Animal rights group moves domain names to competitor.

Making good on its promise, PETA has moved its domains (well at least peta.org) away from Go Daddy. The domain name is now registered at Register.com.

This whole elephant shooting video is obviously a hotly debated subject.

Some are arguing this is a different type of controversy than Go Daddy’s commercials.

I’m not so sure, and we’ll see how this plays out.

But I’m reminded of Bob Parsons’ keynote at DOMAINfest last month. I’m paraphrasing from memory here. Basically he said there are people who really like you or your business, a bunch who are ambivalent, and then a small minority who really hate you.

It’s those that really hate you that are your key to success. Keep them drummed up.

WIPO’s headline is misleading.

Today World Intellectual Property Forum (WIPO) did its annual release of how many UDRP cases it handled last year. It was a record 2,696 cases.

That’s a lot of cases, and National Arbitration Forum also saw an increase in cases this year.

But I take issue with WIPO’s headline:

Cybersquatting Hits Record Level

A more accurate headline would be Cybersquatting Enforcement Hits Record Level.

It reminds me of when the border patrol says “we’ve recovered a record amount of drugs crossing the borders this year.”

Is that because people tried to smuggle more drugs or because border patrol did a better job catching them?

I briefly analyzed the rise in UDRP cases when I wrote about this last month. A couple notes I made:

- While the number of cases was up, the ratio of cases to total domains registered has only been lower once in the past decade.

- The spike in cases can largely be attributed to a few mass filers using trademark enforcement companies. For example, Lego filed over 100 cases with the help of Melbourne IT Digital Brand Services. I should also note that Lego’s actions seemed to be directed at people who were selling Lego goods on these web sites — it seems to be less of a cybersquatting issue than an a counterfeit/unauthorized reseller crackdown.

Registries ask for prior communications prior to sending a breach or termination notice.

Last month ICANN sent a breach notice to .jobs registry Employ Media. This came as a surprise to Employ Media (for good reason) and probably freaked out some .jobs registrants as well. Employ Media complained that ICANN “publicly defamed” it.

Now the Registries Stakeholder Group is asking ICANN to take a different approach going forward.

The group sent a statement (pdf) to ICANN titled “Procedures for Notification of Breach or Termination of a Registry Agreement”.

It asks ICANN to first reach out to registries to try to handle the matter before posting a public notice:

We wish to emphasize that registry operators perform a critical role in the stable resolution of DNS services that are relied upon by millions of people and businesses. While we appreciate the important
role and obligations placed upon ICANN compliance staff to swiftly take action on behalf of ICANN, this
should never come as a surprise to the impacted registry or to the ICANN Board. We understand that in
rare emergencies it may not be possible to engage in discussions prior to the issuance of a breach
notice, but we strongly believe that proactive, constructive engagement should be the preferred
approach, and a notice of breach or termination should only be an option of last resort.

The breach notice to Employ Media is the first sTLD/gTLD breach notice I’ve ever seen. Indeed, it seemed to specifically address a new program that was blessed by ICANN’s board. Whether or not it should have been approved by ICANN’s board is a fair debate, but the breach notice seemed to come out of left field.

PETA is closing its Go Daddy account over elephant hunting incident.

Poor Bob Parsons.

The Go Daddy founder is about to lose a few hundred domain name registrations from its client People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

I’m sure he’s just shaking in his boots.

The group is enraged about an elephant hunting video he took in Zimbabwe. The video caught attention after being posted at online petition site Change.org.

Nevermind that Parsons posted a similar video last year. I guess no one saw that.

Parsons loves this kind of attention, and he’s not going to lose any sleep over losing PETA’s account. For every PETA domain he loses he’ll get 3 more registrations from someone else in his NASCAR-loving customer base.

Now, if I may opine on the video for a second.

I’m not a hunter. I’ve only shot a gun once in my life (despite living in Texas). And you all know I’ve had my share of differences with Bob Parsons.

But this uproar over the video just goes to show how myopic people can be. We assume that everyone else is in a similar situation than us and should be held to our standards.

If you lived in Zimbabwe and the only way to feed your family was to get elephants off your property (and eat them), you’d do whatever it took. When it’s a matter of your kid dying or an elephant dying, which one would you choose?

Yeah, it’s easy for me sitting in my cozy office in the United States to say you shouldn’t shoot elephants. Or you shouldn’t become a pirate in Somalia. But many people literally have no choice: it’s die or do something we wouldn’t consider over here.

You think these guys should be worried about emissions from their dirty diesel vehicles when they’re trying to figure out where tomorrow’s dinner will come from?

The only thing I’d be enraged about is if Parsons was paying Robert Mugabe for his visits. If you really want to make a difference in the life of the average Zimbabwe citizen, you’d get rid of that guy.

Short and numeric .tel domain names coming this summer.

Starting June 1 you’ll be able to get your hands on two character and all number .tel domain names.

The domain names will be available on a first-come first-served basis, but at premium pricing during the “landrush” period from June 1 to June 14.

.Tel registry Telnic says this is an opportunity for four types of registrants:

1. Companies with 2-letter or all-numeric brands or trademarks
2. Vanity number operators or those wanting to get keyboard-numeric versions of their names
3. Individuals who want to be known by their initials or with a penchant for lucky numbers
4. Businesses using shortcodes for marketing and support services

I’m not so sure about the second one since all number domain names are limited seven or fewer characters.

One character domains won’t be released in this period, nor will two letter domains that have a matching country code (e.g. uk.tel, de.tel).

Landrush registrations will be available at a subset of existing .tel domain name registrars.