As we predicted in our blog post last month, ICANN pushed off a a vote on ICM Registry’s proposal to run the  .XXX domain name extension to “no later than its Brussels meeting,” which is scheduled for June 20-25.

ICANN directed its general counsel and chief executive to formulate “possible process options” to the plan that would be available for public comment.

The ICANN board will  post the options and a report within 14 days on its website.

The options will be posted for 45 days.

ICANN board member Rita Rodin Johnston said that the panel worked diligently in reviewing ICM Registry’s appeal to its proposal through the week that started Sunday.

“I just want to assure everyone in the community that the board takes this decision [by dispute-resolution jurists] very seriously … we intend to continue moving very quickly in making a decision,” Rodin said.

After the meeting, ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley said he plans to be patient over ICANN’s latest move on the .XXX matter.

“We note the ICANN board resolutions and are looking forward to seeing the proposals in the next 14 days for the process to implement the independent review panel’s decision,” he said.

We are not surprised the ICANN is pushing this decision off for several reasons:

.XXX which would create a red light district on the Internet remains the is the most controversial of all possible new extensions.

As of last night there were over 350 stories on it on Google news from sources from Abc News to the Harvard Law Record, to individual adult site operators all discussing the fact that ICANN was going to consider allowing the .XXX extension.

There is a ton of interest in the extension, and huge opposition to it.

ICANN was not going to jump in feet first based on a 2-1 non-binding opinion of a independent panel, which had an 8 page strong dissenting opinion, without furthering considering the issue.

I’m sure there will be a ton of news and thoughts coming out in the next couple of day, weeks and months and we will keep you up to date.

The “UTAH E-COMMERCE INTEGRITY ACT” which was just introduced in December of 2009, passed the Utah Senate last month, was voted into law by the Utah House today.

When I first wrote about this bill in December,  it was meet with the usual domainer apathy I see when I write about something that can have huge negative effects on their holdings.

Sine then, the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) has been lobbying very hard to get this bill passed, even holding a meeting in Washington in support of the bill and to get the ball rolling for a national bill along the same lines.

Well now that the bill has passed both the House and Senate of Utah and just awaits the governors Signature to become law, you might want to take a second look.

The bill among other things “prohibits the registration of domain names under certain circumstances, commonly referred to as cybersquatting and provides civil and criminal penalties for violation.

The bill as a whole is similar to the Snowe Bill introduced in 2008 into the US Senate which seeks to prohibit and provide penalties for phishing, pharming, spyware, and cybersquatting.

As all bills this one is long full of legalese but regarding Cybersquatting the bill states in part as follows:

“A person is liable in a civil action by the owner of a mark, including a personal name, which is a mark for purposes of this section, if, without regard to the goods or services of the person or the mark’s owner, the person:

(i) has a bad faith intent to profit from the mark, including a personal name; and

(ii) for any length of time registers, acquires, traffics in, or uses a domain name in, or belonging to, any person in this state that:
(A) in the case of a mark that is distinctive at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to the mark;

(B) in the case of a famous mark that is famous at the time of registration of the Domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to or dilutive of the mark; or

(C) is a trademark, word, or name protected by reason of 18 U.S.C. 706 or 36 U.S.C. 220506.
(b) (i) In determining whether a person has a bad faith intent described in Subsection (1)(a), a court may consider all relevant factors, including:

(A) the trademark or other intellectual property rights of the person, if any, in the domain name;

(B) the extent to which the domain name consists of the legal name of the person or a name that is otherwise commonly used to identify that person;

(C) the person’s prior use, if any, of the domain name in connection with the bona fide offering of any goods or services;

(D) the person’s bona fide noncommercial or fair use of the mark in a site accessible under the domain name;

(E) the person’s intent to divert consumers from the mark owner’s online location to a site accessible under the domain name that could harm the goodwill represented by the mark either for commercial gain or with the intent to tarnish or disparage the mark, by creating a likelihood of confusion as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the site;

