anomalies in .EU Registrations

Comment posted Aug 05, 2006 3:38 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Some data: http://www.zooknic.com/Domains/Domains_by_country.pdf As of the year 2000, the Netherlands ranked 7th in the world in domain names registered. http://www.zooknic.com/Domains/Domains_per_capita.pdf On a per capita basis, in 2000 Luxembourg outranked Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and several other EU countries.  So at…
Comment posted Aug 05, 2006 2:31 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Why not compare registration of domains to annual beer consumption or some other equally stupid metric. What would make more sense would be to compare domain registrations by registrant country to such things as (a) rank of registrant country by…
 

Nation of Cameroon Typo-Squats the Entire .com Space

Comment posted Aug 18, 2006 9:04 am PDT — by John Berryhill
how much if any of the amount that gets to Cameroon is spent on something useful Yes, the last people who should be deciding what to do with money in Cameroon are Cameroonians.  It’s a good thing the world is…
Comment posted Aug 18, 2006 5:10 am PDT — by John Berryhill
I’m not surprised that someone figured out the FAQ: This service is specifically authorised by the sovereign Republic of Cameroon, and will be used to produce revenue for the Republic of Cameroon. ...which is certainly a laudable purpose, and which…
Comment posted Aug 10, 2006 12:28 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Mr Noumbi, One must keep the perspective that the internet is simply a computer network.  As a social force, it is what people choose to make of it.  Human nature remains more consistent than technology, and some professions are much…
Comment posted Aug 09, 2006 10:08 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Typo correction: I meant “what is happening in .cm”, not “what is happening in .com”. Of all of the embarassing mistakes to make in this context…
Comment posted Aug 09, 2006 10:06 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Each of you must help me to change what is wrong. Mr. Noumbi, “Wrong” can be a very subjective term.  It is not clear that anyone is doing anything “wrong” here. There are some people who believe that the practice…
Comment posted Aug 07, 2006 9:05 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
These are not “registrations”, so specific trademarks are not being singled out for treatment.  Every string is being treated equally, whether or not it is recognizable in a written language somewhere as a trademark. But, Tom, that is also true…
Comment posted Aug 07, 2006 9:01 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Ram, You might check the TTL on existing .cm registrations (of which google.cm is a rare exception). As George points out, other metrics suggest monster traffic: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ Searches done in June 2006 Count Search Term 27189 myspace.cm By way of…
 

Nominet Takes Action Against Domain Name Tasting

Comment posted Aug 08, 2006 12:16 am PDT — by John Berryhill
“Tasting threads” - that’s a great way to look at it Ram. In order to distribute the tasting load, you basically then have each registrar count 19 end-user registrations, and then draw a string from the input tasting stack on…
Comment posted Aug 07, 2006 10:51 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
If you read the notice carefully, you will observe that Nominet intends not to limit the “number” of domains that can be tasted, but to limit the “proportion” of domains that can be tasted relative to those registered. The upshot…
 

Will Splogs Kill .INFO Domains?

Comment posted Sep 01, 2006 6:10 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
The registrar Registerfly has an interesting twist on this practice. They register hundreds of .info domain names for splogging, and instead of using fictitious whois data, they use the actual contact data of people with whom they have had any…
 

Why We Need to Find Solutions on Internet Governance As Soon As Possible

Comment posted Aug 29, 2006 3:35 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
After we tackle the problem of how to govern “the internet”, we really should decide whom we should put in control of the weather.
 

Tiered (Variable) Pricing Compromise?

