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MIT’s Scratch Foundation gets Scratch.org in settlement

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

Owner of Scratch.org domain name transfers it to non-profit as part of settlement.

Scratch Foundation's website screenshot

Scratch.org now forwards to scratch.mit.edu.

Scratch Foundation has settled a cybersquatting lawsuit it brought against the domain name Scratch.org with the domain’s registrant, Ravi Lahoti.

Although full terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed, part of the agreement involved transferring the domain to Scratch Foundation. Scratch.org now forwards to the foundation’s website at scratch.mit.edu.

Previously, Lahoti was in discussions to settle the case by transferring the domain name for $20,000. That settlement didn’t go through.

After the previous settlement failed, the judge overseeing the case ordered Lahoti to provide extensive information about his domain name activities including a list of all domains he ever owned, how much money he made from each domains, and any allegations of trademark infringement made against him. Oh, and this information would be public!

That apparently sent Lahoti back to the negotiating table.

Lahoti registered the domain name well before Scratch Foundation existed, so his ownership of the domain name does not run afoul of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. However, the judge certainly didn’t approve of some of Lahoti’s alleged prior behavior, prompting his approval of the request for data and to make it public.

The settlement notice says that both parties will pay their own legal fees in the matter.

Direct visits driving demand for domains in China

by — Uncategorized 5 Comments

Kassey Lee reviews data about how people in China visit websites.

Image of man typing on his laptop with the words "Direct Navigation"

I often hear that domains are no longer relevant because consumers simply go to their search engines for anything they want to find. This, if true, must be detrimental to domain investment. Unfortunately, I could not find much data to support or reject this idea – except in China.

Baidu collects visitor data of more than 1.5 million websites every month since 2012. Based on this data, I have created the following table to give you a big picture of how Chinese consumers access websites.

Graphic depicting traffic to websites recorded by Baidu

According to Baidu, website visitors may arrive using one of the following methods.

Direct visit: Visitors explicitly specify a domain in the browser.
Referral: Visitors arrive via a link from another website.
Search engine: Visitors arrive via a search engine.
Directory: Visitors arrive via a directory of websites.
Social media: Visitors arrive via social media such as WeChat.

As you can see, direct visit accounts for the largest share of web traffic in China. It has also been increasing — from 39% in 2012 to 45% last year. Search engine is doing well too, rising from 27% to 30%. Referral, on the other hand, is trending down. Finally, directory and social media can be ignored because they each account for less than 1% of web traffic.

Focusing on direct visit, it shows that Chinese consumers remember and specify domains in a browser to visit websites. This implies that domains that are easy to remember are important. What are the characteristics of such domains? Short, meaningful, memorable – and on .com extension, which is king in corporate China.

Examples can be found in the 10 listed companies covered by the latest “2019 Q2 Performance of Listed Internet Companies in China” report (2019年二季度我国互联网上市企业运行情况): Alibaba (Alibaba.com), Tencent Holding (Tencent.com), Meituan (Meituan.com), Jing Dong (JD.com), Baidu (Baidu.com), Netease (Netease.com), Tencent Music (TencentMusic.com), Pinduoduo (Pinduoduo.com), 360 Total Security (360.com), and Ctrip.com International (Ctrip.com). They all own their brand-matching .com domains.

Big brands understand this consumer behavior and so the importance of domains. Therefore, they are willing to invest a lot in domains. For example, Jing Dong shelled out $5 million for JD.com and 360 Total Security reportedly paid $17 million for 360.com. A few months ago, Hong Kong-based blockchain startup Block.One stunned the domain market with a $30 million purchase of Voice.com. Corporate China is ready for expensive domains.

In summary, direct visit by Chinese consumers will continue to drive demand for domains, and so memorable brand-matching .com domains will do very well in China.

Oops. If you don’t renew your domain name, this could happen

by — Policy & Law 5 Comments

A government watchdog let its domain name expire. Someone advocating for the other side registered it.

Screenshot of the website citizensforabetterkenner.com

The new message at citizensforabetterkenner.com is in stark contrast to the old one.

An advocacy group in the city of Kenner, Louisiana let its domain name expire. Now someone in opposition to the group is using the domain.

Citizens for a Better Kenner, Inc., is a non-profit watchdog of the local government. It registered the domain name CitizensforaBetterKenner.com in 2011 to promote its cause.

Then, apparently earlier this year, it let the domain name expire. Someone with a very different message registered the domain. The website now has the message:

Thank you to Mayor Zahn, the Kenner City Council, and Chief Glaser for doing an excellent job keeping our city moving in the right direction in 2019.

The overwhelming volume of Kenner residents appreciates what you do!

In a lawsuit (pdf) filed to try to recover the domain (as well as the matching .net and .org) and get damages, Citizens for a Better Kenner states that “The opinions and content as currently displayed on the website are in stark contrast to the actual opinions of the actual CFBK.”

The non-profit alleges that the new owner of the domain is cybersquatting and has “a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill created over eight (8) years by CFBK.”

The group might have trouble proving this. It does not appear that the current owner has a profit motive. It simply appears to be exercising its own free speech with the “opinions and content,” which may be a plausible defense in the case.

Granted, it may not be clear to people when they visit the website.

Boeing registers domain names about 737 Max

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

Aerospace company registers domains to provide information about the return of the 737 Max.

Picture of the 737 Max airplane from Boeing

The 737 Max has been grounded since March. Picture courtesy Boeing.

Embattled aerospace company Boeing (NYSE: BA) has registered a handful of domain names about its troubled 737 Max airplane. Boeing has been providing regular updates about its progress getting the 737 Max back into the skies at www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-update.page. One of the following domain names would certainly make it easier for people to find this information.

This week, the company registered:

  • 737maxupdate.com, .net .org
  • 737maxupdates.com, .net, .org
  • 737update.com, .net, .org
  • 737updates.com, .net, .org

As of this morning, the domain names point to Boeing’s nameservers but none of the domain names resolve to websites.

The 737 Max has been grounded since March after the second fatal crash involving the plane.

Clemson Tigers get off-field win in domain name dispute

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Tigers score domain name in cybersquatting challenge.

Logo for the Clemson Tigers has a pawprint on orange backgroundThe Clemson Tigers are having another great year on the football field, and now they have an off-field victory as well. This win took place at World Intellectual Property Organization.

Clemson University has won a cybersquatting dispute under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) for the domain name ClemsonUniversity(.)org. With the victory, Clemson will get the domain name in about 10 days.

Interestingly, Clemson doesn’t own ClemsonUniversity(.)com but hasn’t filed a cybersquatting complaint against that domain.

Both domains should concern the university. When I visited ClemsonUniversity(.)org today, Norton blocked my visit saying that it had the RIG Exploit Kit. The domain currently points to the Above.com nameservers, which means it’s pointing somewhere else from there and is likely serving zero-click ads that forward to various destinations.

ClemsonUniversity(.)com also resolves to zero-click, which means visitors are sometimes exposed to scammy websites. When I visited this morning, it tried to install a Google Chrome extension.