Top 20 web sites won’t be “sexsquatted”.

The top 20 most visited web sites (according to Quantcast) are now “safe” from cybersquatting/sexsquatting in the new .xxx domain name.

Earlier this week I ran an analysis and found that two of the top 20 — HuffingtonPost.xxx and WordPress.xxx — had been registered by people other than those companies. Later that same day I ran the Huffington Post story the domain name HuffingtonPost.xxx was transferred to corporate parent AOL.

WordPress.xxx still shows in whois as being owned by someone other than WordPress creator Automattic, Inc. However, I contacted the listed owner and he said that he “handed it over” to WordPress last night.

Late singer’s estate files complaint over domain name JamesBrown.com.

The estate of the late “Godfather of Soul” James Brown has filed an arbitration case with National Arbitration Forum over the domain name JamesBrown.com.

The domain name is registered to Lac Management, Inc., which manages “RJ & The James Brown Band”, the group that performed with Brown until his death in 2006.

When contacted for comment about the case, Lac Management said it was contacted by the estate of James Brown and Lac offered to sell the domain name to the estate. The estate decided instead to file the arbitration request under the uniform domain name dispute resolution policy (UDRP).

Group’s IP attorney miffed that it couldn’t get bbb.xxx under ICM Registry sunrise process.

In planned testimony for today’s hearing about new TLDs in the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology on new TLDs, Council of Better Business Bureaus IP attorney Anjali Hansen said her group should have had first dibs on the domain name BBB:

Even more astounding was the fact that ICM Registry refused to accept CBBB’s registration of its most famous trademark “BBB” because ICM was allowed to reserve bbb.xxx as a premium name that it can later auction off to the highest bidder. We could not even defensively purchase our own trademark.

Hmm. I’m sure the American Automobile Association would love first dibs on aaa.xxx as well. But let’s face it: these are generic domain names. If you make your tradename a three letter acronym like this, you can’t expect it to be easy to protect your brand.

Another interesting claim from Hansen:

It is notable to consider the experience the CBBB had in the most recently opened top level domain, the .xxx TLD operated by ICM Registry for the adult entertainment industry. Any trademark holder that wanted to ensure that its trademark was not sold in that registry had to block it during the “sunrise” period. Otherwise, ICM could sell the trademark in domain names. In all, ICM and the registrars selling to .xxx have made a reported $20 million from such registrations to block over 90,000 trademarks that were filed during the sunrise period of that TLD. This has creating a unjustified financial windfall for an adult entertainment registry because trademark holders do not want to have their trademarks sold and abused in that TLD.

That $20 million includes domains registered to be used as adult sites, not just to block domains. The 90,000 trademarks being blocked number is wrong.

Chairman of committee calls out iPad.com as an example of someone buying a domain just to sell it to a big brand.

Want to know how to lose credibility in a hurry?

Take a look at the statement of Greg Walden Chairman, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Hearing, for today’s hearing about new top level domains. The representative from Oregon uses Apple as his example for the cost companies incur protecting their brands on the web. Here’s the choice quote:

To illustrate concerns of critics [of the new TLD program], consider the number of domains a company may be faced with registering. Apple, for example, has apple.com, iphone.com, icloud.com, and ichat.com. Ipad.com, however, displays nothing more than a splash page that says a site is coming soon – likely meaning someone bought the domain name in anticipation of selling it to Apple.

You know what they say about making assumptions?

The problem is that iPad.com was registered in 2001. The first iPad didn’t come out until 2010. The current owner of iPad.com has owned it since at least 2008.

A similar thing happened with iPhone.com, a perfectly legitimate phone site that Apple later bought.

Would the owner of iPad.com love to sell it to Apple? Probably. But one of Walden’s staffers didn’t do his homework.

Study is about brand loyalty to certain web sites, not the quality of a domain name.

A study by Microsoft over “domain bias” in searches is making the rounds today. Unfortunately I think domainers are misinterpreting what it says. I’m even going to disagree with Michael Berkens on the importance of this one.

The study is titled “Domain Bias in Web Search” and it shows that people are more likely to click on listings associated with certain domain names.

Score one for domainers, right?

Not really.

The authors use the term “domain” to mean web site. The study doesn’t show anything about how a domain like Baseball.com is better than MyCoolBaseball.com.

Instead it just shows that people trust certain web sites, such as Wikipedia or Amazon, and they’re more likely to click on links to those sites.

If I’m looking for information about a vacuum cleaner, I’m more likely to click the trusted link to Amazon.com than somerandomvacuumsite.com.

What is surprising is that users click on results from reputable domains even when more relevant search results are available. Our experiments are geared towards proving that domains can so drastically influence perceived relevance that users will favor some domains, regardless of content. Viewing content on the Internet as products, domains have emerged as brands. And users have developed such fierce brand loyalty that their clicks are tainted by domains.

This study is about brand loyalty to certain web sites (and hence their domains), not to the “quality” of the domain name.

Now, this doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the power of a good domain in search. If I’m searching for a vacuum, my first choice might be Amazon.com. But then I’m much more likely to click on Vacuum.com than SandysVacuumEmporium-Online.com as a second choice.

My point is that this study doesn’t say what we want it to say. Much like a “direct navigation” study from many years ago that showed high conversions on direct navigation (thanks to repeat traffic, not direct search) that domainers attributed to type-in search, this study won’t really help us out.