Understanding Domain Name Warehousing

One issue that most companies don’t expect to have to face when running their business is called “domain name warehousing.” This is a practice wherein a domain name registrar will gain control of an expired domain name and then not list it for resale right away. This is done with the intent to try to sell the domain back to the original owner or another party at an inflated price. In most cases, a business will Read More

The Libya Anticybersquatting Domain Name Lawsuit

I recently successfully represented Mr. Ahmad Miski in a matter originally captioned as “The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the Embassy of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v. Miski.” Stated another way, my client was sued by the “Embassy” of Libya. The case was a domain name matter involving the domain names embassyoflibya.org, libyaembassy.com, libyaembassy.org, and libyanembassy.com. Read court's Read More

UDRP Panelist Cites Menhart Analysis on Laches

I’m a bit late to discuss this, but I aim to give it appropriately detailed attention now. In Charter Communications, Inc. v. CK Ventures Inc. / Charterbusiness.com the Hon Neil Brown QC, a respected UDRP Panelist, cited my prior post on the potential applicability of laches as a defense to a UDRP complaint: This panelist was part of a majority in Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas v. FanMail.com, LLC, Read More

A Potential New Defense Under UDRP

  The recent UDRP decision concerning “razorbacks.com” caught my eye due to a relatively comprehensive panel discussion on the issue of laches (pronounced: ˈla-chəz) under the UDRP. Laches in law is a defense that calls into question the complaining party’s good faith in bringing its complaint in a untimely manner. A defendant asserting laches argues that a plaintiff that delays in asserting its Read More

Political Domain Name Infringement and Law

  As this election year heats up candidates in all types of political races are trying to reach likely voters at their doors, on their telephones and on the Internet. In this race for voters you might guess that a candidate’s domain name plays an important role in sharing his or her message with likely voters. What if a candidate’s domain name is already taken by a third party? What if a candidate’s name has Read More

Auctions to Determine New Top Domain Applicants

  Given that ICANN recently voted to expand the possibilities for gTLDs, the oversight organization must now deal with the logistics of selecting and assigning administrators for each of the soon to be available gTLDs. One issue is the possibility that two potential organizations may want to be responsible for allocating the same gTLD. For example, perhaps Group A, a non-profit group, wants “.money” for Read More

ICANN to Vote on Expansion of gTLDs

  ICANN, holding its 32nd International Public ICANN Meeting June 22-26, 2008 in Paris, France, is set to vote on an substantial expansion of opportunity for new Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). gTLDs are top-level domain extensions such as (.com, .net, and .org). It is expected that the voting bloc will approve the proposal when it comes up for the vote Thursday. Late last summer, the ICANN Generic Names Read More

Riskiest Domain Extensions

  McAfee is releasing a report that identifies the highest risk domain extensions. McAfee reports that the “most dangerous” domains to navigate to are ".hk" (Hong Kong), ".cn" (China) and ".info" (information).   About 19% of .hk domains were dangerous, 12% of .cn sites, and 12% of .info sites. Of course, the majority of sites with these extensions are still safe, but Read More

ICANN’s Weak Grip on WHOIS

  A recent article discusses the continuing problems with accurate WHOIS records, many registrars’ complacent allowance of such inaccuracies, and ICANN’s limited involvement in enforcing the accuracy of such records.   Specifically, there is a discussion about the concentration of inaccurate WHOIS registration at certain registrars. Unsurprisingly, the registrars that have the most inaccurate WHOIS Read More

.ORG May Adopt DNSSEC

  Public Interest Registry (PIR), one of the more progressive domain extensions, may be the first major top level domain extension to adopt the DNA Security Extension (DNSSEC) on .ORG top level domains. The system is a method of authentication that helps to ensure that clients (such as a home computer) requesting a particular domain name is sent to the appropriate IP address hosting that Read More