Read full story: External Source

Top 10 Featured Blogs in 2009:

1. Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail Compromised - But How?
   by Terry Zink - Oct 08, 2009
2. A Closer Look at Iran's State of Internet, Strange Transit Changes in Wake of Controversial Election
   by Jim Cowie - Jun 14, 2009
3. WiMAX vs. LTE
   by Paul Budde - Mar 10, 2009
4. China's "Green Dam Youth Escort" Software
   by Rebecca MacKinnon - Jun 08, 2009
5. Verizon Mandates IPv6 Support for Next-Gen Cell Phones
   by Derek Morr - Jun 09, 2009
6. Cloud Computing Types: Public Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Private Cloud
   by Sam Johnston - Mar 06, 2009
7. Can't Connect… Won't Connect
   by Bill Thompson - May 13, 2009
8. The Cybersecurity Act of 2009
   by Steven Bellovin - Apr 13, 2009
9. Google AdSense Asks Publishers to Change Their Websites' Privacy Policy
   by Dhaval Doshi - Mar 13, 2009
10. YouTube's Fine - Analysts Don't Understand Internet Peering
    by Brough Turner - Apr 16, 2009

Top 10 News in 2009:

1. Network Solutions Under Large Scale DDoS Attack, Millions of Websites Potentially Unreachable
   Jan 23, 2009
2. U.S. General Reserves Right to Use Physical Force, Even Nuclear, in Response to Cyberattack
   May 13, 2009
3. Google Cloud Storage Coming Within Weeks
   May 20, 2009
4. Finland First Country to Make Broadband a Legal Right
   Oct 14, 2009
5. SPECIAL: Updates from the ICANN Meetings in Sydney
   Jun 26, 2009
6. Google Rolling Out Its Services Over IPv6
   Jan 08, 2009
7. ICANN's President and CEO Announces Resignation
   Mar 02, 2009
8. Iran's Internet Censorship Most Sophisticated in the World
   Jun 19, 2009
9. Comcast Unleashes Trial DNS Redirection in Select States
   Jul 09, 2009
10. Latest Cybersquatting Stats from WIPO
    Mar 16, 2009

Top 10 Industry News in 2009 by sponsored posts*:

1. Facebook Selects MarkMonitor Antifraud Solutions to Combat Malware
   by MarkMonitor - Apr 30, 2009
2. .ORG First Open Top-Level Domain to be Signed with DNSSEC
   by PIR - Jun 02, 2009
3. Perspectives from a Nonprofit Domain Name Registry on Navigating the Social Media Frontier
   by PIR - Apr 24, 2009
4. Expanding Internet Access Driving Software Piracy, Study Says
   by MarkMonitor - May 22, 2009
5. A Seemingly Overwhelming Number of Important Documents Released by ICANN
   by MarkMonitor - Jun 02, 2009
6. MarkMonitor AntiFraud Solutions Combine Proven Antiphishing and Expert Antimalware Capabalities
   by MarkMonitor - Mar 23, 2009
7. DNSstuff.com Offers Trusteer Rapport Product to Help Users Boost Their Defenses Against Online Fraud
   by DNSstuff - Mar 23, 2009
8. dotMobi Names AutoTrader.mobi as Millionth Site Tested by Acclaimed mobiReady Tool
   by dotMobi - May 20, 2009
9. IP Rights in Digital Environment Key Element of Proposed Treaty
   by MarkMonitor - Apr 15, 2009
10. COCC Partners with MarkMonitor for Anti-Phishing Services
    by MarkMonitor - Mar 18, 2009

* Featured news updates from CircleID's industry participants by more information here - see 'Dedicated Marketing Channel' section

Written by CircleID Reporter

Read full story: PC World

Read full story: Domain Name Wire

Read full story: ICANN

While the launch of new TLDs is something that a lot of people will welcome it is not without its issues.

One of the areas that has been receiving quite a bit of attention is in relation to intellectual property rights.

So what has this got to do with privacy?

In many respects very little, but unfortunately the latest document that the IP community have released does impact on privacy.

In simple terms the IP people see their rights as being more important than those of private individuals.

I've posted in more detail both here and here.

And if you have feelings about the subject I would urge you to make your feelings known to ICANN—any internet user can do so!

