Yahoo Files UDRP Complaint for YahooContributorNetwork.com Domain Name
Yahoo has filed a UDRP ,seeking control of YahooContributorNetwork.com domain name.The complaint was filed with the National Arbitration Forum a few days ago.
According to whois records,the domain name was first registered in August,2012.
The National Arbitration Forum will examine if YahooContributorNetwork.com domain is confusingly similar to Yahoo’s trademark,if the current owner has rights over it and if the domain is being used in bad faith .The disputed domain name will be passed over to Yahoo if it falls under all three of these stipulations.
The case is still pending compliance checks with the National Arbitration Forum .
ICANN Appoints a Third New gTLD Data Escrow Agent
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has been approved by ICANN to provide data escrow services to new gTLD Registry Operators.
All new gTLD Registry Operators are required to regularly deposit a backup copy of their TLD registration data through one of the approved data escrow service providers. The data held in escrow may be released to ICANN under certain circumstances in order to preserve the stability of the TLD in case of an emergency.
ICANN encourages applicants to engage with one of the approved data escrow providers in preparation for Specification 2, Part B.1, of the Registry Agreement. View the approved providers.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/announcement-20feb14-en
ICANN: Additional Call for Volunteers: New Working Group on Data & Metrics for Policy Making (non-PDP)
In Brief: The Generic Names Supporting Organization ( GNSO ) Council seeks volunteers to serve on a new Working Group ( WG ). The Data & Metrics for Policy Making WG will be tasked with exploring opportunities with respect to reporting and metrics recommendations that could better inform policy development via fact-based decision making, where applicable. The GNSO Council approved the WG ‘s charter at its 23 Jan 2014 meeting and assigned a Council Liaison.
What This Team Will Do
The WG will research and deliberate the issues identified in the Final Issue Report on Uniformity of Reporting [PDF, 1.50 MB] and as defined in the Charter approved by the GNSO Council. Activities will include:
- establishing a baseline of current practices and capabilities to problem reporting
- evaluate previous PDP and non-PDP efforts and how metrics could have enhanced the WG process
- review existing GNSO work product templates, like charters, issue reports, and final reports for possible enhancements to inform the PDP and non-PDP process
- evaluate external data sources that may benefit the policy process such as abuse statistics or DNS industry related data and define a possible framework in how it may be accessed
- prepare preliminary recommendations and obtain community input
The expectation of the WG is to produce a Final Recommendations Report addressing all community input and then submit it to the GNSO Council for their consideration and next steps, if any.
How This Team Will Work
ICANN WGs use transparent, open processes. The meetings of this WG will be recorded, and the recordings will be available to the public. The mailing list for the WG will be archived publicly and WG members are expected to submit Statements of Interest ( SOI ). The group will collaborate using a public workspace for draft materials and all final work products and milestones will be documented on the WG ‘s project page. The WG is expected to follow the GNSO Working Group Guidelines [PDF, 350 KB].
How to Join
The GNSO Council invites interested parties to provide names of expected participants who can then be added to the WG mailing list. The WG will be open to anyone interested to join. Community members who wish to be invited to join the group should contact the GNSO secretariat (
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
).
Background
The 2010 Registration Abuse Policies Working Group (RAPWG) identified the Meta Issue: Uniformity of Reporting which it described as “need for more uniformity in the mechanisms to initiate, track, and analyze policy-violation reports.” The RAPWG recommended in its Final Report that “the GNSO and the larger ICANN community in general, create and support uniform problem-reporting and report-tracking processes.”
The GNSO Council recommended the creation of an Issue Report [PDF, 1.50 MB] to further research metrics and reporting needs in hopes to improve the policy development process. The report created by ICANN Staff outlined accomplishments regarding reporting and metrics by the Contractual Compliance function and it also reviewed other reporting sources that may be of relevance. The GNSO Council subsequently adopted the recommendation to form this non-PDP Working Group tasked with exploring opportunities for developing reporting and metrics processes and/or appropriate standardized methodologies that could better inform fact-based policy development and decision making. The GNSO resolution states:
Resolved,
The GNSO Council does not initiate a Policy Development Process at this stage but will review at the completion of the ICANN Contractual Compliance three-year plan expected for 31 December 2013 whether additional action is required;
The GNSO Council further approves the creation of a drafting team to develop a charter for a non-PDP Working Group to consider additional methods for collecting necessary metrics and reporting from Contracted Parties and other external resources to aid the investigation.