(F) the person’s offer to transfer, sell, or otherwise assign, or solicitation of the purchase, transfer, or assignment of the domain name to the mark owner or any third party for financial gain without having used, or having an intent to use, the domain name in the bona fide offering of any goods or services, or the person’s prior conduct indicating a pattern of such conduct;

(G) the person’s provision of material and misleading false contact information when applying for the registration of the domain name, the person’s intentional failure to maintain accurate contact information, or the person’s prior conduct indicating a pattern of such conduct;

(H) the person’s registration or acquisition of multiple domain names that the person knows are identical or confusingly similar to another’s mark that is distinctive at the time of registration of the domain names, or is dilutive of another’s famous mark that is famous at the time of registration of the domain names, without regard to the goods or services of the person or the mark owner; and

(I) the extent to which the mark incorporated in the person’s domain name registration is or is not distinctive and famous.

(c) In a civil action involving the registration, trafficking, or use of a domain name under this section, a court may order the forfeiture or cancellation of the domain name or the transfer of the domain name to the owner of the mark.

(4) Statutory damages awarded under Subsection (3)(b) are presumed to be $100,000 per domain name if there is a pattern and practice of infringements committed willfully for commercial gain.

You should also note that this bill makes  not only is the registrant of the domain name liable,  but “the registrant’s authorized licensee, agent, affiliate, representative, domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name registration authority that knowingly and actively assists a violation of this chapter by the registrant.”  (just like Safenames got fined for in France)

CADNA understands that if this bill passes in Utah is has national and federal implications.

As we told you in back December, this bill is just the first step in getting a federal law passed akin to the Snowe Bill of 2008.

Here are the comments of Josh Bourne, President of CADNA about the Utah Law:

“””If the Utah E-Commerce Integrity Act becomes law, it will pave the way for serious consideration at the federal level for similar changes”

“Once the United States Congress understands that legislative changes similar to that proposed by Senator Urquhart are good for both businesses and consumers and are especially needed due to our difficult economic times, there should be broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.”

“”CADNA is specifically encouraged by the text that expands the liability for cybersquatting activity to include the registrant’s authorized licensee, agent, affiliate, representative, domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name registration authority that knowingly and actively assists a violation of this Act by the registrant.””

This is the usual place in the post where I would plead with you to join and contribute the mighty sum of $295, to the ICA to fight, but that option is now gone, so everyone your on your own.

For all of those that accused me of just using scare tactics talking about a bill that would never pass, notice that this one literally flew through Utah passing in less than 4 months from its introduction with no opposition from any domainer group.

The ICA had no funding to fight this bill.

If your a domainer and live in Utah you better think about relocating, and fast.

This bill has an effective date of  July 1, 2010.

Of course if the bill goes national as CADNA is already working hard on, your relocation plans may have to widen.

In a WIPO decision issued today a pretty generic domain domain,  7Days.com was awarded to a the owner of a trademark registered in Greece and Portugal.

Although the domain was parked, none of the links were alleged to go to the trademark owners site or competitors site, just a general parking page.

“”The Panel finds on the undisputed evidence of the Complainant that the Respondent has not used or made demonstrable preparations to use the Domain Name for a bona fide offering of goods or services. The Panel considers that the Respondent’s use of the Domain Name for a generic holding page does not constitute an offering of goods or services for this purpose.”

The domain holder did not file a response to the complaint.

If you think the trademark laws are tough in the United States, you should check out the french laws.

If you visit Sedo’s home page for France, you will see on the bottom of the front page a judgment of a French court entered against Sedo for a total of 95,000 Euro’s for apparently just parking a domain its didn’t own.

The case involved the domain Euridile.fr, which the court found infringed on the trademark of EURIDILE owned by the National Institute of Intellectual Property (INPI).

