When it comes to ICANN’s New gTLD Program, there are a lot of unknowns. Businesses are asking questions about batching, evaluation processes, Contention Sets, and when the next application round will be held. Some, however, have already started looking beyond the application and evaluation phases to the future and the potential for game-changing innovation and technological advances that, some say, owning a new gTLD promises. Continue reading “Betting on the Future: New gTLDs Hold (Vague) Promises of Innovation”
Month: November 2011
Brands and Facebook: A gTLD Love Story?
By now, consumers are used to seeing domain names appear in traditional advertising spots like print ads, billboards, television commercials and the like. If they’re anything like the staff here at FairWinds, they actually seek them out. But since social media juggernaut Facebook started offering “vanity URLs,” we have seen more brands including Facebook URLs instead of their own domain names. For example, the new Visa commercials promoting the chance to win tickets to this year’s Super Bowl end with Facebook.com/VisaNFL in place of a Visa.com domain. Continue reading “Brands and Facebook: A gTLD Love Story?”
Update on the IANA Contract Request for Proposal
A few weeks back, we wrote about the upcoming expiration of the IANA contract between the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and ICANN. At that point, the NTIA had announced that it will be accepting proposals from potential new contractors between early November and early December of this year.
Now, the NTIA has officially issued its Request for Proposal, and it includes a few marked changes from previous iterations of the IANA contract. For one, it includes much more stringent language requiring the contractor disclose any conflicts of interest.But perhaps most surprising to some is the fact that the NTIA will now require the new contractor to be a wholly U.S. owned an operated firm or fully accredited U.S. college or university. Previously, the NTIA had only required that the contractor maintain a physical address in the U.S. Continue reading “Update on the IANA Contract Request for Proposal”
SWORD Fights and String Theory: Part 2
This is the second post in a two-part series of blog posts explaining String Contention Sets, a complex aspect of ICANN’s new gTLD evaluation process.
So you’ve found yourself in a String Contention Set. Another party has applied for the same new gTLD as you, or one that is so visually similar that ICANN believes that allowing both strings to become full-fledged new gTLDs will cause confusion among Internet users.
Let’s assume that the Contention Set consists of you and one other applicant. What happens now? First, ICANN encourages you both to reach an agreement amongst yourselves as to which application will proceed. Both of you can choose to drop out at this point, or one can concede to the other, but there is no way that both applications can proceed with each of you operating a separate registry. Continue reading “SWORD Fights and String Theory: Part 2”
SWORD Fights and String Theory: Part 1
This is the first post in a two-part series of blog posts explaining String Contention Sets, a complex aspect of ICANN’s new gTLD evaluation process.
When the news about the New gTLD Program first broke, before details about the application process and trademark protection mechanisms were widely discussed, many assumed that ICANN would be doling out new top-level domains to the highest bidders through a series of auctions.
Of course, we all know that’s not really the case – in reality, there is only one scenario where two or more gTLD applicants would end up in an auction over an extension, or “string,” as ICANN refers to it. That scenario is if applicants end up in a String Contention Set. Continue reading “SWORD Fights and String Theory: Part 1”
Caveat Emptor
As we draw closer to the opening of the new gTLD application period on January 12, 2012, more and more new gTLD service providers are coming out of the woodwork. In order to stand out from the pack, some of these providers have dropped their prices, offering services like application preparation for as little as $20,000. Given that applying for a new gTLD is not exactly a cheap endeavor, due to the $185,000 price tag for submitting the application, it may be tempting to pick a partner who offers the lowest price. But like everything, when it comes to new gTLDs, you get what you pay for. Continue reading “Caveat Emptor”
Overwhelming Demand: Update on the Sunrise B Period for .XXX
ICM Registry, the company administering the .XXX top-level domain, has announced that it received 78,938 applications during the Sunrise B Period, which ended on Monday, October 31st. During the Sunrise B Period, trademark holders from outside the adult entertainment industry had the opportunity to preemptively register their trademarks in order to block them from being registered as .XXX domains. (Sunrise A gave trademark owners within the adult industry the opportunity to register domains before ICM opens the .XXX floodgates to the general public.) Given the overwhelming response, ICM and its IP Rights validation company will likely be processing the trademarks and applications through the end of November. As such, the results of the Sunrise B period will not be available until early December. Continue reading “Overwhelming Demand: Update on the Sunrise B Period for .XXX”
Counterfeit Goods and Cybersquatting: A Love Connection
cybScouring the Internet for an authentic Albert Pujols jersey to commemorate the 2011 World Series? Before you bust out your credit card, take careful note of the website hawking the goods. Just as the St. Louis Cardinals were orchestrating one of the greatest comebacks in baseball history, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) division cracked down on 58 websites hawking counterfeit goods that infringed on trademarks owned by Major League Baseball, as well as by the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL. The story, along with a complete list of the seized domains, was covered by Internet Retailer this week.
A quick look at the list of the seized domain names reveals that 31 out of the 58 contained team, league, or company trademarks, such as MinnesotaTwinsStore.com, CoolNFLJerseys.com, and CheapNikeDunksOnline.com. This underscores the wisdom that cybersquatting is sometimes a means to an end for cybercriminals; in this case, it was used to sell counterfeit goods, while in other cases, it is used to spread malware or to phish for sensitive information.
As we so often see in our work here at FairWinds, by taking advantage of well-known, trusted brands and marks, cybersquatters are not only able to drive Internet traffic to their sites, but they can also manufacture a sense of legitimacy that woos customers into purchasing counterfeit items or divulging personal information. For brands, the problem is obvious: this practice infringes on their intellectual property, dilutes their brand, and leads to negative customer experiences.
As in baseball, the best defense is a strong offense. Brand owners must proactively register strategic domain names and then develop a systematic approach towards monitoring the domain landscape and recovering any infringing domains. Failure to do so may leave you down by two runs with only one strike left in Game 6. While the Cards pulled it off, I’m betting that’s a risk to your brand and your company that you’re just not willing to take.
Down with Data
When talking about new gTLDs, it’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of new marketing possibilities or the drama of ICANN controversy. Today, we’re going to be talking about something slightly less titillating, but highly necessary: data escrow.
Part of a new gTLD operator’s registry responsibilities is to contract an independent entity to act as a data escrow agent. The full details of the data escrow process are described in Specification 2 of the New gTLD Agreement, but it basically amounts to keeping records of all the data pertaining to “registry objects,” including domain names, contacts, name servers, registrars, etc. and submitting that data into escrow at regular intervals. Continue reading “Down with Data”