The domain name ReggieBush.com dropped today and was picked up by NameJet.com where it currently at auction.

The domain name had 61 backorders placed on it, and as usual in the cases where famous entertainer or athletes domains drop, we do not report on it until the backorder time closes.

The domain name was the official site of Reggie Bush according to Screenshots.com as recently as 2010.

If you don’t know who Reggie Bush is he is a former Heisman Trophy winner, who later voluntarily forfeited his Heisman Trophy due to sanctions placed on his college USC by the NCAA,  won a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints, then played for the Miami Dolphins and now is a member of the Detroit Lions.

The domain name was owned by 691 enterprises, llc. C/O The Agency Sports Management and the administrative contact was Reggie Bush but the email address went to theagencymgmt.com.

Either Reggie ended his relationship with the agency or someone screwed up.

In any event this is another domain in a long line of entertainer/sports figures who have lost their domain for their official site and you can read some other famous people who have lost their domain name here and here and here.

Its also a good lesson for anyone famous or not to hold their domain name in their own name and keep correct and current whois contact info on the domain record.

Of course any buyer needs to be very careful of what they do with the domain name after they acquire it and its always subject to a UDRP claim by Mr. Bush if he wakes up to find his domain gone.

According to Techcrunch,  Zynga who recently launched runningwithfriends.com, and also owns and operates Words With Friends®, Chess With Friends®, Scramble With Friends®, Hanging With Friends™, Matching With Friends™, Gems With Friends™ and Games With Friends®, told the dating website CupidWithFriends that they need to change the site’s name, because it allegedly infringes on Zynga’s trademarks.

CupidwithFriends.com gave the C & D letter from Zynga to TechCrunch who published it as we have below

Zynga is demanding that CupidWithFriends change its name by May 24.

The operator of CupidwithFriends.com say that have  “no plans to change the name of the product,”

As the TechCrunch article points out another company owns and operates what has become a popular App Bang with Friends.

I guess “with Friends” has become Zynga’s new ‘Ville” and like Facebook which has filed suits against sites using the word “face” or Book”, Zynga is positioned to become the next TM bully.

Here’s the full letter to CupidWithFriends:

Dear Sir or Madam:

We serve as intellectual property counsel to Zynga Inc. (“Zynga”). Among other things, Zynga publishes and owns intellectual property rights in the ‘WITH FRIENDS™ family of social games, which includes Words With Friends®, Chess With Friends®, Scramble With Friends®, Hanging With Friends™, Matching With Friends™, Gems With Friends™ and Games With Friends®, as well as other ‘WITH FRIENDS games in various stages of development (collectively the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks). Each of Zynga’s games using the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks is published and played by millions of users on various social networking portals, including Facebook, Android and iPhone.

Zynga has consistently used and promoted the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks together as a family and, as a result of Zynga’s extensive marketing efforts and commercial success, the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks is strongly identified by consumers with Zynga’s reputation for quality.

It has come to our attention that CupidWithFriends has developed and launched an application called “Cupid With Friends”. CupidWithFriends’ use of the name “Cupid With Friends” for an online application is confusingly similar to the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks owned by Zynga, and users are likely to believe, erroneously, that CupidWithFriends’ application is published, sponsored, endorsed by or associated with Zynga. CupidWithFriends’ use of “Cupid With Friends” also dilutes the distinctiveness of Zynga’s famous ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks.

Zynga has invested substantial time and resources in developing and promoting the ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks, and it vigorously protects its rights in its marks, both collectively and individually. Zynga hereby demands that CupidWithFriends immediately cease use of the name “Cupid With Friends” in connection with its online application, and refrain from further exploitation of the goodwill that Zynga has developed in its ‘WITH FRIENDS Family of Trademarks.

We anticipate that you will accede to this demand, and ask that CupidWithFriends confirm by Friday, May 24, 2013 that it has ceased use of the name “Cupid With Friends” in connection with its online application. Nothing contained in this letter constitutes an express or implied waiver of any rights, remedies, or defenses of Zynga, all of which are expressly reserved.
Very truly yours,
/s/

Dennis L. Wilson

On a post on its blog, The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) rips ICANN for failing to “address Key COncerns About New gTLD’s

“”ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) in late April announced that it would push back the date of the rollout of as many as 1,400 new Top Level Domain (gTLD) web site suffixes. It did so to address the numerous concerns raised by many organizations, including law enforcement agencies and its own Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), which have called attention to the significant threat these new general top level domain names (TLDs) could pose to brands and consumer protections without adequate protective mechanisms being put in place.
Unfortunately, ICANN continues to fall short of truly addressing these concerns as the new web site suffixes have now precipitously been rescheduled to roll out in June and to begin to be put into the root system of the Internet beginning in August.

