Domain Names

Are Domain Names Contract of Services or Property Rights?

There are several perspectives from which one can give various answers to the question of 'what are domain names?'. Originally the domain name system started and continues to be a human-friendly way of addressing to a set of machines or specific machine connected to the Internet. Hence, from the technical perspective, a domain name is simply an address consisting of a combination of alphanumeric and symbols to communicate with a machine which also happens to be hosting certain services in form of data and information on it. more

Thick Whois Policy for .COM Goes Live

"The domain name industry is kicking off one of its most fundamental shifts in its plumbing this week," Kevin Murphy reporting in Domain Incite. more

When a ‘Response Fee’ is Required in a URS Case

Although filing fees in domain name disputes are usually paid for by the trademark owner that files a complaint, the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) contains a little-noticed provision that, in large cases, requires the domain name registrant to pay a fee to defend itself. The so-called "Response Fee" is only required in URS cases that include 15 or more disputed domain names. more

When to Consider ‘Both Sides of the Dot’ in a Domain Name Dispute

In the case, filed by Michelin, the panel found the domain name 'tyre.plus' confusingly similar to the trademark TYREPLUS. Specifically, the panel wrote: "If one ignores the 'dot' between the Second-Level Domain ('tyre') and the Top-Level Domain ('plus'), the mark and the Domain Name are identical..." It's an issue that's arising with increasing frequency -- just as I had predicted. more

Counterfeit Marks and Counterfeit Goods: Pretense in Cyberspace

The term "counterfeit" is defined under U.S. trademark law as "a spurious mark which is identical with, or substantially indistinguishable from, a registered mark." 15 U.S.C. § 1127 (Lanham Act, Sec. 45). Used as a noun, domain names ultimately found to have been registered in bad faith make their registrants cybersquatters by definition. But more commonly we encounter counterfeiting as an adjective as it applies to spurious goods (counterfeit goods) -- "made in exact imitation of something valuable or important with the intention to deceive or defraud." more

CADNA Returns to Lobby for Stronger Cybersquatting Laws

Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, the lobby group that campaigned for stronger cybersquatting laws and against new gTLDs, is back. more

Differing UDRP Decisions Show That Facts Matter

"Past performance does not necessarily predict future results." That's what the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires mutual funds tell investors. But it's also true about domain name disputes. Cases in point: In four recent proceedings under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), the operator of a large bank won two decisions but lost two others, despite a track record of having won more than 30 previous UDRP disputes. more

How a ‘Defensive Registration’ Can Defeat a UDRP Complaint

A company that registers a domain name containing someone else's trademark may be engaging in the acceptable practice of "defensive registration" if (among other things) the domain name is a typographical variation of the registrant's own trademark. That's the outcome of a recent decision under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), a case in which the domain name in dispute, idocler.com, contained the complainant's DOCLER trademark -- but also contained a typo of the respondent's DOLCER trademark. more

Fairness & Due Process Require Changes to ICANN’s “Updated Supplementary Procedures” to the IRP

The Updated Supplementary Procedures for Independent Review Process ("IRP Supplementary Procedures") are now up for review and Public Comment. Frankly, there is a lot of work to be done. If you have ever been in a String Objection, Community Objection, or negotiated a Consensus Policy, your rights are being limited by the current way the IRP Supplementary Procedures proposal is structured. With timely edits, we can ensure that all directly-impacted and materially-affected parties have actual notice of the IRP proceeding... more

New Report on “State of DNSSEC Deployment 2016” Shows Continued Growth

Did you know that over 50% of .CZ domains are now signed with DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)? Or that over 2.5 million .NL domains and almost 1 million .BR domains are now DNSSEC-signed? Were you aware that around 80% of DNS clients are now requesting DNSSEC signatures in their DNS queries? And did you know that over 100,000 email domains are using DNSSEC and DANE to enable secure email between servers? more

Parsing Domain Names Composed of Random Letters for Proof of Cybersquatting

The Respondent's cry of pain in AXA SA v. Whois Privacy Protection Service, Inc. / Ugurcan Bulut, axathemes, D2016-1483 (WIPO December 12, 2016) "[w]hat do you want from me people? I already removed all the files from that domain and it's empty. What else do you want me to do???" raises some interesting questions. "A," "x," and "a" is an unusual string of letters but unlike other iconic strings such as "u," "b" and "s" and "i", "b" and "m" for example that started their lives as the first letters of three-word brands AXA is not an acronym. more

It’s Official: 2016 Was a Record Year for Domain Name Disputes

As I predicted more than three months ago, 2016 turned out to be a record year for domain name disputes, including under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). That's according to statistics from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the only UDRP service provider that publishes real-time data on domain name disputes. WIPO's statistics show 3,022 cases in 2016 -- an increase of almost 10 percent from 2015. The previous most-active year for domain name disputes was 2012... more

2016 New gTLD Year in Review (Infographic)

This post provides an overview of The 2016 New gTLD Year in Review infographic, reflecting on some of the intriguing highlights of the gTLD industry. The data analyzed within the infographic is based on the following: New Top Level Domains (TLDs) contained in the data set reflect open TLDs and exclude single registrants such as brands; For greater insight, TLDs have been separated into four quartiles or 'tiers' with tier 1 being the top 25% and tier 4 being the bottom 25%... more

December 2016 Dot Brand Insights

The dot brand observatory is a research program on brands who registered their name at the top level of the internet domain name system -- the DNS. The research looks at the registration of second level domain names by brands, but also the use of these domain names to provide services and experience to customers. This research is carried out every other month, and we illustrate hereafter a certain number of highlights of our December analysis. more

Here’s the Largest URS Complaint Ever Filed

A complaint under the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) may -- like the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) -- include more than one domain name, but few URS complaints have done so. Now, one new URS case just changed everything. In the largest URS case ever filed, an expert at the Forum ordered the suspension of 474 domain names in a single proceeding. more