ICANN seems to be doing everything to enhance its own wellfair, but nothing to protect netizens.
* Why are they adding so many new TLDs? They cannot even administrate the ones we have, and they are perpetually putting responsibility into hands that should never have it! This special Web Update includes: Name.space sends lawsuit against ICANN over new TLDs to Court of Appeals
* ICANN gTLDs: When Names Are Borrowed from an Atlas – CircleID
* Harvard.xxx a Brand Cautionary Tale as Web Adds New Names
* United States: ICANN Opens Trademark Clearing House
* Microsoft Doesn’t Like Google’s Dotless
* New local domains see breakthrough
* Who Really Runs the Internet?
* Trademarks at Risk – Law.com
and more! Follow along
ICANN seems to be doing everything to enhance its own wellfair, but nothing to protect netizens.
* Why are they adding so many new TLDs? They cannot even administrate the ones we have, and they are perpetually putting responsibility into hands that should never have it! This special Web Update includes: Name.space sends lawsuit against ICANN over new TLDs to Court of Appeals
* ICANN gTLDs: When Names Are Borrowed from an Atlas – CircleID
* Harvard.xxx a Brand Cautionary Tale as Web Adds New Names
* United States: ICANN Opens Trademark Clearing House
* Microsoft Doesn’t Like Google’s Dotless
* New local domains see breakthrough
* Who Really Runs the Internet?
* Trademarks at Risk – Law.com
and more! Follow along
New local domains see breakthrough
The launch of new local domain names – including the long-awaited .africa domain – is finally approaching, following headway made at a recent public meeting held by the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), in Beijing.
“Now we are finally moving out of the application phase, thanks to government support, and are ready to start planning the launch and marketing of the new local domain names.”
Full story : ITWeb
Trademarks at Risk – Law.com
The Internet’s address system is about to undergo its largest expansion since it was first created in the 1980s—a change that will force companies to do more work and spend more money to protect their brands, lawyers say.
Many brand owners and organizations have already taken steps to protect themselves by formally objecting to some of the almost 2,000 new applied-for top-level domains (TLDs) that are under review by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that coordinates domain names and is overseeing the expansion. TLDs are the string of characters to the right of the “dot,” such as .com and .net; there are currently only 22 such domains. Full story : Corporate Counsel
Name.space sends lawsuit against ICANN over new TLDs to Court of Appeals
The company has filed an appeal (pdf) with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after its suit against ICANN was tossed out by a lower court last month.
Name.space offers domain names in an alternate root, and applied to ICANN in 2000 to add 118 of its domains to the “real” root. Full story : Domain Name Wire
Who Really Runs the Internet?
A “multi-stakeholder model” governs the Internet, but what does that really mean? In essence, it means that no one person or organization controls the Web. The network itself is decentralized, with private carriers owning much of the telecommunications infrastructure and nonprofit groups coordinating standards so the various networks can communicate with each other.
However, the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration still manages the contract with ICANN and in theory would have the authority to contract with another organization to oversee the technical administration of the DNS system. The NTIA’s reluctance to interfere with ICANN has preserved the arrangement for years, but it was tested by ICANN’s plan to expand top-level domains during the past decade. Full story : Roll Call
ICANN gTLDs: When Names Are Borrowed from an Atlas – CircleID
When names are borrowed from an Atlas, things happen. Use of Geographic names have always caused some problems for two reasons; one they are in the public domain so anyone else can use them and two they connote that business is confined to just that geographic area. Like Paris Bakery, Waterloo Furniture or London Bank.
Geographic naming was the biggest thing during last couple of centuries, as using name of a village or a city as a moniker was considered being on top of the hill. The sudden worldwide expansion of markets due to ease of communications in the early Computer Society created a massive exit of businesses from geographical names. Full story : CircleID
United States: ICANN Opens Trademark Clearing House
On March 26, 2013, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opened its Trademark Clearing House (TMCH), which allows brand owners to submit their trademark data into one centralized database, prior to and during the launch of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). This registry is limited to “Trademark Holders” and “Trademark Agents.” Trademark Holders are individuals, entities and their designees (such as licensees or assignees) that desire to have their eligible trademark rights included in the TMCH, while Trademark Agents, like Fox Rothschild, are designated to act on behalf of Trademark Holders.
Registry with the TMCH protects brands in two ways, Sunrise Service and Trademark Claims Service. The sunrise period is a 30-day mandatory period before a new gTLDs is offered to the public. Under the Sunrise Service, Trademark Holders and Agents can take advantage of this exclusive period by registering a domain name that matches their trademark. Full story : Mondaq News Alerts
Harvard.xxx a Brand Cautionary Tale as Web Adds New Names
Harvard University paid as much as $299 to register the last time the World Wide Web’s global overseer added a domain name to familiar ones including .com and .net. Rather than seeking a new opportunity, it signed up to keep harvard.xxx from being used as a porn site.
As the Internet’s first major expansion since 2004 adds suffixes including .fail and .sex to the existing 22 names to the right of the dot, brand owners such as Coca-Cola Co. (KO) and Ford Motor Co. (F) may be similarly forced to pay up to prevent cybersquatting on a massive scale, said Daniel Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, a trade group whose members wield 10,000 brands. Full story : Businessweek
Microsoft Doesn’t Like Google’s Dotless .Search But Supports The GAC’s Move Against Closed Generics
Microsoft issued the following statement exclusively to TheDomains.com last night regarding events this week in at ICANN:
As the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) to ICANN recommended this week, it is contrary to the free and open ideals of the Internet for a private commercial entity to act as gatekeeper to domains that consist of generic industry terms like .search, .cloud or .app.
As the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) to ICANN recommended this week, it is contrary to the free and open ideals of the Internet for a private commercial entity to act as gatekeeper to domains that consist of generic industry terms like .search, .cloud or .app. 
Full story : www.thedomains.com
MORE: Web Updates for Web Designers
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