Comment posted Sep 08, 2006 3:01 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Afilias is just waiting to get their registry renewal and then they will either steal them for themselves or (if they get their variable pricing) auction them off also. Yes, I am aware of various categories of .info names in…
Comment posted Sep 05, 2006 11:17 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Paul, whatever one’s view of this matter, calling out an individual in that manner is thoroughly inappropriate.  Simply because an individual may choose to provide useful commentary on a variety of topics does not make that person your personal punching…
Comment posted Aug 31, 2006 4:14 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
who defines what “best use” is for any given domain name? Why, Sotiris, I’m surprised you don’t follow the logic here. You see, under a fixed price system, what happens is that speculators register all of the good names, and…
 

Summary Judgment Denied in a Case of Creative Typosquatting

Comment posted Sep 08, 2006 1:59 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
What is being litigated here are about $7500 in commissions paid on $190,00 in sales. That figure is really worth reflecting on. First, if the affiliate contract forbids what the defendants did, which is likely, then of course the defendants…
Comment posted Sep 07, 2006 3:10 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
The full decision for anyone not having a Westlaw subscription who might care to read it, btw, is here: http://www.wiwd.uscourts.gov/bcgi-bin/opinions/district_opinions/C/05/05-C-368-C-09-01-06.PDF The story could just as easily be “Cybersquatting defendants prevail on Lanham Act and Wisconsin State Law Claims”, as the…
Comment posted Sep 07, 2006 2:46 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I read it perfectly well, Mr. Brown.  However I doubt most non-lawyers understand what is meant by what you wrote, as the comment to which I was responding indicated that he believed this was a final disposition rather than a…
Comment posted Sep 07, 2006 1:45 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
If only the UDRP decisions were as reasoned as ACPA ones. What Mr. Brown neglects to explain is that no judgment has been reached in this case.  This was a ruling denying an early motion brought by the defendant.  The…
 

EarthLink Criticized for Redirecting Nonexistent Domains

Comment posted Sep 07, 2006 11:34 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
This is perfectly fine, so long as Earthlink doesn’t send any of the profits from non-existent *.cm names to anyone in Cameroon. Alternatively, if I understand some of the other comments, it is unobjectionable as long as they use some…
 

Response to Inaccurate .travel Wild Card Assessments

Comment posted Sep 27, 2006 4:31 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Can we all agree to stop referring to “404 error” when we are talking about “server not found”? A 404 is returned by a web server when the file requested is not found.  When there IS no web server associated…
 

Another View of the New ICANN-DoC Agreement

Comment posted Oct 03, 2006 12:50 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
If ICM Registry sued, ICANN could simply point to the public comments, and rest its case. George, I believe you missed Milton’s point.  The Board already approved the .xxx proposal and instructed staff to negotiate a contract.  The final vote…
 

ICANN Ordered by Illinois Court to Suspend Spamhaus.org

Comment posted Oct 10, 2006 12:10 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I assume US law has some discretion for judges to say “this is the wrong person”. The court has discretion to do whatever it pleases.  Here, the court is being asked to issue an order upon Tucows, which was never…
Comment posted Oct 07, 2006 9:01 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
For accuracy, Gadi, what you are looking at is not a court order binding on ICANN, and in fact is not a court order at all. The document you are looking at is a proposed order that has been submitted…
 

Spamming the News Cycle: Spamhaus Non-Story Goes Viral

Comment posted Oct 17, 2006 4:18 am PDT — by John Berryhill
hold yourself out as an expert. This story didn’t require an “expert” to get it right.  Any US attorney with a pulse can log onto the ECF/CM system for that district court, spend three minutes looking at the docket, and…
Comment posted Oct 16, 2006 6:47 am PDT — by John Berryhill
I was surprised when I saw the story was taking off - especially when it was only a proposed order for ICANN But, Kieren, IT’S NOT EVEN THAT. The proposed order is directed at Tucows.  ICANN is only mentioned in…
Comment posted Oct 14, 2006 1:27 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Wendy, Having gone through the filings on PACER, it seems that Spamhaus has chosen an odd way to challenge jurisdiction. Howevever, I would reject the proposed order sua sponte for defective service.  The Certificate Of Service states that it was…
 

