Domain name registry Donuts said its new enhanced Domains Protected Marks List (DPML) Plus trademark protection tool will allow brand owners to better protect their marks across the registry's 197 top-level domains. DPML Plus will allow users to block their trademark and three related terms from being registered for an initial 10-year period, Donuts said Wednesday. Users also will be able to block trademarks in premium second-level domains and can seek to block misspellings of their mark-related terms for an additional fee. DPML Plus registration begins Saturday and will be open through Dec. 31, said a blog post.
Two conservative groups said they're continuing to push Congress to delay the planned Internet Assigned Numbers Authority switch, which is to occur Saturday. Senate Republicans last week introduced language for a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government after FY 2016 expires Friday that didn’t include proposed language that would delay the move beyond the expiration date (see 1609220067). The tech sector strongly backed the transition, with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich and others saying the transition will aid American innovation (see 1609260045). But it’s “troubling that the Senate has failed to include language prohibiting this transfer of power,” said Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint in an opinion piece Monday on Heritage news arm The Daily Signal: The transition “is quite simply reckless, but it will happen unless Congress intervenes. Absent specific instruction otherwise from Congress, the contractual relationship between the U.S. government and ICANN will cease” Saturday. Congress “must think long and hard about allowing Obama to give away the internet -- because right now, that’s what he’s on track to do,” DeMint said. “Congress has the power to stop this. Will it?” American Center for Law and Justice Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow separately said the group is still working with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and 10 other GOP senators to delay the transition. “The internet has continued to be free because of the United States’ continuing partnership with [ICANN], maintaining control and ensuring that cyberspace is free and secure, Sekulow said in a blog post Monday. “Unless we act this week, our Internet is in danger. In an era in which state-sponsored hackers in Iran, Russia, North Korea, and other authoritarian regimes are trying to target our elections, our financial information, and our national security, this fight matters.”
Neustar said it will auction 20 premium domain names on the .nyc top-level domain Oct. 24-27. The .nyc auction will be restricted to businesses, citizens and organizations with a physical address in New York City's five boroughs, Neustar said in a news release. The domains up for auction are associated with construction, gardening, home improvement, interior design and real estate, the domain name registry said. The auction is to begin at 2 p.m. Oct. 24.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied a request for en banc reconsideration of Weinstein v. Iran, in which a three-judge panel ruled in August that country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) can’t be garnished as assets in a lawsuit judgment (see 1608020055). The family of Ira Weinstein had sought garnishment of Iran's .ir ccTLD as compensation for his death in a 1996 terrorist attack attributed to Iran, and other families in cases consolidated with Weinstein sought garnishment of the ccTLDs of North Korea and Syria. The families jointly sought the en banc hearing. The D.C. Circuit denied the request in a one-sentence order (in Pacer), saying no member of the court favored an en banc hearing. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, who remains the D.C. Circuit's chief judge, didn't participate in the denial decision.
About 7.9 million new domain names were registered globally in Q2, domain registry Verisign said Thursday. The new registrations indicated a 2.4 percent growth rate over Q1 (see 1607200047) and 12.9 percent growth over the same period in 2016, the company said. The new registrations brought the global number of domain names up to 334.6 million as of June 30, including more than 143 million names using the .com and .net top-level domains, Verisign said: There were 127.5 million .com domain names and 15.8 million .net domain names June 30.
ICANN’s Competition, Consumer Trust & Consumer Choice Review Team (CCT-RT) is aiming to issue a draft report by the end of 2016 on its ongoing review of consumers’ opinions on the new generic top-level domains (gTLD) program, said ACT | The App Association President Jonathan Zuck, a member of the review group, in a blog post. CCT-RT decided during a meeting last month in Vienna “there is a need to help applicants understand underlying business models” of the new gTLD program, he said Friday. The review team reached that conclusion after reviewing initial survey results, Zuck said. An Analysis Group initial report said registrations of new gTLDs account for 50 percent of overall growth in the gTLD space and that average and median registration process have continued to decline. A Nielsen initial report said the new gTLD program hasn’t eroded consumer trust and consumers are interested in seeing the Domain Name System evolve to make it easier to find businesses by category. Nielsen said about half of surveyed consumers and registrants believe use of new gTLDs that may have an implied meaning should be restricted to certain entities, such as only banks using .bank domain names. CCT-RT plans to seek community input on interim recommendations during ICANN’s Nov. 3-9 meeting in Hyderabad, India, Zuck said.
