Negotiations are currently underway for a new Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) between ICANN and domain registrars. The main issues under contention are the data retention policies, possible Whois verification requirements, a revocation clause that has registrars nervous, and how to switch all registrars to the new RAA. These issues are being hotly debated in meetings being held at the ICANN conference in Toronto this week. ICANN has stated that they are trying to have the new RAA set up by the end of the year.
Domain Dispute Decisions
A number of big companies won domain disputes this week, as shown on the National Arbitration Forum. The following firms had the disputed domain transferred to their possession: Ashley Furniture, Mead Johnson, Thomson Reuters, MasterCard International, State Farm, Oakley Inc., Chan Luu Inc., and Dunkin’ Brands.
Of the two claims denied in the past couple of days, there is one that is particularly interesting due to why it was denied and what it means to those filing a claim. St. John Knits, Inc., had sought transfer of the stjohncn.com domain from holder Wang Songxu. Despite no response to the forum by the respondent, the one-man panel determined that while the complainant does in fact own the St. John trademark, there was no indication supplied to indicate that the respondent was using the domain to divert consumers or to make a profit on the company’s reputation.
The panel went strictly by the statements of the complainant in this case, because the respondent failed to answer to the claim. If the complainant had stated exactly how the domain was being used, if in fact it is being used as they stated, then they would have won the case and obtained transfer. The key lesson here is to be very specific and detailed when you file a complaint.
Lawsuits Already Being Filed Againt ICANN Over new TLDs
The new TLDs haven’t even been issued yet but already two lawsuits have been filed. Two former applicants for the new TLDs in the proof of concept phase have brought complaints to stop certain TLDs from going through. Both companies, Name.Space and Image Online Design run alternate root systems where they use the TLDs that they originally came up with.
GoDaddy Hires Deutsch to Produce Two Super Bowl Commercials
The first spots that the ad agency produced aired during the Olympics with the goal of changing the company’s image. From commercials focused on sexy women, CMO Barb Rechterman says they now want to show that “it’s sexy to grow a business”. She refers to the Super Bowl ads as “repositioning sexy”. We’ll have to wait for the Super Bowl to see just what they come up with and whether they succeed with their “repositioning”.
BindersFullofWomen.xxx at Auction on eBay
After Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney uttered his “binders full of women” comment in the town hall debate on Tuesday, the phrase has blown up across the web. Naturally, there have been a lot of jokes being made and it’s become quite the social media meme. The phrase started a domain buying frenzy with well over 100 variations being snapped up. One of them was BindersFullOfWomen.xxx which seems rather obvious.
Domain holder Lance Lawson snatched the domain less than an hour after Romney uttered the phrase because he believed this was a good opportunity. He has stated that he’s “not interested in providing adult material” but felt “it would appeal to a certain type of person”. Lawson paid $100 for the domain and has posted it for auction at eBay. Surprisingly enough, with less than a day left to the auction, there are no bidders as of yet.