Written by Michele Neylon, MD of Blacknight Solutions

Facts

This case involves an alleged domain name theft. Solid Host is a web host and initial owner of the domain name solidhost.com, which it registered through eNom in 2004. Solid Host claims that in 2008, a security breach at eNom allowed an unknown interloper (Doe) to steal the domain name and move the registration to NameCheap. Doe also acquired NameCheap's "WhoisGuard" service, a domain name proxy service that masked Doe's contact information in the Whois database. Solid Host contacted Doe and sought the domain name; Doe asked for $12,000, and Solid Host took a pass. Instead, Solid Host demanded that NameCheap hand back the domain name and identify Doe, but Doe claimed that he had bought the domain name legitimately. NameCheap, apparently feeling like the cheese in a sandwich, demurred to Solid Host's requests. Solid Host then got a TRO ordering NameCheap to transfer the name and reveal Doe's identity, both of which occurred. For unclear reasons, Solid Host hasn't amended the complaint to name the Doe, but it is proceeding against NameCheap on various claims, including an Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) claim.

The Opinion

Who is the Registrant?

My understanding of domain name proxy services is that the service acts as the legal registrant, thus supplying its contact information, but it registers the domain name for the benefit of its customer, making the customer the beneficial registrant. An analogy: a bank may take legal title of a property as part of securing a loan on the property, but the borrower retains beneficial title to the property.

So, for purposes of the ACPA, is the proxy service the "registrant" of the domain name? ICANN's agreement with registrars seemingly contemplates this characterization in Section 3.7.7.3 of its Registrar Agreement, which says "A Registered Name Holder licensing use of a Registered Name according to this provision shall accept liability for harm caused by wrongful use of the Registered Name, unless it promptly discloses the identity of the licensee to a party providing the Registered Name Holder reasonable evidence of actionable harm." However, it's not clear to me that a proxy service "licenses" the domain name, especially if you accept my lender-borrower analogy above. Alternatively, if the proxy service is the "agent" of the customer, the licensing analogy also breaks down.

Whether the proxy service is the registrant matters a great deal to the legal outcome, and unfortunately, the court's analysis of this important question was cursory, muddled, and possibly internally inconsistent.

In this case, the court's inquiry is made more difficult by the fact that NameCheap acted as both the registrar and the proxy service provider. As a registrar, an ACPA claim against NameCheap should be squarely preempted by the domain name registry/registrar safe harbor enacted as part of the ACPA (15 U.S.C. §1114(2)(D)). For example, 1114(2)(D)(iii) says:

A domain name registrar, a domain name registry, or other domain name registration authority shall not be liable for damages under this section for the registration or maintenance of a domain name for another absent a showing of bad faith intent to profit from such registration or maintenance of the domain name

(This provision only moots damages, not an injunction, but since Solid Host has the domain name back in its possession, damages seem like the only remaining issue).

The court concludes that NameCheap is not eligible for the domain name registrar safe harbor because NameCheap is the domain name registrant. It says, "NameCheap is, by virtue of the anonymity service it provides, the registrant of a domain name that allegedly infringes Sold [sic] Host's trademark." Thus, NameCheap is ineligible for the registrar safe harbor, which applies only when the registrar acts as a registrar.

But, having rejected the domain name registrar safe harbor because NameCheap was the domain name registrant, the court then inconsistently says that NameCheap is not the registrant for purposes of the prima facie ACPA claim. Instead, for ACPA purposes the court treats Doe as the registrant, leaving NameCheap exposed to a possible secondary ACPA liability claim. (The court acknowledges that NameCheap would defeat a direct ACPA claim because NameCheap did not have any bad faith intent to profit from the domain name. Offering the proxy service wasn't enough to qualify as a bad faith intent to profit).

Wait a minute—how can NameCheap simultaneously be both the registrant (no safe harbor) but not the registrant (thus, subjected to a secondary claim)? The court does not acknowledge or explain this apparent inconsistency.

Contributory Cybersquatting

Courts have rarely discussed a contributory ACPA claim. The only one cited by the court was a 2001 case (the Ford Motors vs. Greatdomains.com case) and I can't think of any others. Perhaps this isn't surprising because (1) as the Greatdomains.com case indicated, a contributory ACPA claim is available "in only exceptional circumstances," and (2) registrars are the most likely targets of a contributory ACPA claim, and the domain name registrar safe harbor effectively eliminates their contributory ACPA liability.

