Unclear if software makers will support all new top level domain names. One issue for top level domain name applicants is getting software makers, such as e-mail software companies, to approve their top level domains and make them work with their software. The second draft guidebook for new TLD ap...

ICANN summarizes comments from second draft new gTLD applicant guidebook. ICANN has released a 214 page document summarizing feedback to its second draft applicant guidebook for new top level domain names. I spent my Sunday evening reading (OK, sometimes skimming) through it. Today I will write a ...

ICANN approves release of one and two character .biz domain names. After a delay a month ago, ICANN has finally granted .biz registry NeuStar (NYSE: NSR) the right to release one and two character .biz domain names. The domain names will be released in two phases. The first phase will call for ...

Group submits final report to ICANN. Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT), an ad hoc group put together to represent trademark interests in the launch of new top level domains, has issued its final report (pdf). The report will be discussed at ICANN’s next meeting in Sydney. The part that...

ccTLDs carry lots of risks with the rewards. With TRAFFIC ccTLDs just around the corner, it’s only fitting that another example of the risks of registering country code domain names should pop up this month. As spotted by Internet Commerce Association, The Argentina Ministry of Foreign affai...

Andrew McLaughlin to be deputy chief technology officer. The New York Times is reporting that former ICANN executive and current Google head of global public policy Andrew McLaughlin is joining the Obama administration as deputy chief technology officer. He will report to chief technology officer A...

Amended complaint includes new parties and allegations. Thought Convergence (TCI) has amended its complaint against Jay Westerdal and other parties related to TCI’s acquisition of Name Intelligence, LLC (NIL). The amended complaint names Name Intelligence, Inc., a holding company owned in part...

Typo Generator includes the information you need to protect your brand against typosquatters. All week I’ve been writing about how I use DomainTools. Here’s the latest tool I use… There are a number of typo generators out there, but DomainTools’ is the only one that makes i...

Arbitration panel finds no bad faith, but declines to find reverse domain name hijacking. A Korean man has successfully defended against a domain arbitration claim waged by United Kingdom pharmaceutical company Reckitt Benckiser Plc for the domain name RB.net. Reckitt Benckiser claimed to have commo...

Dispute over osram.tel will test new top level domain. Osram GmbH has filed the first ever UDRP dispute for a .tel domain name, going after the domain Osram.tel. This should be an interesting case because of the differences between .tel and other top level domain names. In a UDRP, the complainant...

Actress Sigourney Weaver picks up her namesake domain name. Actress Sigourney Weaver has been awarded the domain name SigourneyWeaver.com by an arbitration panel at National Arbitration Forum. She filed the claim last month. The owner of the domain name, Stephen Gregory, did not respond to the all...

The risks of releasing hundreds of new TLDs at once outweigh the benefits. It’s no secret that I’m generally opposed to introducing new top level domain names. And I’m not alone. Even before people started talking about a mass introduction of new TLDs, most of the domain name ind...

Use DomainTools’ whois history to research the history of a domain name you’re buying. When you’re ready to shell out a bunch of cash for a domain name, it’s important to understand the ownership history of the domain name. There’s no title insurance for domains, so t...

Smartphone maker gains 101 domain names in single dispute. When it comes to getting bang for your buck in domain name arbitration, Research in Motion may have just set the bar. In a single UDRP case filed at World Intellectual Property Organization, the BlackBerry maker won 101 domains (and was de...

Hard to prove demand for new top level domain names One of the key questions facing ICANN and the internet community is if there is any demand for new top level domain names should they be released. So far no one has released convincing evidence of demand. And if past TLD launches are any indicati...

Monthly GreatDomains auction ends tomorrow. Sedo’s monthly GreatDomains auction ends tomorrow, but no major domain name sales appear to be in the works. One domain may tip the scales: 80.com, which is currently at $60,000. The domain hasn’t met its reserve but the reserve is under $100...

BBI.net, Requirements.com and ApartmentsNow.com lead the pack. NameMedia continues to sell over a half million dollars worth of domain names each week, a thousand or two thousand dollars at a time. Last week the company tallied just over $550,000 in reported sales. The median sales price for .com ...

Four tricks to access whois information on DomainTools faster. Last week I visited the DomainTools offices in Seattle and it inspired me to write a series of posts about how I use DomainTools. This first article is about what we all use DomainTools for at the simplest level: whois lookups. If you ...

Company files for arbitration on two domain names related to “The Tonight Show”. Just a few weeks after Jay Leno filed for arbitration to get several domain names related to his TV show, NBC has filed for arbitration on two domain names related to The Tonight Show. Leno is stepping asi...

The return of domain name tasting? Demand Media, parent company of eNom, has been awarded United States Patent 7539774 for “Method for domain name registration and a corresponding apparatus”. The patent application was filed in 2005 and appears to be targeted toward domain monetization ...

Could move foreshadow image ads on parked pages? Today Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced that it will start adding relevant banner ads to the bottom of link ad results pages. Link ads are part of the Google Adsense program. Instead of showing ads that link directly to an advertiser’s site, a ...

Auction page now easier to scan. One thing has always baffled me about the auction page at Sedo: domain names were truncated at 13 characters even though there was plenty of space to list the entire domain. Like many things in web applications, fixing this was a challenge due to some legacy backend...

Arbitration panel finds Parker Waichman Alonso LLP overstepping its bounds. New York law firm Parker Waichman Alonso LLP has two registered trademarks that include the term “YourLawyer”: yourlawyer.com on the principal register and YourLawyer on the supplemental register. It’s try...

My visit to company’s offices in Seattle. Over the holiday weekend I traveled to Seattle for a wedding. Because I can never take a holiday from the domain world, I arranged to visit Name Intelligence’s office while I was there. Name Intelligence, owned by Thought Convergence, operates ...

Twitter related .me domain names sells for five figures. The latest premium .me domain name auction is coming to an end, and Tweet.me looks to be the winner at $11,505. I can see this being used for a Twitter service, but I’m a bit concerned about all of the services popping up that use vari...