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New TLDs: Finance Dept. Role, Part 2

Last week I wrote about accounting, reporting and promotions. This week, I want to focus on the financial department's role in launching services, renewals and foreign exchange risk management. ... In most businesses, the finance team usually takes a back seat during launch of services as business activity slowly increases in the months that follow. However, in the domain industry, with up to 30 percent of lifetime sales earned in the first three months of launch, it's essential that finance takes a hands-on role from the start. more

Is Bulgarian Cyrillic .?? (.bg) Really Similar to Other Latin ccTLDs?

Bulgaria has proposed for an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) ccTLD string .?? (Cyrillic for .bg, or U+0431 U+0433), but the proposal was turned down by the ICANN DNS Stability panel in May 2010 without any arguments or an option for appeal. The proposed string is composed of two characters... more

Online Critics and Unlawful Harassment from Trademark Holders

The following is based on my experience and interpretation of the UDRP and the relevant laws of the United Kingdom and European Union. This is not legal advice but just my own experience and interpretation. How does a UK citizen create a non-commercial trademark.tld parody criticism website and avoid harassment from the trademark holder? Here are the steps... more

Debugging Legislation: PROTECT IP

There's more than a hint of theatrics in the draft PROTECT IP bill that has emerged as son-of-COICA, starting with the ungainly acronym of a name. Given its roots in the entertainment industry, that low drama comes as no surprise. Each section name is worse than the last: "Eliminating the Financial Incentive to Steal Intellectual Property Online" (Sec. 4) gives way to "Voluntary action for Taking Action Against Websites Stealing American Intellectual Property". more

Why ICANN Doesn’t Need to Go Back to the GAC Over Dot-XXX

This Friday, it looks as though the ICANN Board will follow the clear conclusions drawn by its independent review and approve dot-xxx. Given the importance of the first use of the review process, the importance of the Board being seen to be accountable and the fact that the community was pretty unanimous in recent public comment, it is pretty much the only reasonable course of action. The question then is: how do things move forward? more

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

ICANN's recently released report, ICANN's Whois Data Accuracy and Availability Program: Description of Prior Efforts and New Compliance Initiatives [PDF], is a summary of the Whois Data Problem Report System's (WDPRS) reports spanning a one-year period that concluded at the end of Fenruary 2007. In case you're not familiar with the WDPRS, it's system that tracks complaints about inaccurate or incomplete whois entries. Notable facts from the report include: There were 50,189 reports for which ICANN received follow-up responses during the year... more

Close to 3.1 Million Domain Names Registered in the Third Quarter of 2015

Approximately 3.1 million domain names were registered in the third quarter of 2015, bringing the total number of registered domain names close to 299 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of Sept. 30, 2015, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief by Verisign. more

10.1 Million .ORG Domains and Counting

PIR released the results of the bi-annual domain name report, "The Dashboard," which outlines the growth of .ORG in the second half of 2012. Overall, we had a remarkable year. Most notably, we hit a major milestone in June with the registration of the 10 millionth .ORG domain! Some of the key findings of "The Dashboard" include the following. more

Price Increases for .COM and .NET: The Generated Impact on the Performance of the Two TLDs

Verisign announced a few days ago a decrease of 0.4 million domain name registrations for .COM and .NET Top Level Domains, a first time in the history of these TLDs. Could this decrease be related to the successive price increases of September 2021 and September 2022? On 28 July 2022, Verisign, the registry for the .COM and .NET TLDs, announced that it would be applying a 10% increase in the price of .NET domains as of 1 February 2023. more

A Snapshot of the Domain Industry in 2023

The year 2022 was a turning point. We started emerging from the covid emergency and could return to traveling and meeting our peers at industry events worldwide. But it was also a year of taking stock, with numbers returning to pre-covid levels. After two years of sky-high domain registrations, figures returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2022. The domain sector shows a good mix of strength and adaptability to change compared to other industries.  more

Drawing Inferences from the Record: UDRP/URS Decision-Making

The weighing of evidence involves the connecting of dots, which involves drawing inferences. However, just as there can be false positives, there can be false inferences. The tendency may be to think of inferences as coming in one size, but not all inferences are logically correct. Some are weak and others strong. The reason for talking about both kinds is that so much depends on the quality of their making. more

Probability of ROI and Tighter Network Security by Blocking Malicious Subdomains

Failing to block a stealthy malicious host from making connections to your network could cost your company millions of dollars, a damaged reputation, and severe losses in sensitive private data. Threat intel teams have faced on-going problems: Expensive feeds that are slow to catch new threats; Chasing false positives in alerts wastes time and money; and Vendors selling a new appliance for every ill. Would 100% of your users Spot the Bot? more

The Overlooked Signals of ccTLDs

Two ccTLD signals should get more attention when we're talking about the domains' benefits. Companies in emerging markets can signal their brands to expats and/or westerners. This ability to take the companies' appeal beyond their immediate, national markets deserves a look and some appreciation. Traditionally, Western companies have been the ones who registered ccTLDs to signal target="_blank" operations in overseas markets, while companies in emerging markets use them to signal their local brands to the local market. more

New UDRP Filing Fees at Czech Arbitration Court

The Czech Arbitration Court (CAC) has long offered the least expensive (by far) filing fees for complaints under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), but its fee are about to become more expensive, at least in most cases. CAC's base UDRP filing fee (for a dispute involving up to five domain names and a single-member panel) will increase on February 1, 2018, from 500 euros to 800 euros. As of this writing, that's equivalent to about U.S. $600. more

Limitations, Delays, and Laches as Defenses in Cybersquatting Claims

In passing the baton for combating cybersquatting to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recommended that "claims under the administrative procedure [should not] be subject to a time limitation" (Final Report, Paragraph 199). ICANN agreed and the UDRP contains no limitation period for making a claim. The absence of a limitation period does not necessarily forego applying equitable defenses for delay, but the consensus of Panels appointed to decide disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) is that they are not applicable in countering cybersquatting claims. more