Adopting the analysis in the Greatdomains.com case, this court equates contributory ACPA liabilty with the Ninth Circuit's 1999 Lockheed standard for online contributory trademark infringement (as opposed to ACPA liability), which requires that "a plaintiff must prove that the defendant had knowledge and '[d]irect control and monitoring of the instrumentality used by the third party to infringe the plaintiff's mark.'"

So how did NameCheap have the requisite control over Doe's instrumentalities? Good question. The court tosses out this gem: NameCheap was "the "cyber-landlord" of the internet real estate stolen by Doe." WHAT??? The court continues:

NameCheap's anonymity service was central to Doe's cybersquatting scheme. If NameCheap had returned the domain name to Solid Host, Doe's illegal activity would have ceased.

The second sentence is true with respect to NameCheap, but it is also true of every registrar for every domain name they register--and we know from the 1999 Lockheed case that registrars lack control over the instrumentalities of their registrants. So the proxy service seems to make a legal difference, but how does the proxy service evidence NameCheap's greater control over the registrant's instrumentalities? I think something is amiss here.

To complete the prima facie contributory ACPA claim, in addition to control, Solid Host must show that NameCheap has the requisite knowledge of Doe's ACPA violation. The court sets a high scienter bar--mere notice from an aggrieved party isn't enough--but the court conclusorily says that the complaint alleged enough knowledge to survive the motion to dismiss.

Why This is a Troubling Ruling

As I trust is clear, I think the court's analysis is questionable at best. I'm also troubled about the normative implications. Most obviously, this case could portend the deminse of domain name proxy services. Read literally, every proxy service is exposed to potential contributory ACPA liability for every domain name it services. I can't imagine proxy service providers will be excited about that liability exposure, and some may choose to exit the business.

If proxy services evaporate, domain name registrants will have a tougher time maintaining their privacy. This could affect at least two groups. First, businesses seeking to register domain names for unlaunched new brands often want to procure the new brand's domain names without publicly announcing their intentions through the Whois database. (Of course, some businesses register such domain name through agents or shell companies, but at a much greater expense than a proxy service). Second, gripers, whistleblowers, critics and others may want to use proxy services to make it harder for their targets to unmask their identities. This ruling jeopardizes the potential privacy options available to both groups.

I'm also troubled by this ruling's narrow reading of the domain name registrar safe harbors. There haven't been many cases interpreting those safe harbors, and this case might influence other courts to read them narrowly.

A Mini-Trend of Lawsuits Against Registrars

I've noticed a small but troubling increase in lawsuits against domain name registrars in the past few months. In addition to this case, see the Vulcan Golf v. Google lawsuit (which named some registrars as defendants), OnlineNIC cases, Philbrick v. eNom and uBid v. GoDaddy. Personally, I believe this litigation trend mirrors the expansion of new and legally untested non-registration services offered by registrars. I explored this issue with Elliot Noss of Tucows in the most recent installment of TWiL (worth listening to, IMO). Discussing the uBid lawsuit, Elliott explained how registrars monetize dropped domain names before being returned to the available pool of unregistered domain names. The delay is putatively for the benefit of customers who mistakenly let a registration lapse; but this also has the happy (?) by-product of letting registrars create new ad inventory that they are monetizing.

In the past, a lot of the legal attention regarding domain names has focused on trademark owners vs. registrants. From my perspective, those lawsuits are becoming passé. The real litigation growth industry appears to be trademark owner vs. registrar lawsuits over new registrar service offerings that trademark owners don't like. Rulings like this one, with a broad reading of contributory ACPA liability and a narrow reading of the domain name registrar safe harbor, raise the specter that registrars may find more legal trouble than they anticipated.

More commentary on the case from Domain Name News

Written by Eric Goldman, Associate Professor, Santa Clara University School of Law

The draft report was put together behind closed doors, which would appear to go against the normal policy development process at ICANN, which is quite worrying.

Its contents, however, are even more disturbing.

While reading the 48 page document, which is littered with acronyms and terminology that would make your head hurt, it is a worthwhile exercise if you have any interest in the development of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs).

