Google vs. Froogles.com

Update on the appeal proceedings here (Google was previously dismissed by a NAF panel).

Forthcoming book on domain names

Seen on Law Librarian Blog:
LAW OF TRADEMARKS, BRANDS AND DOMAIN NAMES IN CHINA
AUTHOR: CARTER, CONNIE
PUBLISHER: CURZON
PUBLICATION DATE: APRIL 2005
ISBN: 0700716408

Des mots qui vaudraient cher

Zorgloob retranscrit une liste des mots-clef qui seraient les plus rentables dans le programme Google AdSense. On remarque que le terme "yahoo" revient souvent...
J'ai déjà défendu sur d'autres supports mon humble opinion selon laquelle il me paraît exagéré de sanctionner pour contrefaçon Google à raison de la mise en oeuvre de son programme Adwords : pour simplifier, en tant que support publicitaire, sa responsabilité ne devrait pouvoir être recherchée.
Au vu de cette liste, toutefois, je dois légèrement amender mon point de vue : juridiquement la société ne pourrait que succomber si elle venait à être poursuivie par Yahoo!, du fait de l'utilisation de ce signe. Il s'agit en effet de l'utilisation de la marque d'une société concurrente exerçant dans le même secteur d'activité que Google...

The owner of the ".nu"

Read page 71 in this book on Harmonized Development of Legal and Regulatory Systems for E-commerce in Asia and the Pacific: Current Challenges and Capacity-Building Needs, in the chapter Overview of the regulatory framework for e-commerce in selected Pacific island countries by Mohammed L. Ahmadu: "In 1997, Samoa amended its Communications Act to encourage the operation and development of Internet services in the country. It transferred the property held by the defunct Pacific Internet Services Limited to the Post Office (see the Posts and Telecommunications Internet Act Number 27 of 1997: Cf. Communications (Amendment) Act Number 251 (2000) Niue. It amended the Communications Act 1989 by designating the ownership and management of the country’s code Top level Domain .nu).". This is another example of property of (part of) the domain name system, by government decree.

Uh, another one!

It is the spring for domain names blogs! After this one, this one, here comes a new one, with a simple title: "Domain Names".

Analyse comparée du travail des centres administratifs de résolution des litiges UDRP

Une étude intitulée The Market for Private Dispute Resolution Services - An Empirical Re-Assessment of ICANN-UDRP Performance des professeurs Jay P. Kesan et Andres A. Gallo est maintenant disponible sur SSRN. Elle propose une évaluation empirique du fonctionnement des fournisseurs de services de résolution des litiges UDRP. J'en avais présenté les premières conclusions ici.
Voici son résumé :

This paper presents a thorough empirical study of the performance of UDRP providers. We analyze the decisions of the complainants in deciding to send their claim to a particular provider and show that the duration of the dispute resolution services is at least as important as bias in determining the initial selection of providers. Our results show that the emphasis of theoretical and empirical work, which has been exclusively concentrated around the effects of pro-complainant bias, is, at least, incomplete. We then use the duration of these cases as the main variable to measure the general efficiency of each provider. Among our main findings, we claim that the various UDRP providers have different duration functions, implying the existence of forum shopping. Second, we demonstrate that there is bias in favor of specific countries for the different providers. Third, some panelists have completely different performance characteristics compared to the others suggesting that they are employing different methodologies to arrive at their decisions. Fourth, the performance of the providers is affected by the proofs presented by the complainants and respondents. Finally, we find that three member panels are just as efficient as single member panels. Our detailed analysis of the UDRP process has significant implications for the design of private dispute resolution regimes in general.

ICANN officially designates .jobs & .travel

ICANN has given final approval to two new Internet suffixes:
- .jobs for the human resources community (what is it *exactly*?)
- .travel for the travel industry.
It could take months for the domain names to start appearing in use, as companies running those names now must set up registration and other procedures.
Discussions continue among ICANN Board and Staff regarding the evaluation of five additional proposed sponsored Top Level Domains: .asia, .mail, .tel and .xxx.

ICANN press release, April 8, 2005.

WIPO UDRP Case Filing and Outcome

From the first UDRP case in December 1999 through the end of 2004, 6,692 cases have been filed with the WIPO Center; in 2,968 cases (44%) both parties were from the same country, a situation in which court litigation would have been a viable option. The filing rate has been at its highest in the first two years following the adoption of the UDRP (years 2000 and 2001), and has since gradually stabilized at 3 cases per calendar day until 2004, when the WIPO Center witnessed a 5.4% increase of cases compared with the previous year.

[From WIPO's last report on New Generic Top-Level Domains: Intellectual Property Considerations]

Domaining Blog

Live since March 24, the Domaining Blog has a nice layout and some interesting information.

Death of men, birth of names

On Martin Schwimmer's blog:

"The domain name johnpaulIII.com is available for sale on AfterNic for $1950. It was registered in 1999.
popejohnpaulIII.com re-directs to catholichomeschooler.com. It was registered this past January.
Names such as Lando II, Formosus II and Agatho II, papal names not re-used, in one case, since 681, are still available."

On terryschiavo.com, see here.
Most of the albertdemonaco names are already registered.