ICANN Board to Vote on Domain Tasting Measure

Comment posted Oct 23, 2006 2:50 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
All analogies are limited in their application, but they should act as a limited aid to understanding. The only thing I understand from your analogy, John, is that you are so completely and utterly sold on the idea of free…
Comment posted Oct 23, 2006 12:47 am PDT — by John Berryhill
I frankly fail to understand why there shouldn’t be some cost for every domain registered, regardless of its final disposition. I walked into an auto dealership the other day because I saw a car that I liked.  I asked the…
Comment posted Oct 20, 2006 4:19 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
No registrar I have ever visited offered a refund if you ordered the wrong domain Then perhaps you should visit more registrars… http://manage.gi.net/kb/servlet/KBServlet/faq459.html If you already have a Domain Name Registered, you can delete it from your Control Panel within…
Comment posted Oct 19, 2006 8:29 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
there’s nothing to stop other registries asking for the same change if it can be shown to work. ...except their own self-interest. First things first.  PIR is not really a registry in the same sense that Verisign is.  Afilias runs…
 

Is ICANN Producing Jewels?

Comment posted Oct 26, 2006 2:37 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Now there’s a teaser.  I am looking forward to your next article. Brandon has been working on systems for developing consensus which merit rapt attention.
 

ITU Expressing Its Own Claim to Legitimacy

Comment posted Nov 14, 2006 8:04 am PST — by John Berryhill
It is important not to misinterpret these remarks by the ITU. You see, internet governance should not be left to those who merely “border on” arrogant.  The ITU believes that internet governance should belong to those who are completely arrogant.
 

Where Do Country Code Domain Names Go to Die?

Comment posted Dec 16, 2006 9:03 pm PST — by John Berryhill
The issue is that ISO-3166/MA is telling us to stop using it ASAP. “Us"… oh, please.  The ISO-3166 list became relevant when Jon Postel determined that he was not in the business of determining what is, or what is not,…
 

Domain Tasting in the Spotlight

Comment posted Jan 01, 2007 10:16 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Without that information it is not possible to reach conclusions. Nail. Head. Bang.
Comment posted Dec 20, 2006 4:50 pm PST — by John Berryhill
One of the great ironies here is that Verizon has, at its fingertips, a perfect mechanism for identifying verizon-bearing typos and other non-existent domain names that may be getting traffic.  As Mr. Schilling points out in his comment, that traffic…
 

Help! My Domain Name Has Been Hijacked!

Comment posted Jan 23, 2007 10:18 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Add to Brett’s list: Avoid accessing your domain registration account from internet cafe’s while travelling. Hackers love to leave keyloggers on public computers.  It’s even better when the hackers run the local network.
 

Google's Top-10 Search Terms Dominated By Trademarks

Comment posted Jan 23, 2007 4:17 pm PST — by John Berryhill
If a user goes to Google, or any search engine for that matter, and queries a well known business name, such as BEBO, they are likely searching for one of two things: (1) BEBO.com itself, or (2) more information about…
 

XXX Comes to a Head

Comment posted Mar 23, 2007 6:43 am PDT — by John Berryhill
What are we doing as an industry that involves governments, big businesses, great legal minds, and highly intelligent technologists to keep decadent pornographic materials out of the hands of little children? Oh, I thought I had addressed that question.  What…
Comment posted Mar 22, 2007 8:58 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Joe, I assure you I am honest. If one reduces .xxx to “safeguarding children”, then one is making something of a strawman argument. There is a public swimming pool near your house.  It has no lifeguards, and parents allow their…
 

The Real Problem with dot-XXX

Comment posted Mar 20, 2007 1:36 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Brett, I agree that rational debate is one thing.  Mr. Roberts suggests that the .xxx proposal is the gauntlet of a “moral contest”.  The “Real Problem” with the .xxx proposal is that it is the playground of a “pathological fringe”…
Comment posted Mar 18, 2007 9:18 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Another entry on MR’s list of “freedoms we need to fear”, along with voting and universities.... http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc08/msg01410.html “Terrorists do vote; they infiltrate democratic institutions and processes while they are putting their attack together.  The openness of free universities plays into…
 

Splitting the Root: It's Too Late

Comment posted Apr 13, 2007 2:16 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
It is not to the ISP to decide on behalf of the user what root the user will use (except indirectly through the recursive DNS service provided by the ISP, service where opting out *must* be possible). Ms. Bortzmeyer, your…
 

Verizon vs. iREIT et al Court Documents: What Can We Learn?

