Domain News

Chris Dannen of FastCompany blogged his thoughts on the pending release of new TLDs . Dannen feels that the release of the new domain extension will spur a rebirth of cybersquatting.  Too bad Dannen, like many others, has bought in to the idea that cybersquatting equals buying and selling domain names or merely owning more than one domain.  He cites an example of an Iraq War veteran and friend of his who bought up and sold domain names to supplement his income. I’m not sure what this friend of his owns but the act of buying domain names and selling them is not really cybersquatting.  Cybersquatting is illegal. Speculating on domains is not. Owning thousands of domains is not. Selling domains is not.

Dannen also buys in to the message that seems to be one propelling the introduction of new TLDs forward “the Web is running out of memorable domain names.”  Highly unlikely given the number of TLDs we currently have, language variations and made up words and names that are created every day.  Even the name ipod, a name he uses in his piece, meant nothing a mere 7 years prior.

Cyber squatters will suddenly have billions of new domain names to purchase for only a few dollars — no longer will they have to rely on buying domains more expensively secondhand. Trademark infringement suits will balloon from tens or hundreds of domains to thousands and tens of thousands.

Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch follows up to the FastCompany piece, essentially stating that nobody really cares about all these new extensions.  Sure there will be squatters and speculators grabbing up a bunch of domains and it may keep the lawyers busy. We can however look at the history of the latest and greatest new TLD and see that this game is pretty much played out.  A new TLD needs an audience and type-ins and a reason for people to gravitate to it.

As Kincaid points out, people generally don’t navigate to these new TLDs through typeins contrary to what Dannen seems to be saying. The new TLDs are not recession proof in our opinion either.  How well are those .mobi aftermarket sales going right about now?  The Fortune article by Paul Sloan talking about domains as recession proof is clearly dated, given the downward trend that all in the domain space have been feeling.

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Buy Category Killer Domain Names for the best price possible.

Original post by Adam Strong

In a case that is well over a year old, Vulcan Golf and other plaintiffs in the “Vulcan vs Google” case where handed a set back this week as the court denied their class certification.  The court’s decision can be found at this link on Docutek (pdf).  DNN caught wind of this news through Eric Goldman’s blog where he provides a summary of the the court’s decision and it’s implications.

” The court rejects class certification for the trademark infringement and Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act claims because the individual questions of fact predominate over the common questions of law.”

Some take-aways from the court papers.  The court recognizes that ownership issues and claims to each trademark would have to be examined for every potential class member.

“Even if the court has to conduct hearings regarding ownership on even a tiny fraction of the potentially millions of registered and unregistered marks or personal names of the putative class members, such an undertaking would render proceeding as a class unmanageable. . . .

In this court’s view, the possibility of hundreds if not thousands of individual hearings related to ownership,
distinctiveness and the applicability of affirmative defenses, including managing probable discovery to be conducted prior to those hearings, precludes a finding that a class action is a
superior method of adjudicating the trademark-related claims,

The distinctiveness of a trademark is also brought up.

Caselaw on the issue of distinctiveness indicates that it is a multi-faceted, fact-specific inquiry particular to each putative mark, which includes a detailed inquiry into whether a mark is generic, descriptive, suggestive, arbitrary, or fanciful. . . .

. . . were the class to be certified, the court would be required to engage in thousands (or more) of individual inquiries as to whether a class members’ mark is distinctive.

Goldman points out that “this case reinforces the difficulty of establishing class action lawsuits to enforce trademark rights. They are possible, but so often the idiosyncrasies of each trademark preclude summary adjudication.”

This case originally involved IREIT, Dotster, Sedo and Oversee as defendants. The plaintiffs most notable addition was former baseball star Bo Jackson. For more information on the case, refer to DNN coverage  here and here and Goldman’s coverage.

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

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Original post by Adam Strong

Historically the mainstream media has covered the domain name space more than once in a negative light. Admittedly it’s much too easy and wagging a finger at someone is often more entertaining. The most recent piece by Andrew Siff of WNBC falls in to this category of negative coverage, but also crosses in to the realm of completely absurd and irresponsible.