On February 15, 2010 the Court of Appeals fined SEDO who was parking the domain, SafeNames.com which looks like they were the domain registrar, and a company named Lantec who was the domain owner.

According to the judgment the domain was used “in reference to pornographic websites”.

SafeNames was fined $5,000 for being the domain registrar.

Lantec, the domain holder and Sedo the parking company were fined jointly and severally for 50,000 Euros for “Fraud”

Sedo was then fined 30,000 Euro’s individually as “compensation for damage to the trademark holders image”

Sedo was then ordered to pay INPI costs of 15,000 Euro’s making the total a whopping 95,000 Euro’s or about $130K for Sedo.

Lantec, the domain owner was also fined another 15,000 Euro’s for Fraud individually.

The court then ordered each of the companies to “post the contents of this judgment in English. French and German on the home page they own for one month or face an additional fine of 150 euro’s per day until the judgment is posted.

This is why if you go to Sedo’s french site you will find the judgment on the bottom in several languages, lets call it Sedo’s Scarlet Letter.

Ouch.

The Court described the violation, not as trademark infringement, but as of Counterfeiting and Unfair Competition.

I personally don’t understand how the registrar got fined at all, and have no idea of why the parking company got fined more than the company that registered and owned the domain.  While the 50,000 fine was jointly and several, meaning each are responsible for the whole, the individually leveled fines where 30,000 Euro’s in the case of Sedo but only 15,000 Euro’s for the domain owner.

This is not the first time Sedo has been held liable for damage by a French Court.  Back in 2007  Sedo was fined in exceess of 100,000 Euro’s in a case involving Le Meridien Hotels and several domains that the court found violated its trademarks which were being parked by Sedo.

If the courts in France can hold companies liable for just parking domains or even worse, for just allowing someone to register a domain,  as in Safenames, it’s going to be awfully expensive to do business there.

Something to think about but you jump into the .Fr market.

ABC evening news has a story on ICANN plan to release an unlimited amount of extensions called “.AnythingGoes”.

The first line from the story: “Is This The Beginning Of The End For .Com’s?”

You can watch the whole 1:28 second piece

The piece seems to come back around at the end to boost up .Com’s after all concluding:

“How is anyone ever going to find you if they can’t remember your address”

Thanks to Scott Ross for the heads up.

I just literally stumbled across  a new blog aggregation service called Gurus.com which is covering the domain industry along with blogs of some other industries.  The site is using the Slogan; “one site, all the gurus”

Of course most of you are familiar with Domaining.com and NameBee.com which have been serving the domain community quite well as blog aggregators.

Gurus.com is categorizing domain blogs as: “Web Development and Domains Gurus”

The only blogs currently covered by Gurus.com in that category are:  TheDomains.com, ElliotsBlog.com, DNJournal.com,  DomainNameNews.com,  TheFragerFactor.com and the Conceptualist.com.

I don’t know about any of the other guys, but no one from Gurus.com contacted me to ask if they could include our posts in their service and no one contacted me to tell me they were doing so.  However seeing who owns it I’m willing to forgive him (read below).

Gurus.com which says it is in Beta does not currently contain any advertising.

Other Industries currently being covered by Gurus.com are:

“Financial Gurus”

“Internet Marketing Gurus”

“Pro Blogging Gurus”

“Productivity Gurus”

Now back to whom owns the domain Gurus.com?

None other than Ammar Kubba of Thought Convergence and Trafficz fame.

However this is a personal project of Mr. Kubba.

Reached for comment Mr. Kubba said about the site:

“”I envision a site that eventually aggregates blogs / information sites from experts across all fields, i.e., financial gurus, domain gurus, plumbing gurus, etc., along with a social component that allows people to comment and contribute their experiences, knowledge and opinions”

Sounds like a great plan.

I know domaining.com tried a few weeks ago to add in some non-domain blogs into its feed but got some push back since many mainstream blogs publish can publish 10 posts a day or more.

