Auction postponed due to online bidding problems.

The Latonas.com live domain name auction at TRAFFIC in Las Vegas has been postponed due to technical difficulties. The auction will be run Saturday at 10 am PST.

Attendance at the auction was higher than many recent domain name events. However, the online Latonas.com system lagged the in room bidding. About an hour into the auction Rick Latona announced that it was necessary to postpone auction.

That may be disappointing for on-room buyers, but Latona pointed out that he has an obligation to his sellers, who may not get top dollar for their domains without online bidders.

The live auction will probably take place on an alternative platform, to be announced later on RickLatona.com.

TRAFFIC gets underway in Las Vegas.

I woke up this morning to a beautiful view of snow capped mountains from my hotel room at the Hard Rock. It’s beautiful today, but yesterday was one of those freak weather days in Las Vegas where it rained. That spelled trouble for airlines, and I ended up arriving after most of yesterday’s opening sessions at TRAFFIC.

But the people who attended the networking sessions said they got a lot out of them, and it certainly jump started the tone for the entire conference.

I made it here in time for the opening night cocktail party at Wasted Space, a club inside the Hard Rock Hotel. The highlight of the evening was a jam session from David Castello, which you can see part of in the video below. The lighting in Wasted Space was dark, so sorry about the picture quality.

Stay tuned throughout the day for more updates from TRAFFIC in Las Vegas.

This week’s TRAFFIC event will answer some questions.

Well, I’m off to Vegas.

I’m excited to attend the updated T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference. But unlike Ron, I’m not stoked about having two conferences back-to-back. Perhaps it’s because I live in the middle of the country (not coming from the East coast) and have a small child.

Nonetheless, business is business. OK, and a bit of fun.

For the next 72 hours, it’s all about TRAFFIC. Here are five questions that will be answered before the weekend is up:

1. Is Latonas.com ready for prime time? Rick Latona is going with his new, custom-built platform for the online component of his domain auction. He had a test run with the WhyPark charity auction, but now it’s time to see if the online component integrates seamlessly with a live, offline auction. Here’s hoping it goes off without a hitch. Latonas.com is already open for pre-bidding.

2. What were the ten worst UDRPs of 2010? I will face off with a few other UDRP enthusiasts (that’s an oxymoron) on stage Friday to convince you of my choice.

3. Will a focus on networking pay off? Rick Latona’s team called 100 of their biggest customers to ask them why they come to domain conferences. The number one response was networking. So his team front loaded the event with networking sessions on the first day.

4. Will Rick Latona’s team rise to the challenge? This isn’t Latona’s first domain conference. He held a TRAFFIC conference on ccTLDs last year. But it is his first show since announcing a major licensing deal with TRAFFIC. Latona will tell you it’s not the Rick Latona show — it’s his team that’s working hard to put it together. He’s right. But he’s the front man, so all eyes will be on him.

5. How will Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu handle sitting on the sidelines? They might have too much time to relax. But I guess they got practice at TRAFFIC Down Under and TRAFFIC ccTLDs.

Case sheds light on Pool.com lawsuit against former registrar partner.

A National Arbitration Forum has awarded the domain name Dingbats.com to the complainant in a case against a Pool.com entity. What makes this case interesting is not that Dingbats is a generic term (don’t make me start writing in dingbats!), nor that the complainant bought the rights to a trademark for Dingbats for watches just recently, nor that the domain was originally owned by the previous trademark holder who let it expire over five years ago.

OK, so those are all interesting. But what’s more interesting is how expired domain name service Pool.com came to own the domain name. In its response, “Pool.com In Trust” explains that it was awarded the domain name in a lawsuit against one of its former domain registrar partners.

According to Pool, it registered the Dingbats.com domain name on behalf of a customer in 2004 and placed the domain with a partner registrar, Best Registration Services. Pool writes that the registrar originally put the domain in its customer’s name, but then stole the domain name back. Pool was forced to give a refund to the customer (along with other customers who were affected). Pool sued Best Registration Services, and a court awarded Pool a collection of domain names that were stolen by the registrar after Pool.com won them for its customers.

Crazy, huh? Almost as crazy has awarding this domain name to the complainant.

Meeting might be moved to different location in Kenya.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has called a special meeting of the Board of Directors to address security concerns for the upcoming ICANN meeting in Kenya.

Although the details on ICANN’s web site are minimal, an editorial in ComputerWorld Kenya suggests ICANN is considering moving the meeting from Nairobi to a UN compound in Gigiriin.

This isn’t the first time security concerns have affected an ICANN meeting in Kenya. A meeting was planned for last year, but was canceled after social unrest following the 2007 Kenyan elections.

The editorial suggests that ICANN has a double standard, holding meetings in Mexico City and Seoul but not Kenya.

I think ICANN has its double standards; if they were truly concerned about the security, the meeting in Seoul would not have taken place; South Korea is always under alert because of North Korea nuclear intentions.

The meeting in Mexico city would not have gone on, after all every one there is said to carry a gun and the senior executives within ICANN membership were at risk of kidnappings. But the meetings took place.

Last year I discussed how Mexico City was a poor choice due to security concerns.

But the editorial also suggests that an ICANN meeting in Nairobi would happen without incident:

In short, ICANN should know that they will come, they will hold their meeting, they will go away, and no one will probably remember they were here. How many people know about ICANN and what it does? How many people know that the people present are online millionaires?

Perhaps. But it’s only a matter of time before an “online millionaire” has an unfortunate experience at an ICANN event held in the wrong place.