From a registrant perspective the most disturbing part of their report is that dealing with WHOIS. The Intellectual Property (IP) people seem to have zero interest in registrants' right to privacy. Under EU law, for example, I can register a domain as a private individual in most European ccTLDs (including .eu) and have some level of privacy. Not so the case with the Implementation Recommendation Team's (IRT) proposals:

After carefully consideration, the IRT believes that the provision of WHOIS information at the registry level under the Thick WHOIS model is essential to the cost‐effective protection of consumers and intellectual property owners. For this reason, the IRT recommends that ICANN amend the proposed Registry Agreement to include an obligation that all registry operators for new gTLDs must provide registry‐level WHOIS under the Thick WHOIS model currently in place in the .info and .biz registries.

And if that wasn't enough, they also want to centralise Whois:

In addition, the IRT recommends that ICANN immediately begin to explore the establishment of a central, universal WHOIS database to be maintained by ICANN

While that may not have much impact on registrants at one level it could have an interesting impact at various other levels of the system (e.g. syncing of data).

The timelines surrounding the draft report are also a bit confusing.

The comment period was opened on a Friday 24 April 2009 and closes one month later, but you only have until May 6th to submit comments for inclusion in the final report! So you don't really have the full 30 day comment period you'd be expecting and with the May bank holiday affecting most countries, the period is even more reduced.

George Kirikos, in an email submission to the comment forum, goes into some detail on the issues surrounding both the IRT's composition, behaviour and the timeline for comments:

We object to the extremely short comment period for this report, and the method by which it was drafted.

It was released at the end of the day on April 24, 2009 (a Friday) We are told that "those wishing to have the IRT consider their comments in connection with its final report should submit comments by 6 May, 2009." Given that May 1st is a holiday in a large number of countries, this leaves many people with only 7 (seven) or at best 8 (eight) business days in which to read the report, consult with colleagues, and write a coherent response to a lengthy document.

Given the IRT's extreme lack of transparency and its very narrow representation of interests (i.e. it was not an open GNSO workgroup or task force where any stakeholder could join; there was no public mailing list archive or MP3 recordings/transcripts of meetings), it is unclear whether any responses submitted by the May 6 deadline will even be considered, especially given that detailed comments and recommendations made to the DAG v1 and v2 reports did not receive any apparent consideration by the committee in this draft report. There is no public audit-trail of any discussions leading up to this report, but it instead appears to be a rehashing of certain "wish list" items by a narrow few in the community, instead of a balanced proposal representative of all stakeholders.

The IRT is working within artificial deadlines imposed by the ICANN Board in its March 6th resolution. We recommend that the IRT go back to the Board to advocate that these artificial deadlines need to be rethought. Given the comments overwhelmingly opposed to new gTLDs both in the first and second versions of the DAG (with the 2nd comment period ending only last week), ICANN has not justified that the gTLD program should go forward in any form, and not justified the colossal misuse of time that could be better spent on important issues such as DNSSEC, IPv6 and IDN ccTLDs, and fixing problems in existing gTLDs. It is our hope that the NTIA/DOC/DOJ will provide ICANN with far clearer and direct guidance in this regard, as it is clear to us that certain minority interests have captured the agenda at ICANN and are setting its plans to the detriment of the public.

There is no "pressing need" that a final report be delivered by May 24, 2009, especially given that the Sydney meeting begins on June 21, 2009. A rushed job will not lead to a solution that has consensus support, and forming consensus is ICANN's mission. If a consensus cannot be reached, ICANN has to realize that the matter might be a threshold issue that must lead to continued study and work, rather than proceeding with half-baked solutions over the objections of a large number of stakeholders.

We note the comment period for version 1 of the DAG closed on January 7, 2009 (after 76 days), and allowed for translation into multiple languages before the end of the comment period. Analysis and summary of those comments by ICANN staff were released to the public on February 18, 2009, namely 42 days later (at which time version 2 of the DAG was also released). We would expect the IRT, if it's to even have a remote possibility of reaching a global consensus, would need similar time periods. At a minimum, the time periods should be shifted so that public comments are due 2 weeks before Sydney, with analysis of those comments to be released just before Sydney, and discussion to take place during Sydney. A final report would then be released a few weeks after Sydney, with a further comment period on that final report.

