Group again asks ICANN to not allow any individual sports to get top level domain names.

Last August the so-called .Sport Policy Advisory Council (basically a group that wants to launch the .sport top level domain name) told ICANN it was unhappy with the idea that there could be individual sports (such as .baseball) as top level domains. At the time, the .Sport Policy Advisory Council wrote:

We cannot accept ICANN approving any applications for top-level domains that could diminish the solidarity implied with .SPORT.

This coming from a group that may not even be awarded .sport!

You can read about its original request to ICANN here.

They’re at it again, sending another letter (pdf) to ICANN’s Board and CEO explaining that it would be completely unacceptable for ICANN to accept applications for individual sports, such as .football, .basketball, etc.

The PAC looks forward with anticipation to the release of the 4th Draft Applicant Guidebook prior to your next ICANN meeting in Brussels in June 2010. In this regard, we again emphasize that the PAC is unwavering in its position that ICANN acknowledge, respect and not interfere with the core value of sport solidarity by ensuring that individual sports not be introduced unless and until the international sports family has had time to gauge their impact on sport solidarity and international federations independently. The PAC members reiterate our concern that ICANN may be prematurely entertaining a process that will allow proliferation of names in sub-categories or individual sports, which will lead to a number of detrimental effects (as detailed in our August 20th, 2009 letter which we have attached for your reference) in the event that ICANN does not take into account the PAC’s previously stated position, which is that we emphatically oppose any diminution of .SPORT.

You really can’t make this stuff up.

Good news for publisher from Google economic report.

Google has released an economic study showing its impact across the United States.

Here’s one of the more interesting tidbits for publishers and domain owners: Google assumes that a click on an Adwords ad results in more revenue to the site owner than a click on an organic ad:

However, clicks through search results may not be as commercially valuable as ad clicks, so we want to be conservative: we estimate that search clicks are about 70 percent as valuable as ad clicks.

At first this may seem counter-intuitive. Don’t people trust organic results more? I think there are four reasons and ad click will outperform an organic click:

1. Once you click on an ad, you have identified yourself as someone with specific intent. You’re not turned off by the ad, and you click it with the intent to complete an action.

2. Ads are more targeted. When you search for a specific product, an ad is to-the-point and delivers you to a landing page specific to that product. Often times an organic result includes superfluous information and leads you to an un-targeted page.

3. Less competition. There are fewer ads than organic results. If someone decides to “shop” through the ads, there’s less clutter.

4. They’re commercially oriented. Advertisers don’t pay for ads that don’t deliver value. A lot of organic listings lead to topical content rather than a commercial page.

Brokerage and parking company continues to grow customer numbers.

The Sedo customer base continues to grow, according to the company’s first quarter 2010 report (pdf). The domain name brokerage and parking company now has 1,051,000 registered members, 16.1 million domain names on its platform, and 7.1 million domain names available for sale.

The same can’t be said for the company’s financials, as sales dropped 6.7% from the same quarter last year. Earnings were down 10% and its employee base fell from 175 to 155 in a year.

But the company sees the earnings trend reversing course next year:

In the field of Domain Marketing, in which we hold a leading global position, we expect a slight general decline in 2010 and a return to growth from 2011 onward. We shall continue to invest in our domain inventory and cooperate increasingly with partners in the field of domain trading in 2010.

Response filed in Verizon domain name lawsuit.

Two defendants in a lawsuit filed by Verizon alleging cybersquatting have responded to the suit.

Both The Producers, Inc., and Michael Gardner have responded to Verizon’s allegations that they registered domains related to Verizon trademarks. The somewhat bizarre case revolves around what DirectNIC does with domain names when they expire but are not yet deleted. Like most registrars, DirectNIC removes the registrant’s details from whois and places a parked page on the domain.

In their defenses, The Producers and Gardner didn’t say much, other than denying most of the allegations made by Verizon. They also have terse affirmative defenses, including that Verizon has “unclean hands”:

Some or all of Plaintiffs’ claims and/or remedies are barred in whole or in part by the doctrine of “unclean hands”.

This basically alleges that Verizon is engaging in some of the same behavior that it alleges the defendants have engaged in. Although the response doesn’t elaborate, this could be about Verizon’s practice of displaying a parked page to its ISP customers when they type in a domain name that doesn’t exist.

The defendants also claim estoppel, statute of limitations/laches, ACPA Immunity, Communications Decency Act immunity, actions permitted by contract (that defendants are permitted to operate a proxy registration service), failure to mitigate damages, and third-party liability (that third parties are liable to The Producers and Gardner for all or part of the Plaintiffs’ claims).

Author and scholar wins domain name case.

Well-known atheist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, has won the domain name RichardDawkins.com through an arbitration case at National Arbitration Forum. Dawkins’ main web site is RichardDawkins.net.

The owner of RichardDawkins.com claimed that he was using the domain name merely as a fan site for Dawkins. There were affiliate links on the web site that linked to various products related to Dawkins, but the owner claimed that those links were there in exchange for free web hosting.

In additional to being an expert on atheism, Dawkins appears to be good at convincing a three-member arbitration panel that he has common law rights to his name. In its decision, the panel wrote:

The Panel unanimously finds that Richard Dawkins has established a common law trademark in his name. The three Panel members agree that Mr. Dawkins has perhaps done the most thorough job in establishing the existence of the common law trademark in a personal name that any of the three panelists have seen.