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA), representing the interests of major global advertisers, along with major companies like Verisign and PayPal, has long expressed concerns about the rush to deploy these gTLDs before ICANN has adopted sufficient trademark and security and stability protections for consumers and brandholders.

This week, ANA filed comments with ICANN to its proposed Registrar Accreditation Agreements (RAA). ANA recommends that in order to ensure that ICANN can manage registrations for TLDs effectively, the organization must finalize the accreditation agreements with registrars that will manage the domain names before any new gTLD contracts are approved and hold these registrars responsible for applicants complying with the RAA. In addition, we remain very concerned that ICANN’s compliance department still hasn’t been augmented sufficiently or that fully automated systems have been put in place to meet the expected increased compliance demands creating serious potential gaps in enforcement.

ICANN’s premature launch of gTLDs will also increase the threat of cybersquatting and phishing, among many other potential cybercrime threats that jeopardize brand and consumer protections. The law enforcement community has made several important recommendations to ICANN, including more robust verification of WHOIS information. These are highly valid concerns and it would be seriously premature for ICANN to rush ahead before fully heeding these warnings from law enforcement.

ANA also filed comments this week regarding the GAC advice given to ICANN in the Communiqué delivered at ICANN’s Beijing meeting last month. ANA called on ICANN in particular to reconsider its earlier decision that allows for the singular and plural forms of suffixes (e.g., “.coupon” and “.coupons,” and “.auto” and “autos.”), which ICANN so far seems to believe will somehow not confuse consumers. It is unquestionable that consumers will find it difficult to identify the difference between these website when they are searching for suffixes that are practically identical. These virtually identical suffixes could lead enterprising applicants to apply for the plural (or singular) forms of popular TLDs intending to mislead or otherwise harm consumers.

In addition, ICANN continues to adhere to an overly aggressive timetable with regard to the public comment period regarding the GAC Advice and thereby has not provided adequate time to satisfactorily respond to all the important public interest issues raised. Furthermore, we believe that the concerns raised by Verisign and PayPal about the potential clash between internal and external TLDs are profoundly serious and must be satisfactorily addressed before the roll out, if we do not want to create major increased cybercrime threats to the Internet.

It is clear that ICANN has not taken the necessary steps to protect Internet users. The Internet is too valuable and important to consumers, brandholders and the global economy for ICANN not to address the issues raised. ANA urges ICANN to extend the time to truly consider these concerns before rolling out these TLDs that could permanently change the face of the Internet.”‘

ICANN just released 40 more new gTLD’s that passed Initial Evaluation today.

Some of the highlights of those applications passing IE are Google’s applications for .Chrome, .Soy, .How, and .Ads; The British Broadcasting Corporation application for .BBC; Top Level Domain Holdings first new gTLD application that was not an IDN passed today with the passage of its application for .Blog.

With these results ICANN has gone through new gTLD application with a prioritization number of 400 with a total of 344 passing IE.

If two or more applicants applied for the same new gTLD unless the parties can resolve their contention between themselves the parties go to an ICANN last resort auction.

We have chatted before that we expect some of the new gTLD string auctions to go into the $xx,xxx,xxx range.

With potentially over 200 new gTLD strings going to an ICANN auction we would expect revenue to ICANN from these last resort auction to generate Hundreds of Millions of dollars to ICANN.

Yet ICANN 2014 budget includes virtually no revenue from these last resort auction which we have called ICANN out over the years for failing to include.

When it comes to revenue from String Contentions ICANN only has a little over $1 Million dollars coming in 2014 from these auctions and $1.5 in 2015 as a line item.

While ICANN always said the application fee of $185,000 would be a cost recovery fee meaning that ICANN was only charging what it estimated it would have to pay in proceeding of the new gTLD applications and program, it continues to ignore the real pot of gold at the end of the rainbow otherwise known as the last resort auctions.

Since ICANN hasn’t budgeted any revenue coming from last report auctions they haven’t budgeted any thing to spend the last resort auction revenue.

Its the hundreds of millions of dollars that ICANN will receive from the new gTLD last resort auctions that might propel the non-profit into the billion dollar cash on hand club.