Gurus.com is laid out in sections (changed by a drop down menu) so if you just want to see just the domain blogs or just the financial blogs you can, thereby allowing all of these to co-exist without overwhelming each other.

I wish Ammar the best of luck in this new project.

Now to the really important part.

I assume the honor of being named a “Guru”, like the Nobel Prize, comes with a large cash award and a nice trophy.

Ammar you have my address.

Talk about having some bad timing.

The domain ChileEarthQuake.com dropped just 2 days after the 8.8 earthquake rocked Chile.

Today the expired domain was auctioned off and sold on SnapNames.com

While we always discourage people from registering domains that take advantage of any disasters we couldn’t help but notice the irony that this domain was not renewed by its former owner and then lost the domain just 2 days after the disaster struck.

Hopefully the new owner will do the right thing and send the traffic to the Red Cross or some other reputable charity, however right now its just parked.

Go Daddy announced today that it has just surpassed 40 million, registered domain names.

Godaddy said it typically registers a million domain names per month.

Godaddy also says they have a 50% market share of all active new domains registered in the world and is more than three times the size of its closest competitor.

Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons is quoted as saying:

“”The Go Daddy portfolio surpassed 40 million domain names today.  The Internet is the heart of the new economy,” said . “The Internet is one of the few sectors showing monumental growth and Go Daddy is positioned in the sweet spot of the expansion. Think about it, to have your own Web site, you need a domain name and no one can deliver on a domain like Go Daddy. Our growth is essentially a window into what’s happening with the Internet.”

“For the last two consecutive years, Go Daddy has been registering, renewing or transferring a domain name at the rate of one every second of every day.”

Wow

“Over the next twenty-five years, I see the Internet growing exponentially,” said Parsons. “Think about it, whether you are communicating, learning or conducting business, being on the Internet is where it’s all happening. I’d say if you aren’t online with your business, you really aren’t in the game.”

Go Daddy’s growth is benefiting people looking for jobs right now too.   Currently there are more than 100 open positions available at www.GoDaddy.com/Jobs.

What happens when a site which is suppose to be giving out unbiased reviews of products is accused of changing it reviews based on ad dollars?

Welcome to the world of Yelp.com, which was hit with a second class-action suit this week, alleging that they “extorted” companies by offering to hide bad reviews and promote positive ones in exchange for advertising.

The suit, filed by D’Ames Day Spa, in the federal district court for the central district of California, alleges that Yelp removed 13 of 14 positive reviews of her business from the site after she refused to purchase advertising on the site.

The suit goes on allege unfair and unlawful business practices and further allege that Yelp acted in violation of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.

Yes that a RICO allegation, serious stuff.

Late month, a veterinary center in California alleged that Yelp had offered to bury bad reviews in exchange for a $300-a-month ad buy.

The CEO of Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman said on Yelp’s blog: “This suit, like the other, is without merit, we will fight it aggressively and we believe we will win”

Of course there are always conspiracy theorist and business owners looking for explanations of  why there services are rated low or their competitors are rated high.

Such is the danger of any any site that rates businesses while accepting ads.

It seems that lawsuits maybe part of the cost of doing business for such “rating” sites.

On the other hand with eyeballs comes a lot of power to make and break businesses especially restaurants which depend greatly on reviews and word of mouth.

There are those, including an article in the EastBayExpress, which claim these Yelp takes advantage of its power to get establishments to increased their advertising to hide bad reviews or add to good review, or will change reviews on based on the lack of advertising.

We will see how this plays out in the courts, but this is definitely something to think about if your planning on developing any of your domains into this type of site.

According to the BBC News , ICANN is going to reconsider the .XXX extension on Friday March 12 at its meeting in Nairobi.

The BBC article quotes a representative of ICANN saying:

There is “no indication what action the ICANN board will take”.

“However, it is unlikely to overturn the decision immediately without consulting other members of Icann and the internet community.”

Stay Tuned