Comment posted Apr 11, 2007 3:45 am PDT — by John Berryhill
One mark per letter of the alphabet? Hmmm… So Verizon wants Verisingn.com and Verisin.com.  Now there’s a conflict that’s just been waiting to happen.
 

ICANN to RegisterFly: We Really REALLY Mean It This Time

Comment posted Apr 22, 2007 10:28 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
it’s hard to imagine a reason that Registerfly would have given them some of the data but deliberately held back the rest. Some reasons arise from the sorts of games that Registerfly was playing.  Here are two examples from among…
 

ICANN's WDPRS Report and Plan to Clean Up Whois Records

Comment posted May 03, 2007 2:27 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I think I hold the record for longest continuing report of a single domain name. From the DNSO list in 2003: http://www.dnso.org/dnso/dnsocomments/comments-whois/Arc02/msg00017.html worldteleport.org Registrant Name:  World Teleport Association Registrant Organization:  World Teleport Association Registrant Street1:  2 World Trade Center Suite…
 

ICANN's At-Large Process: Exit, Without Voice

Comment posted May 24, 2007 2:18 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
By what mechanism has any relevant public authorized any of ICANN’s activities since ICANN killed at-large elections? Indeed, it is the same question.  The take-away here being, I suppose, that there is some collection of guardians of the public good…
Comment posted May 24, 2007 11:45 am PDT — by John Berryhill
ICANN needs these people. They have good ideas about how to respond to the public interest in domain name management. By what mechanism did any relevant public authorize these people to act as their representatives in the ICANN process?
 

UDRP Good for Trademark Protection, Not So Good for Political Process

Comment posted May 24, 2007 4:54 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Since campaigns are noncommercial organizations Oddly, the notion of a political organization, rather than an individual candidate, is absent from the article. I’m itching to know who has the “greater right” to socialist.com, labor.com, democrat.com, republican.com, socialdemocrat.com, and so forth,…
Comment posted May 23, 2007 9:29 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Forgot the best highlight.... On page 47, she calls a registrar a “cybersquatter” because she apparently can’t tell the difference between a registrant and a registrar in a whois record.  There’s a great start for a policy analyst.
Comment posted May 23, 2007 9:21 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
This paper is a “must read” for fans of the “cybersquatting means whatever I say it does” line of thought: One obvious answer to this problem, and to some other associated problems, would be to legislatively ban all forms of…
 

Dot Asia: First TLD Awarded to a Transnational Entity Without Formal Government Structure

Comment posted May 24, 2007 4:20 am PDT — by John Berryhill
The egalitarian spirit of having a TLD assigned to a geographic region such that the TLD string is not a word in the native language of any culture within the very region is admirable. “ASIA” is equally incomprehensible as a…
 

Domain Speculation: Attack of the TechnoPinkos

Comment posted May 26, 2007 7:02 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
That’s different. I agree with you.  It is different. I’m just curious about your comment above which suggests that the majority of domain conference attendees were domain tasters.  I really had no idea that many people were doing it. How…
Comment posted May 25, 2007 5:24 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Suresh, Please explain the mechanism by which portfolios of registered and paid for domain names would “vanish” if the add grace provision were eliminated.  I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that either, but I’m trying to figure out what you…
 

ICANN Says Registerfly Domains Moving to Another Registrar

Comment posted May 25, 2007 9:26 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
All is to be unveiled next week. In the meantime, read the comments on the blog entry about domains that are expired, domains that have gone into the redemption period and eNom (for whom RF used to be a reseller)…
 

Google Sued in Domainer Lawsuit: Vulcan Golf v. Google

Comment posted Jun 29, 2007 8:57 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Can we all agree not to use “404 error” incorrectly? A 404 error is “file not found” at an existing address.  It is an HTTP-level error message generated by a web server operating at the domain name in question. A…
 