In conclusion, we look forward to the IRT's realization that the current schedule is needlessly rushed, and requires adjustment. We expect that the IRT will make in the immediate future a clarifying announcement with a reasonable time frame for comments if it expects to maintain the goodwill of the community in its ongoing efforts to reach a consensus. We also expect that they will positively respond to the request for public archives of mailing lists and MP3 recordings/transcripts in order to improve transparency.

So what are the options for members of the ICANN community? How is it possible that a report with as much impact as this could be prepared in practical secrecy? (The IRT states clearly that its members were forbidden to discuss the proceedings.)

Written by Michele Neylon, MD of Blacknight Solutions

One of the issues, which isn't discussed in the report, is one that is of special interest to brand rights holders. Domainers have been taking advantage of rights holders' brands by registering domains containing variations of famous marks—and then either directly or indirectly displaying pay-per-click links from advertisers.

One way to identify pay-per-click abusers is by using a brand protection tool to uncover domain name infringement. A tool that searches through domain names on a daily basis, analyzes content, and provides case management functionality is desirable.

Depending on the search advertising strategy you are using, you may be able to identify abuse by reviewing performance reports which may show performance statistics for ads on specific domains and URLs. Traffic generated from sites containing a company's rights should be carefully reviewed. Special attention should be paid to clicks generated from infringing domains where the spend is more than $2 per month, as the cost of the domain is less than the amount spent for clicks on an annualized basis.

You may also be able to use tools to exclude particular sites or types of sites. Excluding an infringing domain from displaying your own ad really does not solve the problem though, as these sites typically market to an entire genre—which means pay-per-click links from competitors may very well appear on a website using an infringing domain.

The first step for remediating these issues is to notify the website owner of the situation. In some cases, the website owner will comply. If the website owner is unwilling to comply, or is unresponsive, the search marketing provider may accept complaints. Google, for instance, has an online form for rights owners to use.

There are a number of other methods for recovering domains such as anonymous acquisition and UDRP, but these approaches need to be carefully evaluated, as the costs associated with each approach may outweigh the benefits.

Along with the introduction of new gTLDs however, internationalized versions (IDNs) of .com and .net are expected. There is also a fast-track process underway to introduce a limited set of IDN ccTLDs (Country-Code Top-Level Domains). Because most of the focus to date has been on placed on Community-Based extensions and Open extensions, many companies are not yet fully aware of how these new IDN TLDs will also impact their current approach to registering, managing and monitoring domains.

Currently, all existing gTLDs allow for the registration of non-native character sets to the left of the dot (숭문.net or 中国首饰.com), but with the introduction of IDN TLDs, registrations containing the translation of .com or .net will also be possible (태영산업.회사 or海尔.康姆).

Clearly, this has the potential to exponentially increase the size of corporate domain portfolios and the potential for abuse, especially as world markets expand in size and in importance. Fortunately, VeriSign has recently socialized an idea that would protect the rights of existing .com and .net domain owners by providing them exclusive rights to register existing domains across all newly introduced .com and .net IDN TLDs.

Although a formal commitment has not yet been made by VeriSign to support this approach, this may now be the time to begin evaluating the registration of brands in .com and .net using native character sets to support important markets. In particular, companies should consider registering translations, transliterations, and transcriptions of their famous marks now to support current and planned global marketing efforts. By doing so, owners of these domains could potentially have exclusive rights to register in matching .com and .net IDN TLDs, when they become available.

We are hopeful that VeriSign will adopt this policy when they submit their applications for the internationalized versions of .com and .net, and that others who also intend to offer internationalized TLDs and ccTLDs will follow suit as well.

MarkMonitor®, the global leader in enterprise brand protection, has announced AntiFraud Solutions, offering patented technology to enable brand owners to prevent, detect and respond to phishing and malware attacks. MarkMonitor AntiFraud Solutions leverage the extensive MarkMonitor network of relationships and technology designed to thwart phishing attacks in order to combat the rapidly expanding problem of malware targeting brands.

