Houston Astros play ball for domain name.

The Houston Astros baseball team may not have had a winning season on the field this year, but they’re hoping for a win off the field: getting the domain name AstrosBaseball.com. The team and Major League Baseball have filed for arbitration at National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name.

The official team site is Astros.com, and the team also owns HoustonAstros.com. But AstrosBaseball.com gets a decent amount of traffic, ranking in the top four million sites according to Compete.com.

The domain name is currently parked, showing ads for “houston astros tickets” and “baseball jersey”. Seems like this will be a home run for the Astros.

A number of sports teams have won similar cases. In September, the domain names PhilliesBaseball.com and PadresBaseball.com were handed over in arbitration. In football, the Oakland Raiders picked up OaklandRaiders.com. And on the hard court, the Denver Nuggets won DenverNuggets.com. Finally, the PGA just picked up PGATour.org.

Community feedback is pretty clear about Expedited UDRP.

ICANN says it takes community feedback into consideration when managing the domain name system. But clearly it’s not a majority rule system.

So here’s a clear cut case, involving the Czech Arbitration Court’s proposal to offer an “Expedited UDRP”. Out of 15 commentors, not a single person was in favor of the proposal. Zero. Zip. Nada. All 15 commentors were opposed to it either on principle or procedural grounds. And these aren’t just angry, misinformed domainers complaining. The comments include that of an actual UDRP arbitrator, GoDaddy, and even the group drafting the Uniform Rapid Suspension idea. Here are some of the comments:

“Go Daddy strongly opposes the amendments proposed by CAC as they are currently written, and encourage the ICANN Board to reject these changes.” – Go Daddy

“The ICANN public notice for comments has misled the ICANN community and the public. This is not a mere change to supplemental rules for a mere alternative page limit. This is the adoption of an “_Expedited Decision_” analogous to the URS system, recently created by the STI.” -NCSG STI Drafting Team (same people creating Uniform Rapid Suspension)

“It is our position that all of the proposed changes will, in effect, have a material change on the UDRP itself, and therefore…must be subject to the PDP process as defined in the ICANN By-Laws.” – Go Daddy

“Implementation of this proposal through CAC’s Supplemental Rules would constitute a complete perversion of individual arbitration provider authority to amend secondary rules that are solely meant to address minor and
incidental administrative matters.” – Internet Commerce Association

The ball’s in ICANN’s court. What will it do? And what will it do with WIPO, which thinks it can institute similar changes without even asking ICANN for its blessing?

Expressions of Interest for new TLDs move forward.

The idea for “Expressions of Interest” for new top level domain names cleared a hurdle last week, as ICANN’s board asked staff to push forward on the idea.

The unofficial minutes from the ICANN board meeting on December 9 explain what will happen next:

Whereas ICANN staff has presented an analysis of the potential benefits of an Expressions of Interest (EOI) process, and has developed a preliminary EOI process model for ICANN Board discussion;

Resolved, (2009.12.09.06), ICANN staff shall summarize: a) the public comments resulting from the publication of the risks and considerations considered by the board, b) ICANN Board’s determinations on the EOI process model, and c) the additional staff analysis undertaken; and present that summary to the ICANN Board. Further, along with that summary ICANN staff shall present a proposed EOI process model for approval at the ICANN Board’s February 2010 meeting.

To understand the Expressions of Interest idea better, listen to DNW Radio’s interview with Antony Van Couvering. And for a bit of humor, take a look at my list of new TLDs I’ll express an interest in if ICANN decides to make the EOI fees too low.

A look behind the numbers at the world’s biggest domain name registrar.

Bob Parsons has more to
smile about than just the
Go Daddy Girls.

Yesterday I wrote about Go Daddy’s revenue for 2009, and I extrapolated that the company grossed $600 million this year. That’s an incredible number — but the real number is even higher.

In his opening remarks at the Go Daddy holiday party this past weekend, CEO Bob Parsons announced that the company has topped $750 million in revenue in 2009. This is for a company that was founded only a decade ago and didn’t take a dollar of venture capital.

Here are some other key statistics for the largest domain name registrar in the world:

Employees: Go Daddy employs more than 2,400 people, and is still actively hiring. About 65% of the work force — nearly 1,600 — work in customer service.

Resellers: The company has about 32,000 active reseller accounts.

Web hosting: Go Daddy is hosting more than 3.8 million web sites.

Domain names: Go Daddy registers a domain name every second of every day. Its main registrar GoDaddy has about 33.5 million domains registered. Its reseller arm Wild West Domains has about 3.3 million domains registered, according to RegistrarStats.

Judge says defendants are more than just a domain name registrar.

United States District Judge Cecilia Altonaga has squashed a motion to dismiss by domain name registrar Moniker in its battle with Transamerica.

In a 25 page order (pdf), Altonaga denied Moniker’s motion and renewed a debate about whether domain name registrars can be held liable for their customer’s behavior. The judge was not attempting to judge Transamerica’s allegations, but merely if the case should go forward based on the allegations. Still, her decision should be troubling to domain name registrars.

The key issue is whether a registrar is immune under the Anti-Cybersquatting Protection Act (ACPA). In its Motion to dismiss, Moniker pointed to the actual language of ACPA as well as an often cited case that confirmed that registrars aren’t liable.

But Transamerica argued that Moniker wasn’t acting just as a registrar in this case, as the judge explains:

In this case, Transamerica alleges that Oversee and the Moniker Defendants, together with the ostensible registrants – the John Doe Defendants – are the de facto registrants of the domain names in question. Transamerica claims that Moniker was not merely acting as a registrant in providing registration services to the John Doe Defendants for the infringing domain names, but instead was part of a scheme to profit from the use of the infringing names. As Transamerica points out, Moniker receives a fee each time an internet user clicks on one of the links attached to the infringing domain sites; such payment establishes at least partial ownership in the domain name. (See Hearing 63, 67). Transamerica’s Amended Complaint alleges that Moniker Online provides registration services, Moniker Privacy protects the identity of the ostensible registrant, and Oversee provides the monetization service to the domain name. (See id. at 65). Together, these three Defendants are part of a scheme by which they profit from the misuse of others’ trade and service marks. (See id.). These allegations, taken as true as they must be on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, satisfy the requirement that Defendants be acting as more than registrars so as to strip them of immunity under the ACPA.

The judge agreed, and said that if the allegations are true, then the defendants are not merely the domain registrar for the subject domains. Transamerica argues that the defendants enable people to register the domains, hide their identity, and then use DomainSponsor to monetize the domains. (Oversee.net declined to comment for this article since this is an open legal issue.)

So what does this mean for a domain registrar that provides domain name privacy services, as most do? What does this mean for a domain registrar that puts up a placeholder parking page on an infringing domain, as most do? Or a registrar that doesn’t do a good enough job making sure customers use valid whois information?