Google Buys VeriSign (not really)

Comment posted Jul 13, 2007 3:33 am PDT — by John Berryhill
“Sell” data to government agencies? Nawwww.... you think? http://www.verisign.com/verisign-inc/corporate-overview/Board_of_Directors/page_DEV029893.html William A. Roper, Jr. Corporate Executive Vice President, SAIC William A. Roper, Jr. has served as a director since November 2003. Since April 2000, he has served as Corporate Executive Vice…
 

ICANN Investigating Domain Tasting

Comment posted Aug 16, 2007 2:59 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I’m not sure the point was made clear.  What is the point of a UDRP, or anything else, relative to a domain name which existed for five days, received no traffic, and was de-registered. If you want to talk about…
Comment posted Aug 12, 2007 9:20 am PDT — by John Berryhill
That might be the case if the domains in question aren’t getting any traffic, but if they are then they’re not going to be deleted by the registrar… Traffic = revenue, which is why the tasters do it, or did…
 

Temporary Restraining Order Issued Against Domainer's Use of "mylennar.com"

Comment posted Aug 22, 2007 7:56 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Evan and Derek, We could all do with less umbrage. As we all know, stories about legal actions can be misleading to the general public.  While you, Derek, and I are all familiar with decisions on temporary restraining orders, a…
 

Another Whois-Privacy Stalemate

Comment posted Aug 26, 2007 5:33 am PDT — by John Berryhill
We need more consultants to AT&T;and Verizon to preach to us about privacy. They’ve been pretty good about protecting the privacy of illegal government surveillance programs.  Maybe they can share the love.
 

If WHOIS Privacy is a Good Idea, Why is it Going Nowhere?

Comment posted Aug 29, 2007 2:29 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I’m confused, John. If you see domain registration as analogous to automobile registration, I have to wonder whether auto registration is available to the general public in your state. Automobile registration, in most states, is readily available to law enforcement,…
 

Spamhaus Appeal: They Win on Substance

Comment posted Sep 05, 2007 4:56 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
As I said, the appeals court reminded the trial court that E360 has to documenthis damages Right.  But there is no drawback to trying.  Given the possibility of getting “something” with no downside, opting for “something” in those circumstances would…
Comment posted Sep 04, 2007 11:12 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
I wouldn’t be astonished if they just gave up. I would be surprised if they gave up.  The decision doesn’t say that E360 is not entitled to monetary damages, and a customer list is cited to have been included in…
 

More on WHOIS Privacy

Comment posted Sep 11, 2007 3:53 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Look, for example, at what Geotrust does when you buy an SSL certificate And Geotrust then publishes the confirmation telephone number where, exactly? An individual signing up for a new service under ruleset A is distinguishable from an organization having…
Comment posted Sep 11, 2007 5:37 am PDT — by John Berryhill
It would not be terribly onerous to require at least robotic verification of the phone number and e-mail address. Let’s start with the phone number for these jerks that use bad whois data: Domain Name:WIPO.ORG Created On:16-Jul-1993 04:00:00 UTC Last…
Comment posted Sep 07, 2007 3:07 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
And there is EXACTLY where the problem is: it’s all about the money. Well, some of us are not independently wealthy, and must work for a living. You are free to believe that a registrar’s offices are like Ali Baba’s…
Comment posted Sep 05, 2007 5:16 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Jeez, guys, can’t you just read what I wrote? Reading hard.  Hurt brain. I entirely agree that more accurate WHOIS data would require actual work costing actual money. Well, that’s what makes the registrars seem prickly and defensive on this…
Comment posted Sep 04, 2007 9:51 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
The data for spews is completely bogus, and we all know it. How do we know that?  That’s my question.  I have no idea whether someone associated with Spews receives mail from a post office box in Siberia, and neither…
Comment posted Sep 04, 2007 5:09 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
The biggest problem with WHOIS is that much of the data is wrong Care to define “much”? I see situations pretty much every week in which someone is complaining “The registrant didn’t answer my telephone call, respond to my email,…
 

Dispute Over Western Sahara's .EH

Comment posted Sep 04, 2007 5:02 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
.eh should be re-delegated to Canada anyway, eh?
 