Online brand attacks are on the rise, becoming more varied and sophisticated in their techniques while targeting financial institutions of all sizes and trusted Web properties such as ecommerce and government sites. The APWG estimates over 260,000 phish attacks in 2008 and noted industry analyst firm Gartner estimated that direct costs of phishing rose to a record $3.2 billion in 2007*. Malware attacks are an increasing source of concern for enterprises as these attacks not only impact corporate security but also impact brand reputation and trust, limiting the growth of online transactions and adoption of online services.

"Phish attacks have been long-recognized as attacks on company brands and reputation rather than a network security problem," said Frederick Felman, chief marketing officer of MarkMonitor. "Now that malware is targeting brands, it is important for brand owners to take a holistic approach to brand security, including protection against both malware and phishing threats."

MarkMonitor AntiFraud Solutions, with a powerful combination of proven antiphishing and antimalware capabilities, create a powerful SaaS tool to help prevent fraud, reduce losses and instill confidence in conducting business online. These integrated solutions and services are available 24x7 and provide the industry's most robust set of data sources, fast site shutdowns, forensic reporting, preventative tools, and the broadest response network. By using MarkMonitor AntiFraud Solutions, brand owners can preserve their investments in online business, reduce their risk profile, and attain a quick return on investment.

"Phish and malware attacks target all kinds of trusted brands, from the largest financial institutions to credit unions, eCommerce and retail brands, and even government agencies," said Avivah Litan, vice president and distinguished analyst of Gartner. "In today's economic climate, every action that preserves brand trust and customer confidence online can translate into increased opportunities to take advantage of the cost efficiencies and broad reach of online business."

Features and benefits of MarkMonitor AntiFraud Solutions include:

• AntiFraud Portal—The SaaS-based portal allows brandholders to monitor real-time information about attacks, track shutdowns, review comparative industry trends, and investigate perpetrator information using the world's largest reverse WHOIS database.
• Real-Time Detection, Analysis and Reporting—Around the clock fraud monitoring across a broad range of fraud intelligence data sources and forensic analysis of potential attacks helps reduce the impact of attacks.
• Fraudcasting—Widest distribution of real-time brand attack alerts to ISP's, email vendors, browsers, and security vendors helps to prevent users from receiving phishing emails, visiting malicious sites and/or becoming infected with malware.
• Fast Shutdowns—Rapid shutdown performance, available 24x7 with the MarkMonitor Security Operations Center, is enabled by leveraging the extensive network of relationships forged with ISPs, Web hosters, law enforcement, CERTs, domain registrars, and registries. This frees brandholders from having to build and maintain their own relationships with service providers.

MarkMonitor AntiFraud Solutions are available immediately for brandholders, with pricing based on the level of engagement. For more information, please visit http://www.markmonitor.com.

*Gartner, "Gartner Survey Shows Phishing Attacks Escalated in 2007; More than $3 Billion Lost to These Attacks," December 2007

"Our partnership with MarkMonitor enables our company to offer clients the most comprehensive solution for online brand protection available in the industry today," said Richard A. Leone, President and CEO at COCC. "I am especially pleased by the proactive MarkMonitor approach and the effective use the latest technology to achieve excellent results. Today's financial institutions need risk management solutions that work. We look forward to a highly effective partnership with MarkMonitor."

Phishing attacks and online fraud have been growing at a steady rate, and the increasing number and sophistication of these attacks has tarnished consumer confidence in the online banking channel. According to a recent Wall Street Journal/Harris International poll, 24 percent of consumers have limited their online banking due to threats such as identity theft.

"The MarkMonitor anti-phishing methodology is unique in the industry as a result of its focus on preventative as well as reactive measures," said Wendy Healey, COCC's First Vice President—Product Management. "This methodology and the many features that deliver it to end customers make MarkMonitor the superior choice for COCC's Sentry Services risk management suite."

Ms. Healey explained that the pervasive nature of fraud dictates that financial institutions find ways to protect themselves without deploying counter-productive processes that exhaust their resources. "COCC's Sentry Services has a long history of delivering the highest quality, most advanced risk management solutions for COCC clients," she said.

The MarkMonitor anti-phishing solution is the most comprehensive available for protecting an enterprise's reputation and customers against phishing attacks. Leveraging the industry's most extensive network of industry alliances, MarkMonitor antiphishing solutions emphasize prevention and loss mitigation while quickly detecting, monitoring and responding to attacks.

