Survey finds number of fears about domain market in 2010.

ICANN policy decisions are the biggest issue facing the domain name market in 2010, according to a survey of more than 500 people in the 5th Annual Domain Name Wire Survey.

28% of those survey said that ICANN policy decisions, such as those with new top level domain names, is the biggest issue facing domain investors in 2010. The majority of respondents self-identified as domain name investors, although the survey also included responses from domain name registrars, lawyers, and other service providers.

Of course, the nagging recession is also a big factor, coming in at number two at 22%.

Here are the top issues facing the domain market:

1. ICANN policy decisions (28%)
2. Overall economy/recession (22%)
3. Changes in pay-per-click market (16%)
3. Anti-domainer interests (e.g. IRT) (16%)
5. Registry wholesale price increases (6%)
6. Domain theft (5%)
7. Renegade registrars and resellers (4%)
7. Other (4%)

Given that the top concern is ICANN, it’s a shame that the industry didn’t support Internet Commerce Association, which was the domain investor’s primary representation in ICANN policy.

More survey results.

.Travel shows up in a print ad.

Here’s something I haven’t seen before: a magazine ad with a .travel domain name.

Admittedly, I don’t read travel magazines. But while flipping through the latest issue of American Express’ Departures magazine, I came across a tourism ad for Egypt. The URL? www.Egypt.travel. (See the full ad a pdf here).

Egypt.travel is run by Egyptian Tourist Authority. The other URL in the ad is EgyptianTravelSpecialist.com, a web site maintained by Egyptian Tourist Authority geared to getting travel agents to sell customers on visiting Egypt.

So here’s my million dollar question. If there were no second URL in the ad, and the Egypt.travel domain wasn’t preceded by www., would anyone know it was a web address? If companies use newer top level domain names in advertisements, we’ll probably see a resurgence of including www. before web addresses.

From “anything goes” to “nothing goes”, changes to .Cn registration enforcement will reduce the number of .cn domain names.

China’s domain name strategy has always perplexed me. For a country known for censoring just about everything, I found it odd that the country was essentially giving away .Cn domain names for about 14 cents.

The low cost catapulted China above Germany for the most registered country code top level domain name, a status that China once again regained in the fourth quarter of last year according to VeriSign’s latest market report. (At last count, .de has nearly 13.5 million domains registered. Numbers from CNNIC for the end of last year show a similar number of .cn domains.)

But then early this year, China suddenly realized it had a problem. .Cn was out of control. So .Cn registry CNNIC announced it would crack down on individuals registering domains, and forbid non-Chinese registrars from offering .cn.

This certainly put a damper on sales. Now comes word that people wishing to register a .cn domain name will need to show photo ID, and perhaps meet in person with their registrar. And, no surprise here, PCWorld is reporting that “Applicants must also submit other information and a description of their site’s content, including anything that needs ‘advance or special approval.’” It’s all under the guise of censoring porn.

And so the quick rise of .cn will also be a quick fall. .De, welcome back to the #1 spot.

eNom joins competitors in offering easy domain reseller option.

Joining the ranks of Go Daddy and Tucows, eNom is launching a domain reseller package that includes a web storefront for non-techies. (Update: Instant Reseller will replace the former PDQ program. See comments for details.)

eNom’s system, called “Instant Reseller“, is essentially a reseller-in-a-box package that includes a fully hosted website and customized storefront, a shopping cart feature, order fulfillment and credit card processing capabilities. Previously, resellers needed technical expertise to integrate these features separately.

Instant Reseller costs $249 per year. Tucows’ OpenSRS has a one time $95 activation fee, and then generally charges $3 per domain registered/renewed as a transaction fee. GoDaddy’s Wild West Domains program has three packages that cost between $99 and $229 per year.

Like Tucows, eNom built its registration base on a reseller network. GoDaddy has generally sold direct to the public.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. patent number 7,644,117 to The Go Daddy Group for its reseller programs earlier this year.

Paris loses challenge to Paris.tv. A French arbitrator disagrees.

Ville de Paris — the City of Paris — has lost yet another domain name arbitration case.

At issue was Paris.tv. This isn’t the first time Paris has gone after this domain name. It sent two cease and desist letters to the owner of Paris.tv back in 2006. At that point, the owner of the domain name had enough and filed suit for declaratory relief under Lanham Act for Tortuous Interference with contract and defamation in the Southern District of New York. Paris then backtracked, suggesting the court had no jurisdiction over it.

Fast forward to 2009. After filing a number of UDRPs for domains including the word “Paris”, and getting sued in Texas court as a results, Paris went ahead and filed a UDRP against Paris.tv. It argued that it has a stylized trademark for “Paris”, and it has a video/TV segment on its Paris.fr web site, which might lead to confusion.

A three person panel found against Paris, ruling that Paris couldn’t rely on its stylized mark to go after anyone who uses a domain with “Paris” in it. Quite simply, the majority wrote “Complainant does not have exclusive world-wide rights to use the term [Paris].”

But what’s amazing is that one panelist dissented. And where is dissenting panelist Christiane Féral-Schuhl from? Yep. Paris, France. Once again, this dissent shows how laughable WIPO is as an institution. The fact that someone’s local ties to a city would cause them to go against ten years of UDRP principles is outrageous.

Not only did Féral-Schuhl find that the domain was confusingly similar to Paris’ mark, but also that the owner had no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name and it was registered and used in bad faith.