Short Domain Names Threatened by Proposed Policy on IGO Dispute Resolution Procedure

Comment posted Oct 04, 2007 2:19 am PDT — by John Berryhill
It is long past time to put to bed the downright intellectual dishonesty involved in citing Article 6ter of the Paris Convention as prohibiting the registration of domain names of any kind. Let’s read the operative section - it is…
 

The "Internet of Things," the Internet and Internet Governance

Comment posted Oct 23, 2007 3:49 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
There appears to be a leap between the governance of the Internet and the RFID deployment Umm… no.  One of the objectives of the EPCGlobal RFID standards project is to have tag ID’s resolved through DNS.  If the project proceeds…
 

Gmail as an Email Honeypot

Comment posted Oct 30, 2007 7:08 am PDT — by John Berryhill
be sure to only use your address book Depending, of course, on how your address book works.  Many users of Outlook, for example, have auto-add-to-address-book, auto-lookup and auto-completion turned on.  This opens up an interesting type of spoof attack. Let’s…
 

Verizon Spreading DNS Redirection Service

Comment posted Nov 05, 2007 10:12 pm PST — by John Berryhill
So, now Verizon is making money off of Neiman Marcus typo URL’s. Too funny. Any Verizon customers out there care to share screenshots of visits to: I-Want-To-Buy-a-Sprint-Brand-Cell-Phone.com I’d love to see what Verizon is advertising there. If you liked the…
 

Google Testing Option to Block Domain Parking Sites

Comment posted Nov 12, 2007 6:54 pm PST — by John Berryhill
it’s important that we don’t aggregate all domain traffic into the same category. I believe the advertisers will figure that out in short order, given the option to include or exclude domain traffic.  If you sell boxes and don’t want…
Comment posted Nov 12, 2007 12:32 am PST — by John Berryhill
I’ve heard that in the next six months, both Google and Yahoo plan to offer advertisers the option of not advertising at all.  Woo hoo!
 

More on Dell's Anti-Tasting Suit

Comment posted Dec 04, 2007 6:39 pm PST — by John Berryhill
As with Verizon, there’s another game in town, of course: http://searchengineland.com/070523-083042.php Last year, Google signed a landmark deal to become the default search engine on new Dell computers, plus to bundle Google software. Now, people are noting anew that a…
 

Defendants Respond to Dell's Anti-Tasting Suit

Comment posted Jan 03, 2008 6:32 pm PST — by John Berryhill
What?  No satellite picture of Derek Newman’s house?
 

Domain Front Running by Registrars Continues to Draw Attention

Comment posted Jan 12, 2008 4:29 am PST — by John Berryhill
I have never heard anyone suggest that domain tasting involves unregistered domains That is what domain tasting is.  You have apparently confused it with old fashioned dropcatching or something else.  Domain tasters work off of text feeds that come from…
 

As of Feb. 11, Google Says It Will Block AdSense from Kited Domains

Comment posted Jan 28, 2008 5:06 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Why doesn’t Google simply prevent ads from being shown on all domains within the 5 day grace period? Since the article is short on specifics, they may indeed be doing just that, since it would seem the simplest implementation.  Of…
 

The Single-Letter Domain Trademark Game

Comment posted Jan 29, 2008 8:53 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Yes, all of the T.com marks are owned by Deutsche Telekom, and I must have missed G when putting the table together. One can also check the other TLD’s, along with non-existent TLD’s.  Quite a number of trademark filings were…
Comment posted Jan 28, 2008 5:07 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Ah… it appears my wildcard character was taken as an html tag.  It should read “X”.com where “X” is a single character.  I have fallen victim to a character flaw…
 

