A lawsuit seeking class action status has been filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against Network Solutions and ICANN. The suit arises under Network Solutions’ practice of “holding” domain names for a set period of time after a potential registrant searches for the names. If the potential registrant does not immediately purchase the name Network Solutions itself Read More

  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has announced a proposal to start charging a non-refundable annual ICANN fee on registrar domain registrations immediately upon registration. The ICANN Board resolved to: . . . encourage ICANN's budgetary process to include fees for all domains added, including domains added during the AGP, and encourages community discussion involved in Read More

  ICANN, the agency responsible for global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers, including domain names and Internet protocols, is eyeing the practice of domain name tasting for policy changes.   Tasting, originally designed to keep typos from becoming permanent errors, is also used by domain name entrepreneurs to test the profitability of certain names before committing to Read More

  Dell Inc. is pursuing a major cybersquatting lawsuit against several alleged defendants claiming that the alleged used numerous domain names made up of slight misspellings of well-known trademarks. This method, known as typosquatting, sees domainers register domains that surfers are likely to hit if they misspell a common web site name. Users that misspell the address they intended to load are then taken to Read More

  A prime example of the growth of domain name speculating was seen today, when virtually all four letter .com domains were registered. The growth of domain name speculating has increased in recent years as cyber-property speculators, businesses and individuals all scramble for valuable names.   Whether the newer top level domains do anything to reduce the speculating remains to be seen. While it is Read More

  There will soon be a new TLD available for domain name shoppers. .asia will become available to any business or individual that would like to register a domain with a .asia extension. Before general registration is available, however, the DotAsia authority is implementing certain policies to prevent cybersquatters and others from getting first crack at certain domains.   Known as “sunrise Read More

  GoDaddy is making a push to take control of the “.us” top level domain (TLD). Along with Afilias, a provider of registry services, the two firms have teamed up to create a joint venture seeking to become the registry operator of usTLD. The firm’s intentions became known when the venture submitted a proposal to the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration Read More

  Paul Twomey, President and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers recently gave a presentation entitled “The Future of the Internet” which set out Twomey’s personal view of the future of the Internet including issues such as the IPv4 to IPv6 transition, new gTLDs, IDNs and more.   Bottom Line: The presentation is an interesting read for those interested in opinions as to the Read More

  ICANN has announced a new opportunity for public comment on new generic top level domains (gTLDs). Top level domains are the suffixes on domain names, such as .com, .net, .tv, .info and similar.   The idea of having more TLDs is attractive to many because there are more options to register and market the best name for a particular registrant. In addition, one of the primary motivations for making Read More

  In recent years, ICANN has been introducing and maintaining numerous generic top level domains (gTLDs or TLDs). These are the suffixes on many popular domain names, and include the names .aero, .biz, .cat, .com, .coop, .info, .jobs, .mobi, .museum, .name, .net, .org, .pro, .tel and .travel.   Currently up for public comment as to its renewal is the “.coop” TLD. This domain suffers from an Read More