Dotgay criticized the ICANN board Tuesday for tabling its expected decision earlier this month on considering the Board Governance Committee's rejection of dotgay's appeals of Economist Intelligence Unit evaluations of the registry's application to have the .gay generic top-level domain designated as a community gTLD. The board removed consideration of the .gay issue from its agenda for its Aug. 9 meeting. The ICANN board is to meet again Sept. 17. Board consideration of the BGC's review of dotgay's case was seen as a necessary precursor to board consideration of now-former ICANN Ombudsman Chris LaHatte's report urging ICANN to designate .gay as a community gTLD (see 1608010063). “Ever since the collective gay community has stood up and asked for their own piece of the Internet with .GAY, every conceivable argument has been used to deny their efforts,” dotgay said in a news release. “The approach being used is divisive and contrary to the goals of ICANN's new gTLD program and aspirations of the LGBTQIA effort behind creating a community-operated .GAY.” Dotgay noted the similarity between its case and an independent review panel's recent finding that ICANN's accountability process in its consideration of gTLD applications by the Dot Registry amounted to a “rubber-stamp.” The Dot Registry case vindicates dotgay's “claims that the Economist Intelligence Unit's purportedly independent community priority evaluation reports were flawed, applied unequal standards and that dotgay's application has never been given appropriate consideration,” dotgay said. ICANN didn't comment.
Domain names registry Donuts upped the ante Monday in its lawsuit against ICANN over the auction of the .web generic top-level domain, increasing its proposed damages demand in the gTLD case to $22.5 million -- plus interest -- from its original $10 million damages demand, in an amended complaint (in Pacer). The $22.5 million damages demand better reflects what Donuts' “share” of the $135 million in proceeds from the .web auction would have been if the auction had been private, the registry said in the complaint filed with U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Donuts filed the original version of its suit in July, days before the .web auction. Donuts didn't succeed in temporarily halting the auction over its claims ICANN didn't adequately investigate what it believed to be possible changes in the ownership or control of rival bidder Nu Dot Co (see 1607250051 and 1607270027). Nu Dot Co won the .web auction, then Verisign said it funded the purchase with the understanding that control of .web would pass to the .com domain registry (see 1608010008). Donuts now claims ICANN “intentionally failed to abide by its contractual obligations to conduct a full and open investigation into Nu Dot Co’s admission because it was in ICANN’s interest that the .web contention set be resolved” via a public auction. The Cross-Community Working Group on New gTLD Auction Proceeds is deciding how funds from public gTLD auctions will be spent, since ICANN is prohibited from using the proceeds for its own operations. “ICANN deprived Donuts and the other applicants for the .web gTLD of the right to compete for .web in accordance with established ICANN policy,” Donuts said. “Court intervention is necessary to ensure ICANN’s compliance with its own accountability and transparency mechanisms.” That Donuts’ suspicions about an outside party influencing Nu Dot Co’s participation in the .web auction were correct bolsters the claims they made in their suit against ICANN, but it’s still unclear whether Donuts can prove ICANN’s handling of Donuts’ claims constitutes willful negligence, a domain names industry executive told us. ICANN didn’t comment.
Domain name registry Verisign said it funded Nu Dot Co's $135 million winning bid last week for the registry rights to the .web generic top-level domain (gTLD). That confirmed industry chatter that the longtime .com registry had been orchestrating Nu Dot Co's controversial involvement in ICANN's public .web auction (see 1607290058). Verisign said it “entered into an agreement” with Nu Dot Co in which Verisign “provided funds for Nu Dot Co’s bid for the .web TLD. We are pleased that the Nu Dot Co bid was successful.” Nu Dot Co will execute the .web registry agreement with ICANN before turning over the registry rights to Verisign “upon consent from ICANN,” Verisign said in a Monday news release: Verisign “is well-positioned to widely distribute .web. Our expertise, infrastructure, and partner relationships will enable us to quickly grow .web and establish it as an additional option for registrants worldwide in the growing TLD marketplace.” Rival .web bidder Donuts made Nu Dot Co's funding source an issue in the days before the .web auction, filing a lawsuit against ICANN in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on claims ICANN was negligent and in breach of contract for not thoroughly investigating the identities of then-speculated new parties in the control of Nu Dot Co. Judge Percy Anderson denied Donuts' application for a temporary restraining order to halt the .web auction amid the registry's suit and required Donuts to file an amended version of its complaint by Aug. 8 (see 1607250051 and 1607270027).
ICANN confirmed Thursday that domain registry Nu Dot Co made the $135 million winning bid (see 1607280057) for registry rights to the .web generic top-level domain (gTLD). Nu Dot Co beat domain registry Donuts, Google and five other bidders for .web through 23 rounds of bidding, ICANN said in a results report. Vistaprint Limited won rights to the .webs gTLD for $1, ICANN said. Nu Dot Co was the subject of controversy ahead of the .web auction, as Donuts claimed in a lawsuit that ICANN was negligent and in breach of contract for not sufficiently investigating whether Nu Dot Co was under partial control by a major entity along with stated parent company Straat Investments. The U.S. District Court in Los Angeles denied Donuts' request for a temporary restraining order to delay the .web auction but is still considering the underlying lawsuit (see 1607250051 and 1607270027). Nu Dot Co's winning bid for .web only deepens speculation about the registry's ownership status, with particular attention now focused on whether .com registry Verisign is involved with Nu Dot Co, a domain names industry executive told us. Verisign didn't directly mention .web in its Q2 earnings report Thursday or a conference call with investors, but the registry said in an SEC filing it had “incurred a commitment to pay approximately $130.0 million for the future assignment of contractual rights, which are subject to third-party consent.” Verisign didn't comment.