ICANN Pressured to increase trademark protections
A group of some of the world’s largest and most popular brands are pressuring the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to increase trademark protections in the domain world. The group, including members from Nike, Lego, and Bacardi, want ICANN to develop measures to prevent imitation registrations that could ultimately harm their brands. Under the current operations brand names are being forced to defensively register domain names that are similar to their own to prevent fraudulent and imitative companies from profiteering off of their trademark.
Televisions.com is on the Market
Right Of The Dot, LLC is now the exclusive broker for Televisions.com and they are putting this huge domain up for sale. The domains listed as part of this package are Televisions.com.cn, Televisions.com.mx, Televisions.es, Televisions.info, Televisions.de, Televisions.tv, Televisions.pl, and Televisions.com. Whoever purchases this package deal will be a force to be reckoned with in the online retail television industry.
Toon.net sells for $7500
The domain Toon.net was sold this week on Flippa for $7500. The domain was initially registered in 1998, and had been placed on Flippa for auction twice before. During the first auction bids only went up to $2,500 and the second time the bids stopped at $1600. The Toon.net domain came with 20 page ranked authority domains, but their names were unlisted.
DigitalTown acquires 2,700 domain names
DigitalTown Inc. has purchased 2,700 .com domain names. The domain purchase included more than 500 city names, 400 high school spirit websites, 300 of the top mascot names in sports, and over 1,000 business and professional names. DigitalTown now owns over 27,000 high school spirit sites in the .com domain. These domains include the mascot and school name for high schools across the country.
Giftcardlab.com purchased Giftcard.com for $4 Million
Giftcardlab announced today that they have purchased the Giftcard.com domain. Giftcard.com will now be the primary url where customers can go to purchase gift cards for stores, incentive cards, and e-gift cards. The domain was purchased for $4 million.
Microsoft and Advertising companies at odds over Do Not Track defaults in Internet Explorer
An influential lobbyist group for advertisers has written an open letter to Microsoft. This open letter from the Board of Directors of the Association of National Advertisers is to express their outrage over Microsoft’s decision to have the Do Not Track feature enabled as a default setting on Internet Explorer 10. Internet Explorer 10 is the default browser of Windows 8. The letter was signed by representatives of major multi-national companies including General Motors, IBM, GE, and Coca-Cola. With the current settings for Internet Explorer 10 if an express installation is chosen the Do Not Track feature will be enabled. When using the browser a Do Not Track signal will be sent to any website visited. In their letter, the Association of National Advertisers goes on to say that Microsoft’s decision is irresponsible and that it will forever change the Internet advertising landscape. So far Microsoft is standing behind their default Do Not Track setting. Privacy is an important issue to many internet users so this could definitely turn out to be a positive thing for Microsoft.