ICANN Asks US and Canadian Regulators to Consider if .SUCKS Violates Laws
There has been widespread outrage from brand owners as to the business model of the .sucks gTLD with fears the gTLD will turn into a forum for registrants to “bash-a-brand.” And now following a complaint from ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency [pdf], ICANN has asked both the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and, because Vox Populi is a Canadian enterprise, Canada’s Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA), to consider assessing and determining whether or not Vox Populi is violating any of the laws or regulations those agencies enforce.
ICANN is currently evaluating remedies available to them under the registry agreement. Should Vox Populi not be complying with all applicable laws, it may also be in breach of its registry agreement allowing ICANN to take action itself, acting consistently with its public interest goals and consumer and business protections to change these practices through our contractual relationship with the registry.
Greg Shatan, president of the IPC, whose letter on 27 March sparked ICANN’s outreach to the FTC and OCA, spoke to Domain Incite and said the word “justice” is more appropriate than “appeasement”.
“We’re looking forward to the FTC and OCA taking a look at Vox Populi’s behaviour,” Shatan told Domain Incite. “And there’s lots to look at. The punitive TMCH Sunrise, where a ‘rights protection mechanism’ intended to protect trademark owners has been turned into a scheme to extort $2,500 and up… The eternal Sunrise Premium of the far-from-spotless .SUCKS registry. The mysterious ‘everybody.sucks’ — purportedly a third party, purportedly providing a ‘subsidy’ to registrant — would anyone be surprised if that was a sham?
With reference to the FTC referral, Shatan also told Domain Incite that “I don’t think ICANN wants to waste the FTC’s time. It’s far more rational to think that ICANN informed the FTC because Vox Populi’s activities are within the jurisdiction of the FTC. Mr. Berard’s remarks seem to indicate that he believes that Vox Populi operates beyond the reach of US laws.”
“With a tech contact in Bermuda and an admin contact in the Caymans, that may have been Vox Pop’s intention. Vox Pop may be operating outside US laws, but I doubt they are operating beyond their reach.”
The issue, the IPC believes, needs to be considered urgently as the .sucks Sunrise period was slated to open on 30 March and that Vox Populi will “charge trademark owners $2,499 and up to register domain names in the TMCH Sunrise period” was one of their concerns. “Vox Populi’s incredibly high fees will prevent many trademark owners from being able to take advantage of the TMCH Sunrise period.”
The “illicit scheme doesn’t stop there” though according to the IPC. “If a trademark owner decides that it will sit out the Sunrise Period and attempt to register its trademark as a domain name during general availability for $249, it still may be forced to pay at least $2,499. This is because Vox Populi has now introduced its ‘Sunrise Premium’ list. (Despite the name, ‘Sunrise Premium’ pricing applies only during general availability.) If a trademark is on the Sunrise Premium list, it will always be at least $2,499 per year. The Sunrise Premium list is a list of strings compiled by Vox Populi from strings registered or blocked in other TLDs’ sunrise periods.”
According to the IPC, “Vox Populi’s strategy is obvious-to ensure that those trademark owners who have invested in protecting those trademarks by registering in the TMCH and registering domain names in other sunrise periods, and who are most likely to want to protect their trademarks by registering in .SUCKS, cannot avoid paying at least $2,499 per year, no matter when they register.”
article by David Goldstein
Victory! Domains Stripped Out of EU “Trademark Package” by Philip Corwin, Internet Commerce Association
Back in January ICA joined with four other trade association in cosigning a letter communicating our joint concerns regarding a “trademark package” being considered by the Council of the European Union. Adoption of the language under consideration could have led to adverse judicial actions being brought against domain registrants of all types by aggressive trademark owners. In particular, the signatories objected to the wording of the Proposal that would have resulted in the addition of “domain names” to the enumerated prohibited uses, for which the proprietor of a registered trade mark has an exclusive right to impose on third parties.
All the signing groups believed that this would have been redundant of Community Trade Mark rights as they already apply to domain names. The also shared concerns that this addition would have generated confusion among judges inexperienced in Internet technology, and predisposed EU member courts to find infringement in cases of legitimate uses of domain names.
