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Google’s .Dev domains are now available…for a hefty price

by — Services 0 Comments

Wealthy developers can get a .Dev domain today. Others should wait until next week.

Today is the first day that non-trademark holders can register domain names ending in .Dev.

Google is releasing the domain name in Early Access today. The Dutch-auction style phase started at 4:00PM UTC.

On the first day, expect to pay over $10,000 for the right to register a .dev domain. This drops to roughly $3,000 tomorrow and under $200 on Monday.

General availability begins February 28. Expect to pay around $10-$15 retail for .dev domains that Google has not marked as premium.

Google’s .app domain took off like a rocket ship last year and there are now more than 350,000 .app domains registered.

.Dev looks like it won’t be quite the same juggernaut. Sunrise trademark registrations appear to be lower than .app.

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Tucows releases “Tiered Access” Whois request data

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

2,100 requests for Whois data so far.

Graph of Tiered Access whois requests at Tucows

Most Whois data requests are related to trademark infringement.

Domain name registrar Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX) released data today about requests for Whois information under its tiered access program.

The company started the program following the implementation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Policy (GDPR) last year. At that time, Tucows masked Whois records for all domain names on its platform.

People could still ask for Whois data through an online platform.

The company, which has over 20 million domains under management, said it has received 2,100 data access requests since starting the tiered access program in May. 65% of the requests came from a single requestor.

While Tucows didn’t name this company in its blog post, it’s certainly AppDetex on behalf of Facebook, which flooded Tucows with requests timed around ICANN meetings.

Overall, Tucows provided data on 25% of requests including for 21% of AppDetex’s requests.

These numbers don’t tell the whole story. Only about 5% of requests were denied; the other 70% of requests weren’t fulfilled because the requestor didn’t respond to Tucows’ request for more information. So the majority of requestors that provided all the information Tucows wanted got data.

90% of requests came from commercial litigation. This includes the AppDetex requests.

Tucows points out that few requests came from security researchers. (That said, I believe most security researchers use Whois data in bulk to connect the dots, so requesting individual records is not feasible.)

The data don’t include ICANN Compliance requests. Tucows has not given personal registration data in response to any of ICANN’s requests but has been able to help ICANN investigations without disclosing this data, it said.

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WIPO panel says Celgene tried to mislead it in cybersquatting claim

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Panel says Celgene left important communications out of filing.

Picture of CelGene.com URL and website.

CellGene.com is one letter off from CelGene.com, but that doesn’t make it cybersquatting.

A three-person World Intellectual Property Organization panel has found Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name CellGene.com.

Through an intermediary, Celgene tried to buy the domain name in 2018, 15 years after the domain was registered. The domain owner responded with an asking price of $7,500.

The panel determined that Celgene did not prove that the domain owner lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain name, nor was it registered in bad faith.

It found reverse domain name hijacking because it believes that Celgine tried to mislead it:

…In the Panel’s view, however, there is a more significant issue in the present case, which is that the Complainant has sought to mislead the Panel in accordance with item (iv) in the fourth paragraph of 4.16.

The Complainant claims that it offered the Respondent USD 2,000 for the disputed domain name when it became aware that the Respondent was listing it for sale in September 2018, that the Respondent counteroffered USD 7,500, which was “much more than what the domain should be sold for” and that it was highly likely that the Respondent significantly increased the price when it discovered that the Complainant was interested in the disputed domain name. As mentioned above, the Complainant invoked this counteroffer by the Respondent as evidence that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name in bad faith for the purpose of sale to the Complainant under paragraph 4(b)(i) of the Policy.

In those circumstances, it was incumbent on the Complainant to produce all relevant communications relating to the counteroffer; but it did not do so. The emails included in the factual summary in section 4 above only came to the attention of the Panel at the behest of the Respondent.

Even these emails do not appear to tell the full story, as they include no reference to the initial USD 2,000 offer mentioned by the Complainant. The Panel therefore deduces that this initial offer was made through the Respondent’s website and that, perhaps having received no or an unsatisfactory response, the decision was taken to follow up with the enquiry email of September 11, 2011. Crucially, this email was sent in the name of CSC. It made no mention of the Complainant and indeed gave no indication that CSC was acting for a client rather than on its own behalf (“We are interested in purchasing…”). Thereafter, the Respondent’s broker responded with the counteroffer of USD 7,500.

Accordingly, the communications appear to contradict the Complainant’s version of events and to confirm the Respondent’s assertion that the Complainant never revealed itself in the course of the purchase enquiries. In these circumstances, it is difficult to see how the Complainant can persuasively claim not only that the counteroffer indicated that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name for the purpose of sale to the Complainant but that the Respondent specifically increased its asking price to USD 7,500 when it allegedly discovered that the Complainant was interested in the disputed domain name.

Celgene is a biopharma company that is being acquired by Bristol-Meyers Squibb.

Cozen O’Connor represented Celgene. ESQwire.com represented the domain name owner.

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Verisign’s Annual Report and .com price increases

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Verisign’s 10-K gives clues to how it is approaching a .com price increase.

.Com registry Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) published its 2018 annual report on Friday. I reviewed the document to look for information about Verisign’s hopes of raising the price of .com domain names.

Last year the U.S. Department of Commerce and Verisign agreed to Amendment 35 of their Cooperative Agreement. This amendment lifted a ban on price increases in .com that had been in place since the 2012 contract renewal with ICANN. It allows ICANN and Verisign to enter into a contract that would allow Verisign to increase .com prices 7% in each of the last four of each six years of the contract.

Verisign still needs ICANN’s approval to make this happen. So far it seems that Verisign is making two arguments to push this along.

First, that ICANN has historically deferred to the U.S. Department of Commerce on .com pricing.

Second, that its 2016 contract renewal anticipates this possible pricing change and that ICANN should approve it. Here’s language from Verisign’s 10-K:

Following the extension of the .com Registry Agreement on October 20, 2016, the .com Registry Agreement provides that we will continue to be the sole registry operator for domain names in the .com gTLD through November 30, 2024. As part of the extension of the .com Registry Agreement, the Company and ICANN agreed to cooperate and negotiate in good faith to amend the terms of the .com Registry Agreement: (i) by October 20, 2018, to preserve and enhance the security and stability of the internet or the .com TLD, and (ii) as may be necessary for consistency with changes to, or the termination or expiration of, the Cooperative Agreement. ICANN and Verisign are engaged in discussions related to these obligations, including modifying the .com Registry Agreement based on changes to the Cooperative Agreement arising from Amendment 35.

The use of the term obligations here suggests that Verisign will argue to ICANN that it is obliged to allow it to raise rates as allowed under Amendment 35. But take a look at the language in Amendment 35: Click here to continue reading…

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American University to host domain name IP discussion

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Event brings together ICANN, IP interests and EFF.

Logo for American University and other entities

American University will hold an event on Monday, February 25 to talk about Intellectual Property protection and new top level domain names.

Participants include representatives of ICANN, brand protection domain name registrars, universities and Electronic Frontier Foundation.

There will be two panels. The first will be about IP protection in new top level domains. The second is titled “Walled Gardens: Should gTLDs Become Private Platforms?”

Attendance is free but guests must register online. (Select event: 2019-02-25 – ICANN and New Top-Level Domains).

The event is sponsored by American University Washington College of Law, American University School of Communications, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, and Internet Governance Lab.

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