Here’s 5 things I caught.

#1 - Journalist interviews journalist.
Kyle Monson of PC Magazine is interviewed in the story as an expert in the domain name business. Really ? Ok maybe he knows a bit about the space from past coverage and journalist are supposedly unbiased right ? :)  . . .

#2 - The story talks about speculators who registered domains in the 90s “in the hopes that they’d be valuable” . Monson then says “they’re called typosquatters or cybersquatter”.

Of course, this always the part where we hear the negativity . . . we’re all pretty used to the name by now. No matter what anyone says if you buy more than one domain, the media portrayal will be that you are a cybersquatter.

To be clear though: Typosquatting is a form of cybersquatting, but buying and speculating on domain names more often than not has nothing to do with cybersquatting or typosquatting.

#3 - “No one owns more sites than Godaddy.com . . . Godaddy has 30 million web names”.
This is the part that becomes irresponsible. Godaddy doesn’t OWN 30 million domain names.

#4 - “What do you do if the name of your dream website is already taken ? Well, you can always buy it back”
This makes it sound like someone has unfairly taken away something from someone doesn’t it ?

#5 - Monson says “The trick to getting it back from these guys is “bid low”. They’re paying $10 a year for this thing and they’re just tyring to turn a profit. ”

This advice is again misguided. Sure, some domain investors have to turn a profit and flip names fast, but the majority of domainers that own the more desirable domains are already turning a profit on their ppc revenue. They typically don’t have to or even want to sell. More likely than not, they won’t even answer an inquiry on a domain.

These highly desirable names, or as the story calls them “your dream website”, are taken for a reason. There really are few ideas someone else hasn’t thought of before and with domain names it’s the same thing. Any interested party looking to acquire “their dream website” should realize that they probably aren’t the first to inquire and if they want it bad enough they should be serious about their offer rather than playing a game.

My advice if you want a domain bad enough . . .hire a domain expert or domain buyers broker who knows the business.

Watch the video by clicking the image below

Web domain taken? Sowhatsleft.com?

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Domain Convergence, October 6-8, 2008, Niagara Falls

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Original post by Adam Strong

Anti-virus software maker McAfee released their second “Mapping the Mal Web” (PDF) report today. The McAfee report attempts to map and identify the specific domain names where malicious websites reside. This is the second year for the report. In the 2007 report, the .tk extension was reported to have the highest number of malicious websites with over . This year Hong Kong domain name extension .hk takes away the title with 19.2% , followed closely by China’s .cn with 11.8%.  Within the generic domain name extensions (gTLDs) .info ranked in with 11.7% of all sites ending in .info posing a security threat. The second rank in gTLDs went to .net with 6%. The report claims that a little under 5% of .com domain names were found to be risky. McAfee also identified the domains with the least amount of risk reside in the .gov, .jp and .au extensions.
The newest report specifically points to .hk and .cn domain names as having a substantially higher percentage of malicious websites. In the 2007 report, McAfee had not pointed to those extensions as having such high percentages.

Shane Keats, research analyst for McAfee and lead author of the report, said the increase in dangerous sites registered under the “.hk” and “.cn” domains over last year’s report was caused in part by better data collection on McAfee’s part on those domains and by apparent security lapses in some registrar companies’ processes for registering addresses.

The 2007 report claimed the .tk extension to have one of the highest percentages (10.1%). After the McAfee report was released, Dot TK, operators of the registry for Tokelau, implemented changes geared toward the reduction of these malicious sites. The .tk extension dropped considerably to #28 this year. Dot TK faced a 10% decline in registrations and a backlash from adveritsers running ads on .tk landing pages. The domain business reportedly accounts for a “double digit” percentage of the GDP of Tokelau. One could assume that the reduction in domain registrations that .tk felt will now be seen at the .hk, .cn and .info domain registries. This news should come as a wake up call to these operators.

The high percentage of malicious sites found on the .info extension may also be read as another “nail in the coffin” for the gTLD. The McAfee report follows on the heels of the news earlier last week that Google was dropping .info domains from search listings. All of this bad news can’t be sitting well for the .info registry or anyone heavily invested in .info domain names.