MarkMonitor uses advanced technology to detect fraudsters while their phishing attacks are still in the planning stages. Should an attack occur, the MarkMonitor solution leverages its 24x7 security operations and technology to shut it down quickly. This includes the latest 'rock phish' and 'fast flux DNS' attacks. A web portal enables financial institutions to monitor their sites and access reports on industry-wide fraud activity. Additional features enable customers to report fraudulent or questionable emails directly through the institution's website.

"Our holistic approach to online brand protection is the centerpiece of the MarkMonitor approach," said Frederick Felman, Chief Marketing Officer, MarkMonitor. "This philosophy parallels COCC's approach to reducing brand risk to the financial sector. It's refreshing to partner with a company that has consistently focused on Internet security and has delivered advanced technology to address the problem for so many years. It's no wonder that COCC has earned the respect of so many financial institutions in the Northeastern United States."

ABOUT COCC

COCC is one of the fastest growing data processing companies in the nation and one of this year's FinTech 100 and Inc. 5000. Established in 1967, this client-owned company provides complete enterprise processing solutions to financial institutions using the latest open systems. The company was the first data processor in the United States to migrate its entire client base to an open, relational processing platform built on an Oracle database. Next generation systems and client-driven support make COCC the better data processor. For more information, please visit www.cocc.com or contact Robert Bessel at 860.674.7214.

The argument has been successfully shifted from the expense and pain suffered by brand rights holders to the damage caused to consumers from brand abuse and the negative effect this abuse has on security and confidence in the Internet. As a result, the board and staff of ICANN identified overarching issues that affect the introduction of new gTLDs. The cornerstone issue is brand abuse in the domain name system.

The ICANN board put "their money where their mouth is" by agreeing to fund travel for a panel of experts to create a fair and scalable set of rights protection mechanisms to be integrated into the new gTLD program. The proposal for these mechanisms is slated to be reviewed by the board and staff before and during the Sydney meeting in June.

As a result, there is an assumption that a schedule change for the introduction of new gTLDs will occur. Why? There will be at least two more versions of the Applicant Guidebook and supporting materials which drives the program's launch to "the end of this year or early next" at the very earliest according to ICANN staff statements at the Mexico meeting. With the comment period open on the Applicant Guidebook and supporting materials until April 13, 2009, we encourage our customers to comment further.

Another important topic of discussion at the Mexico meeting addressed the speedy adoption and launch of top-level internationalized domain names (IDNs, .non-latin-characters) both for ccTLDs (country-code top-level domains) and the existing gTLDs (generic top-level domains). As part of the "fast-track" process, it seems all but assured that top-level ccTLD IDNs will be approved and launched next year. The top-level gTLD IDNs, like international versions of .com and .net, will be launched as part of the new gTLD program currently in development. Verisign and other registry operators have come forth with proposals that seem to be very fair to existing registrants including brandholders.

There were many other issues discussed at the meeting. To get more information, listen to a replay of the March 11, 2009 webinar.

MarkMonitor®, the global leader in enterprise brand protection, today released the company's latest Brandjacking Index™, which finds that online abuse of many of the world's leading brands rose in 2008. The report also reveals that 80 percent of abusive sites identified in 2007 were still active today, indicating brandholders must take a stronger stance against aggressive fraudsters.

For the second year, cybersquatting—the practice of abusing trademarks within the domain name system—continued to rank as brandjackers' tool of choice for exploiting reputable brands, growing by 18% in 2008. Brand abuse grew overall across mainstream industry brands including apparel, automotive, high technology and media. In addition, phishers expanded their targets in 2008, with 444 organizations phished for the first time.

"MarkMonitor Brandjacking Index: 2008—The Year in Review" measures the effect of online threats to brands quarter-over-quarter throughout 2008. The Brandjacking Index investigates trends, including drilled-down analysis of how the most popular brands are abused online and the industries in which abuse is causing the most damage. The report examines how brandjacking tactics—such as cybersquatting, false association, pay-per-click (PPC) abuse, objectionable content, unauthorized sales channels and phishing—have changed over the past year.