More information can be found on the GNSO Metrics & Reporting WG page.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-21feb14-en.htm
ICANN Releases New gTLD Contracting Statistics To 21 February
Below are the key Contracting statistics, as of 21 February 2014:
- 1084 applicants have been invited to Contracting
- 473 applicants have responded to their Contracting Information Request invitation
- 333 contracts have been sent out for signature
- 287 Registry Agreements have been signed
- All signed Registry Agreements can be viewed here: www.icann.org/en/about/agreements/registries
View Contracting Statistics From Previous Weeks »
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/announcement-21feb14-en
Domain Pulse 2014: After Application Debacles, .BERLIN Ready To Rumble
Applicants for new gTLDs have faced a few hurdles to not just get their applications submitted, but also processed and implemented.
First there was the “glitch” that halted for a few months the TLD Application System (TAS) for applications for new gTLDs, then the fiasco of the Digital Archery process to determine the order in which applications would be processed and most recently an expensive and then a complicated Trademark Clearinghouse for brand owners to protect their brands in new gTLD.
These were the hurdles Dirk Krischenowski of dotBERLIN, applicant for .berlin, described that new gTLD applicants faced at the Domain Pulse conference in the Austrian city of Salzburg in front of over 300 attendees attending the annual two day conference, this year hosted by the Austrian (.at) registry nic.at. The conference rotates between Germany (.de), Switzerland (.ch) and Austria.
But .berlin has overcome these hurdles and is ready to rumble with its General Availability due to commence on 18 March. It is also the world’s first cityTLD to accept registrations.
Krischenowski also compared the launches of other TLDs to get an idea of how they evolved over their first year. Looking at .asia, .co, .tel and .xxx he found that at the end of the first month, all of them consistently had around 45 percent of their registrations they at the end of the first year of operation, and that growth rates as a proportion of their current registrations grew very consistently across the four TLDs in the first year.
Having overcome their hurdles, .berlin and other applicants that also spoke on a new gTLD panel outlined how they are moving forward to implement their gTLDs with new opportunities for marketing and branding being important in their implementation.
The European travel agency Tui said that while they were initially focussed on getting the gTLD instead of the New Zealand brewery of the same name, now they are looking at a vision for the brand under .tui.
Alexander Bialas from TUI AG said strategic options for the future are being considered. He also gave examples of some of the ways in which Tui will use their TLD with plans to create destination domains to promote destinations with information on activities, events and eating, for example, as well as direct access to social media (facebook.tui and twitter.tui) so people don’t have to leave the Tui online world.
Another with a view to increasing brand awareness was .tirol. Markus Kichl, CEO of .tirol said the Austrian region wanted to enhance tourism and make businesses easier to find in the region.
Dirk Hamm, Founder and CEO of Valuetainment, the applicant for .voting spoke of how they plan to introduce .voting and use it as a mechanism to enable voter initiatives and online voting, with tools to be available to make voting on a registrant’s website easy to implement.
And Ulrich Retzlaff from the Public Interest Registry, who has applied for .ngo and .ong spoke of how PIR is wanting to give the 10 million non-governmental organisations around the world an opportunity to market themselves, and provide better opportunities for fundraising.
Earlier in the day, Sally Costerton, Senior Advisor to ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé, spoke of the importance of an open internet. Its importance was underlined by a recent Boston Consulting Group report that said in 2018, the global online economy will be worth $4.2 trillion, up from $2.3t in 2010.
But implementing an internet that is free of walls and silos that stifle innovation and take advantage of the opportunities online, information must be accessible, Costerton said.
Costerton also implored attendees to get involved. “Business can make a difference,” she told delegates, “as governments listen” and that the “influence business has on their national government is extremely disproportionate.” To help with influencing governement, Costerton said ICANN will help business to reach out to their governments.
“We owe it to the next billion people to keep the internet open and free and frictionless,” she concluded.