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Domain Convergence, October 6-8, 2008, Niagara Falls

Original post by Adam Strong

Anti-virus software maker McAfee released their second “Mapping the Mal Web” (PDF) report today. The McAfee report attempts to map and identify the specific domain names where malicious websites reside. This is the second year for the report. In the 2007 report, the .tk extension was reported to have the highest number of malicious websites with over . This year Hong Kong domain name extension .hk takes away the title with 19.2% , followed closely by China’s .cn with 11.8%.?? Within the generic domain name extensions (gTLDs) .info ranked in with 11.7% of all sites ending in .info posing a security threat. The second rank in gTLDs went to .net with 6%. The report claims that a little under 5% of .com domain names were found to be risky. McAfee also identified the domains with the least amount of risk reside in the .gov, .jp and .au extensions.
The newest report specifically points to .hk and .cn domain names as having a substantially higher percentage of malicious websites. In the 2007 report, McAfee had not pointed to those extensions as having such high percentages.

Shane Keats, research analyst for McAfee and lead author of the report, said the increase in dangerous sites registered under the “.hk” and “.cn” domains over last year’s report was caused in part by better data collection on McAfee’s part on those domains and by apparent security lapses in some registrar companies’ processes for registering addresses.

The 2007 report claimed the .tk extension to have one of the highest percentages (10.1%). After the McAfee report was released, Dot TK, operators of the registry for Tokelau, implemented changes geared toward the reduction of these malicious sites. The .tk extension dropped considerably to #28 this year. Dot TK faced a 10% decline in registrations and a backlash from adveritsers running ads on .tk landing pages. The domain business reportedly accounts for a “double digit” percentage of the GDP of Tokelau. One could assume that the reduction in domain registrations that .tk felt will now be seen at the .hk, .cn and .info domain registries. This news should come as a wake up call to these operators.

The high percentage of malicious sites found on the .info extension may also be read as another “nail in the coffin” for the gTLD. The McAfee report follows on the heels of the news earlier last week that Google was dropping .info domains from search listings. All of this bad news can’t be sitting well for the .info registry or anyone heavily invested in .info domain names.

(c) 2008 DomainNameNews.com

Domain Convergence, October 6-8, 2008, Niagara Falls

Original post by Adam Strong

In a push against automated trademark infringing domainers, Dell filed a lawsuit against three Florida Registrars on November 16, 2007, based on complaints of cybersquatting, trademark infringement, counterfeiting, dilution, and unfair competition.

Dell Inc., along with Alienware Corporation, a subsidiary of Dell, brought this action against BelgiumDomains, CapitolDomains, and DomainDoorman.com. Netrian Ventures and iHoldings.com were also named in the filing, as they are also controlled by the man that is behind it all, Juan Pablo Vazquez (known as “JP” Vazquez). According to the allegations, JP Vazquez was in charge of conducting the day-to-day operations of all five companies, which have often worked together as a single entity for the purpose of unlawful activity.

The defendants have collectively registered and are monetizing over 64 million unique domain names, thousands of them beginning with “Dell”, and are believed to be using an automated process to obtain the majority of them. They are also accused of making successful attempts at concealing their identity using shell-entities, fictitious business and personal names, as well as restricting the publicly viewable WHOIS databases of BelgiumDomains, CapitolDomains, and DomainDoorman.

This is definitely a case to keep an eye on and Domain Name News will try to keep on top of developments.  The Washington Post has a piece on this story with a general overview.

The pdf documents from this case can be downloaded (right mouse click and save as) or viewed through the links below.

Document 1 : This is the original federal case filing. 66 pages

Document 2: This document contains many of the Exhibits 1-5. Special mention to note the list of companies in Exhibit 4 . 109 pages

Document 3: Exhibits 6-10, mainly whois information for specific domains and screen grabs of parking pages. 111 pages

cybersquatters, dell, Dell Computers, DomainDoorman.com, domainers, JP Vazquez, Legal Issues, trademark infringement

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Original post by Chad Kettner