"Online brand abuse has reached a critical phase during which new exploits are accelerating while older threats endure, causing real and tangible harm to corporate reputations, intellectual property, customer relations and revenue streams," said Irfan Salim, president and chief executive officer of MarkMonitor. "The good news is that brand holders have resources available to them to take action. The companies who are most successful in fighting abuse are those that make defending their brand a priority at the highest levels of management."

Cybersquatting continues as tool of choice for brandjackers.

• Cybersquatting rose 18 percent during 2008, making it the most perpetrated form of abuse for the second year in a row.
• A total of 440,584 instances of cybersquatting were identified in Q4, followed by 86,837 instances of false association and 33, 614 instances of pay-per-click abuse.
• Consistent and notable quarter-over-quarter growth in cybersquatting for two years demonstrates that brandjackers are increasingly leveraging trademarks as they make use of best practices in search engine optimization to divert traffic to illegitimate or unauthorized sites.
• Brandjackers are combining cybersquatting with other abuses, a practice called "blended abuse," to attack brand reputations.

Brandjackers increase focus on eCommerce and offensive content abuses to drive revenues.

• eCommerce abuse grew by 46 percent over 2008 and 13 percent over Q3 to a yearly high of 24,589 instances.
• Offensive content abuse grew by 21 percent over 2008 and 23 percent over Q3.
• Brandjackers increasingly leverage search engine optimization techniques for eCommerce and offensive content abuse to drive revenues.

Abuse across mainstream industry brands including apparel, automotive, high technology and media continues to rise.

• Abuses of apparel brands rose 28 percent in 2008. Other industries experienced notable growth in brand attacks in 2008 including automotive at 21 percent, high technology at 21 percent, and food and beverage at 17 percent.
• Abuse of media brands reached a yearly high of 43,832 instances, signifying an 11 percent increase in 2008.
• Phishing remains the top brand-related problem for financial institutions due to increasingly sophisticated methods and technology.

The United States, Germany and the United Kingdom continue to host the majority of brandjacking websites.

• While brand abuse is prevalent through the world, for the second year the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom are home to the majority of brandjacking websites.
• 68 percent of websites that host brand abuse are hosted in the United States. Germany hosts 9 percent followed by the United Kingdom at 4 percent. Canada hosts 4 percent.
• English speaking countries account for 80 percent of the top 15 countries hosting brandjacking websites.

Phishers move into new verticals, become more targeted, and continue to scale operations.

• A total of 444 organizations were phished for the first time in 2008 as fraudsters continued to exploit opportunities to find new targets. Additionally, 422 organizations were phished in Q4 2008, an increase of 8 percent from Q3 2008 and 7 percent over the previous year.
• Phish attacks against "other" industries (non-auction, payment services, retail/service or financial brands) reached 11,000 in 2008, a 135 percent increase.
• Attacks against payment services brands increased 122 percent in the second half of the year. Attacks against financial services brands increased 51 percent in the second half of the year, a rise MarkMonitor attributes to the current economic crisis.
• Phish attacks against retail/service brands dropped 83 percent in 2008 and attacks against auction brands dropped 67 percent in the second half of the year.
• A total of 36 percent of phish sites were hosted in the United States in 2008, followed by the Russian Federation, Republic of Korea and France each at 6 percent and Germany at 4 percent.

"Brandjackers are honing their techniques as they continue building their revenue on the good names of leading brands globally," said Frederick Felman, chief marketing officer of MarkMonitor. "That 80 percent of abuse sites identified in our study last year remain active today confirms that abuse is economically sustainable for fraudsters. We expect attacks to grow both internationally and in complexity, further increasing the threat to organizations' reputations and revenues."

The Brandjacking Index is an independent report produced by MarkMonitor that tracks and analyzes abuses of 30 brands from the Best Global Brands study by Interbrand. The cornerstone of the report is the volume of public data analyzed by MarkMonitor using the company's proprietary algorithms—no customer data or proprietary customer information is used to create the Brandjacking Index. MarkMonitor searches approximately 134 million public records daily for brand abuse in domain data as well as U.S. and international Patent and Trademark Office data.

The phishing data MarkMonitor analyzes is based on feeds from leading international Internet Service Providers (ISPs), email providers and other alliance partners. The company has scanned billions of web pages since November 2004 and processes up to 16 million unique suspected phishing emails daily.