We are delighted to report that Jakob Kucharczyk, Director and General Manager of CCIA Europe, has informed us that the letter had its intended effect. Domain names have been dropped from the scope of substantive trademark protections and will not be included in the final package.
Mr. Kucharcyzk’s email to those who had cosigned the letter of concern concluded with the declaration, “This is a huge win for us and I would like to thank you one more time for your support!” We at ICA in turn thank CCIA Europe for bringing this issue to our attention and are happy to have contributed to halting unnecessary new law that could have created substantial problems for domain registrants residing in the EU.
This article by Philip Corwin from the Internet Commerce Association was sourced with permission from:
www.internetcommerce.org/victory-domains-stripped-out-of-eu-trademark-package/
posted by David Goldstein
Google Wins Five Youtube-Related Domain Names in Arbitration
Google won another UDRP case seeking to obtain the transfer of five-related Youtube domain names.
. The company submitted the complaint with the National Arbitration Forum on February,2015.
The five domain names are : Youtubeonfire.com, Youtubeonsale.com, Youtubemainpage.com, Youtubesosexy.com and Youtubeon.com.
According to whois records, Youtubeonfire.com was first registered in September 2012, Youtubeonsale.com was first registered in March,2014 , Youtubemainpage.com was first registered in July,2013 ,Youtubesosexy.com was first registered in July, 2013 , while Youtubeon.com was first registered in January, 2014.
Google owns many trademark registrations for the “Youtube” mark all over the world. Therefore,it is more than obvious that the disputed domain names are confusingly similar to its trademark.Moreover,the company managed to demonstrate that the respondent has no rights or legitimate interest in the disputed domain names and that the respondent used the domain names in bad faith .
The arbitrator assigned to the case ruled in favor of Google,indicating that the company has full rights to the disputed domain names .The respondent’s loss was also partly due to the fact that he failed to submit a response in this proceeding ,accepting these way Google’s allegations as fact .
You can read the decision here .
Russian ccTLD .RU Turns 21 !
On April 7,2015, the country code top level domain name .RU, turned 21 years.At the time of writing this article, there are 4.900.781 .RU domain names registered.
You can read the announcement after the jump :
” On April 7, 2015 Russian ccTLD .RU turned 21. For the last 5 years the .RU domain grew 1.8 times or by 2.2 million domain names. In total there are almost 4.9 million domain names registered in the .RU domain as of April 7, 2015. 1.8 million administrators operate them. 31 domain name registrars are accredited in the .RU as of today.
As of today .RU is one of the largest ccTLDs in the world; it occupies the 6th place among all ccTLDs and 4th place among European domains. Among all top-level domains .RU is one of the biggest and holds 10th place in the global hierarchy.
In honor of .RU’s birthday Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ prepared a gift for registrars and users. During the day, from 00:00 till 24:00 on April 7th, 2015 Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ gave a 21% discount to registrars for all new domain name registrations in .RU domain. The discount corresponds with the number of years the domain turns – 21. The list of the registrars that participated in the promotion could be found on Coordination Center’s webpage.
Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ congratulates everyone on .RU domain’s birthday and thanks its partners: registrars, government representatives and the whole Russian Internet community for the joint work on development and prosperity of the Russian ccTLD .RU!”
ICANN: Request for Quotation | Equipment Refresh RFQ
ICANN is seeking one or more providers to facilitate the sourcing and pre-configuration tasks for servers and network equipment for our global network infrastructure.
At appropriate intervals commensurate with the expected longevity of hardware the DNS Engineering Department of ICANN refreshes its infrastructure components to ensure that equipment is both current and supported for ICANN production services. The new servers and network equipment is intended to replace or augment existing systems and services provided by the ICANN DNS Engineering Department.
For additional information and instructions for submitting responses please click here [ZIP, 598 KB].
Proposals should be submitted to
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
by 23:59 UTC on 24 April 2015.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2015-04-10-en
posted by David Goldstein
