Youngest Cyrus gets domain name.

Noah Cyrus, the eleven year old sister of Miley Cyrus and sondaughter (oops) of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, has won rights to the domain name NoahCyrus.com.

The domain name was registered in 2006 just as Cyrus became a household name thanks to the Disney channel’s Hannah Montana TV show. But she got her start in acting with a role in the TV show Doc when she was just three years old. She had the lead role in the film Ponyo in 2009.

There was little doubt why the domain was registered. The parked page currently at NoahCyrus.com shows two Disney ads and one for “Hot Miley Cyrus Photo”.

The UDRP case was decided by panelist Houston Putnam Lowry for National Arbitration Forum.

Suspended football player wins rights to domain name.

Detroit Lions star defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh may have to sit out a couple games because of his stomping incident last week, but he’s still winning off the field.

A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has awarded him his namesake — NdamukongSuh.com.

The domain name was registered to Tim Evans of Athlete Web Design. He registered the domain name in 2009. According to the complaint, he offered to transfer the domain name after he found out that Suh had retained another web developer to create his web site. But he wanted some memorabilia or football tickets in return.

Suh declined and filed the UDRP case instead. Evans offered to transfer the domain after the case was filed, but asked the panel to find that he didn’t register the domain in bad faith. The panel disagreed and said it was registered in bad faith.

Athlete web design has designed sites for a number of pro football players including Davone Bess, Shonn Greene, and Justin Blalock.

Group cites widespread opposition as proof of lack of consensus.

I’m going to rip off the title of this post from a video released yesterday by Association of National Advertisers (ANA). (embedded below)

In the video, ANA says ICANN’s claims that the new TLD program was the result of many years of consensus building is “absolutely false”.

Its proof? 103 organizations have “signed on” with ANA to oppose new TLDs.

Now, it’s true that there are a lot of people out there who oppose new TLDs. I know ICANN would agree with that.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean ICANN didn’t go through its consensus process. It did. Maybe the argument is that the process was flawed.

As I’ve argued before, ANA is not the group to lead this charge. It was aware of the new TLD program and waited until it was finalized before making the program its cause célèbre.

Lots of other organizations can legitimately say they had no idea about new TLDs until the program was approved this summer. ANA can’t.

Four porn posts and a saviour.

4 posts about porn and one about religion grabbed the most attention at Domain Name Wire this month. I think I need to change the focus of this blog.

1. Apple gets control over porn domain names – Owner of domains agrees to transfer them to Apple (see #3). iPhone4s.com now forwards to apple.com web site.

2. .XXX launches national TV campaign and www.Buy.xxx – ICM Registry’s multi-million dollar ad campaign goes into high gear with TV commercials.

3. – Apple Fights for iPhone Porn Domain Names Including iphone4s.com – see #1.

4. Televangelist Kenneth Copeland loses fight against criticism site – Televangelist who says the more money you give to his church the more you’ll get from God fails to shut down critical web site.

5. Manwin’s Attack on .XXX is Really an Attack on New TLDs – adult entertainment company sues ICM Registry and ICANN.

A well reasoned opinion on registration in bad faith.

A recent UDRP decision for scrubology.com includes an excellent analysis of the registration in bad faith element of UDRP.

Here are the facts:

- Respondent registered scrubology.com in 2005

- Complainant RXGear, LLC filed a trademark for scrubology claiming a first use in commerce date in 2010

This case looks dead on arrival, doesn’t it?

But RXGear’s attorneys, Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C. (an intellectual property law firm), claimed that the respondent had retroactively engaged in bad faith registration. This may sound stupid, but the idea of retroactive bad faith registration has been supported by a small handful of panelists. Most panelists have shunned the idea and it has fallen out of favor.

Notably in this case, the owner of the domain didn’t show any plausible and intentional bad faith after RXGear started using the Srubology term, so the case was different from other cases where “retroactive bad faith” was applied.

Panelist William F. Hamilton nicely sums up how the situation is RXGear’s fault:

…Indeed, the Policy’s protective reach should not be turned into a sword. In this case, either the Complainant became aware, or should have become aware, of the disputed domain name when doing its due diligence in connection with registering SCRUBOLOGY. The Complainant nonetheless chose to proceed with the registration and its business plans. Presumably the Complainant also came across the disputed domain name when registering scrubologyshop.com. Indeed, significantly, the Complainant fails to allege when the Complainant first became aware of the disputed domain name. Having proceeded with its business knowing of the disputed domain name, can the Complainant now fairly complain of its self-created plight? Could the Complainant reasonably believe that the disputed domain name would be used for anything other than the sale and promotion of medically related clothing? The Panel answers these questions in the negative.