Domain Tasting to Go Away for Real This Time

Comment posted Feb 05, 2008 3:44 pm PST — by John Berryhill
In 2007 the company that paid $180M sold itself for $11M, suggesting that in the former transaction, it overpaid by at least $170 million. That’s not even what that filing says. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=mchx Market Cap:  328.72M It wasn’t sold to anyone. …
Comment posted Feb 05, 2008 3:24 pm PST — by John Berryhill
If you have a higher-value use for cameras.com, I’m sure it’s owners would be happy to work out a deal with you, Tovarisch.
Comment posted Feb 05, 2008 12:14 am PST — by John Berryhill
Missing reference from third citation: http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2007/d2007-0770.html
Comment posted Feb 05, 2008 12:13 am PST — by John Berryhill
Maybe someone sold a fabulous domain portfolio for $180M (keeping in mind that there’s a lot of puffery in this biz) To be clear, the purchase was by a public company, and if there is “puffery” in an SEC disclosure…
Comment posted Jan 30, 2008 5:51 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Gary, You seem to have conflated domain tasting and drop catching. “Hammer the servers” drop catching of expired names is pretty much dinosaur technology at this point.  Most major registrars do not delete names at the registry level upon expiration…
 

Typosquatting: A Solution

Comment posted Feb 21, 2008 7:15 am PST — by John Berryhill
Um… the relevant phrase in the ACPA is “bad faith intent”. And, Enrico, let’s read more of the plain language, since the statute refers to a “bad faith intent to profit” from registration of the domain name in question. Since…
Comment posted Feb 21, 2008 7:09 am PST — by John Berryhill
Anyway, I gather Alex understands why his idea is a non-starter. There are those who believe it is unlawful to identify the goods advertised at a website in a domain name - even when the trademark is properly spelled, let…
Comment posted Feb 21, 2008 7:07 am PST — by John Berryhill
So you don’t buy the underlying premise of the ACPA that a domain name is more analogous to the company name, the name above the door of the business or any other example of a ‘use’ which suggests, ownership, affiliation…
Comment posted Feb 20, 2008 12:49 am PST — by John Berryhill
The funny thing is that if Ty had brought there case before an UDRP arbitrator, they very well might have won. UDRP decisions are all over the map on this issue.  “Which” UDRP panelist matters more than “an” UDRP panelist.…
Comment posted Feb 19, 2008 6:54 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Absent a specific license, dealers can not use a trademark protected brand name in a top-level domain registration. (n.b. “top-level” domain refers to .com, .net, .org etc.) Enrico, Are you seriously suggesting that if I sell, for example, used Ford…
Comment posted Feb 19, 2008 2:54 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Another incentive-based solution is to reward the typosquatter for directing traffic from the typo domain to the non-typo site. To a certain extent, this happens automatically if the brand owner is a participant in PPC advertising in the first place. …
 

Federal Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Network Solutions and ICANN

Comment posted Feb 26, 2008 10:45 pm PST — by John Berryhill
So by “activation”, does that mean “no longer available in the database” or on record with some registrar as having been acquired by a customer (whether paid for or not)? Figuring out and applying the RAA - a game the…
Comment posted Feb 26, 2008 10:43 pm PST — by John Berryhill
NSI has a very good search engine that everyone uses to find domain availability before they go to their very much less expensive registrar. If the point is to feel bad about freeloaders, then you just as well point out…
Comment posted Feb 25, 2008 11:25 pm PST — by John Berryhill
lawyers at Kabateck Brown Kellner are tossing Our British friends are going to love that. It is unclear if NSI paid they fee required above 3.7.4 doesn’t require that anyone pay a fee.  It says that a registrar shall not…
 

The Front Running Class Action Suit

Comment posted Feb 27, 2008 7:03 pm PST — by John Berryhill
The ICANN counts don’t have any teeth. At a minimum, I expected an argument that NSI was violation of registrar accreditation agreement Para 3.7.4 Even so, the RAA is pretty clear on there being no third party beneficiary rights under…
 

Telcos Must Become Major Destination Websites, Says Sun Chairman

Comment posted Mar 06, 2008 9:34 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Yes, the Telco’s need to be able to collect even more data to provide to the government in the course of warrantless surveillance of citizens. By all means.
 

The Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008

Comment posted Mar 06, 2008 9:31 pm PST — by John Berryhill
It’s only illegal if you use the name to mislead people. Unfortunately, subjective intent can wind up “proven” on circular grounds, as in “The domain name is Anytown.com.  This is inherently and manifestly misleading to anyone looking for the official…
Comment posted Mar 04, 2008 7:09 pm PST — by John Berryhill
The only way we’re going to make legal progress against phishing and spam is not by making bad guys’ actions more illegal, but by changing the rules so that the providers and intermediaries who enable them can’t escape responsibility It…
 

Don't Register Your Domain in the U.S. if it's Controversial

Comment posted Mar 11, 2008 3:37 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Meanwhile, Google apparently pays $350 per year for google.com.cu
Comment posted Mar 07, 2008 2:05 pm PST — by John Berryhill
Just be thankful that I didn’t really put the cat amongst the pigeons and ask whether ICANN itself is in violation of the law by allowing a TLD for Cuba in the DNS. Indeed that is the 800 pound gorilla…
Comment posted Mar 06, 2008 9:21 pm PST — by John Berryhill
If the US government starts exerting control farther up the chain, such as on US-based registries, or ICANN itself Neither the registries nor ICANN are similarly positioned here with respect to the way the law operates here, since neither of…
Comment posted Mar 05, 2008 5:09 pm PST — by John Berryhill
I don’t understand the “worse” part. US law prohibits US companies from engaging in direct or indirect commerce with Cuba.  These and other domain names were put on the OFAC list some time ago, and in fact I notified Enom…
 

Wikileaks Calls for Boycott of Domain Registrar eNom

Comment posted Mar 13, 2008 4:35 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
Seems like eNom subsequently received a copy of the judge’s amended amended order and restored the .info. That’s what it looks like.  So now Wikileaks posts the myspace page of some Enom employee who had no decision making authority in…
Comment posted Mar 12, 2008 3:34 am PDT — by John Berryhill
“not so innocent” The order which issued in that case was vague and difficult to make sense of.  The name has been turned back on. Is it at all possible for someone to make an error in good faith without…
 

NSI: "Don't Taunt Them, Kill Them"

Comment posted Mar 25, 2008 6:01 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Companies such as NSI and other registrars are and should be able to create their own policies concerning the use of their services. By and large, that is correct.  However, what NSI is doing in the case of eelam.com is…
 

WIPO Reports Record Number of Domain Disputes in 2007

Comment posted Apr 02, 2008 3:15 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
In many instances, the company or individual being squatted does not have the funds necessary to hire an attorney ...and if that company doesn’t have a few thousand dollars to file a UDRP, how much can the cybersquatter be making…
Comment posted Mar 28, 2008 11:05 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
It’s interesting that WIPO does this every year - cites the number of complaints - but does not cite stats on the outcomes, nor do they compare the number of complaints to the number of domains registered. In 2000, when…
 

A Patent for SiteFinder-Like Resolution

Comment posted May 08, 2008 6:15 pm PDT — by John Berryhill
VeriSign promised never to bring a SiteFinder-like service back They made no such promise.  The settlement of the suit involved (a) the right to increase .com prices each year until 2012, and (b) a more definitely-structured approval process for “registry…
Comment posted May 08, 2008 11:15 am PDT — by John Berryhill
Well, spelling correction is there whether you see it or not, and it is certainly not limited to the .cc TLD, although Brian Cartmell was of course instrumental in the commercialization of that ccTLD. Claim 1 reads: 1. A method…

Recent Comments — by John Berryhill

VeriSign promised never to bring a SiteFinder-like service back They made no such promise.  The… May 08, 2008
Well, spelling correction is there whether you see it or not, and it is certainly… May 08, 2008
In many instances, the company or individual being squatted does not have the funds necessary… Apr 02, 2008
It’s interesting that WIPO does this every year - cites the number of complaints -… Mar 28, 2008
Companies such as NSI and other registrars are and should be able to create their… Mar 24, 2008

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