Sites get consistent look and UI upgrades.

Moniker and SnapNames will receive a facelift with improved user interfaces and clean designs on Monday evening.

I took the new designs for a test spin yesterday, and it certainly appears to be a big improvement over the old designs. Oversee.net acquired the two companies in separate transactions over the past few years. The companies have done some work to integrate the two, but this is the first bottom-up redesign to make it a consistent experience across the sites.

Both Moniker and SnapNames will have similar home pages and top navigation bars. Of course existing clients don’t spend much time on the home pages of these sites (they just head straight to logging in). That’s the good news: the account management interface for Moniker has been overhauled. The same functionality is there but it’s a much more streamlined and usable design.

Of course I was only able to get a taste for it in my preview with the company yesterday. As you use the upgraded sites you might find your own quirks — and the company wants to hear your suggestions for making the sites better.

GAC asks ICANN to hold a limited fast-track round for new top level domain names.

Interim Chairman of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Heather Dryden has sent a letter (pdf) to ICANN urging it to limit the number of new top level domain names in the next round by holding a “fast track” process:

The GAC concludes therefore that an initial fast track round for a limited number of non-controversial applications which should include a representative but diverse sample of community, cultural and geographical applications, would be a preferable course for ICANN to take rather than a single open-ended launch. Ensuring equity and fair play in the application process for this limited first round would require a fully open community discussion and clear direction in the applicant guidebook. The GAC recommends that ICANN undertake a full review of the results of the fast track process before embarking on subsequent rounds.

The letter sent on behalf of GAC also addresses the market and economic impacts of new TLDs, registry-registrar separation, intellectual property (including asking for the Trademark Clearing House to allow all nationally registered trademarks including those not substantially reviewed to be included), and geographical names.

Two more parking companies added to parking stats verification service.

Today DNW Certified Stats added support for SedoPro accounts and DomainAdvertising. Now you can easily share stats for your parked domain names at 8 different parking companies.

SedoPro is the advanced parking program offered by Sedo. Users must have at least 1,000 domain names or $300 in monthly revenue to qualify. If you are interested in a SedoPro account and meet the qualifications, please contact me and I’ll send an invitation to you.

Please note that DNW Certified Stats also works with regular Sedo accounts.

DomainAdvertising is a new(er) parking platform that brings stellar landing pages together with both automated and human optimization.

DNW Certified Stats is still in beta. If you have a SedoPro or DomainAdvertising account, I’d appreciate you trying out the service and reporting any problems to me.

Two cases show why we need UDRP reform.

National Arbitration Forum has handed down two recent domain name decisions that show what’s wrong with UDRP.

This isn’t an attack on National Arbitration Forum, as its panelists got both of these cases right. In both cases they found that the registrant had rights or legitimate interests in the domain names and that they weren’t registered in bad faith.

What’s wrong about these cases is that the respondents even had to take the time (or money) to respond. Both cases were frivolous because the domain names were registered prior to the complainants getting any sort of trademark rights in the term.

Take a look at the decision for RapidInsight.com. In this case the respondent registered the domain name in 2000 and even formed an LLC by the name Rapid Insight, LLC. Then the complainant formed a company later and settled on the domain name RapidInsightInc.com.

Of course the domain without Inc.com is better. So, ten years hence, the complainant filed his case.

The other case is for eCotton.net. The respondent registered this domain name back in 1999 and even created a web site at the address. In 2008 the complainant filed a design mark for eCotton, and followed that up with what is now a pending registration for the word mark eCotton in 2010. He claimed first use in commerce in 2000 (which is an awfully long time to wait to file for a trademark). But even if the complainant first used the eCotton mark in commerce in 2000, it was still after the domain name was registered by the respondent. That means it was impossible that it was registered in bad faith.

UDRP needs reforming. There need to be some changes to protect both complainants and respondents. One of my suggestions is to have an automatic check that throws out any case where a complainant does not claim it had rights in the mark prior to the respondent registering the domain name. This disproves bad faith registration and merely harasses the respondent who must take the time (and perhaps money) to respond.

New domain name auction platform launches.

DomainConsultant.com has launched BoxCar.com, a new domain name auction site.

The service is very different from typical marketplaces such as Afternic and Sedo. It focuses on auctions only and you can list lots instead of just single domains. It’s also highly flexible, allowing you to set your own bid increments, buy-it-now option, reserve prices, etc.

BoxCar.com also shuns the typical commission-based fee structure by charging a simple flat fee of $5 per domain name (an introductory price). By charging a flat, up-front fee I suspect the inventory will be void of junk listings.

Other features include:

-Add Facebook or Twitter, Flash or You Tube video to your auction.
-Escrow.com and PayPal integrated
-Boxcar.com/USERNAME profile page (add your Twitter, FB, site, etc.)
-Beta and Preview periods
-RSS feed for all your auctions
-Dynamic Flash widget- updated and embeddable
-Buyers and Sellers Kits

Among the introductory names already on auction are MindGames.com, LegalRecords.com, and SWD.com.