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Cyrus Namazi leaves ICANN

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Head of domains division exits ICANN.

Photo of Cyrus Namazi

Cyrus Namazi

Cyrus Namazi has left his role as Vice President of the Global Domains Division (GDD) at ICANN effective immediately.

In a statement on the ICANN web site, ICANN CEO Göran Marby said that his co-deputy, Theresa Swinehart, will oversee GDD until a replacement is found.

Namazi had been at ICANN for seven years. He started as the Vice President of Domain Name Services & Industry Engagement. In February of 2019, he was named VP of the GDD.

While overseeing GDD, he was instrumental in removing price caps on domain names including .org and .biz.

His LinkedIn profile does not list a new job yet.

Zoom domain registrations skyrocket

by — Uncategorized 3 Comments

Some of the registrations are for bad purposes.

Chart showing a spike in registrations containing the word "zoom"

Zoom is zooming in domain registrations. This chart from Verisign’s DomainScope shows a surge in domain registrations containing the word zoom.

Videoconferencing solution Zoom is having its moment as millions of people work from home and kids take classes from their bedrooms.

My daughter is now getting instruction on Zoom the majority of the school day. My wife and I use the service throughout the day for meetings and conference calls.

Zoom is becoming a verb, much like “google it” became another phrase for “search it”.

With this, the number of domain names registered with the word zoom in them has skyrocketed. The picture above is a 90-day look at registrations in .com and .net that contain the word Zoom, according to Verisign’s DomainScope tool.

There are legitimate reasons to register domains with the word “zoom” in them. The videoconferencing company doesn’t have a lock on the term. Many of the 5 to 15 daily registrations earlier this year were for uses unrelated to the videoconferencing company.

But the spike in recent weeks is directly related to the Zoom bonanza.

Some of these registrations could be legitimate, even if they might run afoul of trademark rules. For example, someone registered OnlineZoomMediations(.)com. Another person registered ZoomwithLila(.)com, which forwards to the person’s Zoom instance. It looks to be an easy way for people to connect with her, much like an easy-to-remember Facebook or YouTube URL.

Other registrations are by nefarious actors trying to hack people. Check Point Software says that 4% of the registrations have suspicious characteristics.

From a domain name perspective, the surge in Zoom’s popularity might also help the .US top level domain. Zoom bought Zoom.com in 2018 but still uses Zoom.us for its website.

End user research helps me decide whether to acquire a domain

by — Expired Domains 12 Comments

Kassey Lee explains the process he went through when evaluating an expired domain for purchase.

A picture of a magnifying glass with the words "end user research"

I was watching Godaddy Auctions today and found the expiring domain YogaYoung.com. Since “yoga” is a popular keyword, I decided to look into this domain.

First, I checked LinkedIn but found no company using the name “Yoga Young”. Google search gave no hope either.

However, dotDB, a site that shows registered domains containing a word/second level domain, reported 12 matches. dotDB has a nice feature I like — the matches have links. By installing the Snap Links extension to my Firefox browser, I can open the links and check their websites all at once.

The result was the discovery of two operating websites: YogaYoungistan.com and YogaYoung.cn.

Since YogaYoungistan.com already matches its brand Yoga Youngistan, there is no motivation for the company to change its domain to YogaYoung.com which is not brand-matching after all.

Nevertheless, YogaYoung.cn looked promising at first because Chinese companies like to upgrade from .cn to .com.

The home page design paints a solid company and the photos show a professional team and active yoga classes. However, even if you don’t read Chinese, you can see the name “Maya Yoga” prominently displayed at several locations. Thus, we can conclude that Maya Yoga is their brand and therefore upgrade from YogaYoung.cn to YogaYoung.com is unlikely because they are not brand-matching.

Based on this research, I decided not to acquire YogaYoung.com because I could not find any potential end users for it.

Loco UDRP ends in reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

Tech company tries to hijack domain name registered in 1999.

Reverse domain name hijacking graphic

A Brazilian technology company has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking in its effort to get the domain name InLoco.com. The Complainant, In Loco Tecnologia da Informação S.A., uses InLoco.com.br for its website.

The phrase “in loco” is a common Latin phrase meaning “in the place” or “in the right or proper spot”. (Loco also means “crazy” in Spanish, and loco is an apt description of this case.)

The owner of the domain name registered it in 1999, well before the Complainant was established in 2014. In Loco Tecnologia attempted to acquire the domain name from the registrant before filing the UDRP complaint.

After filing the complaint, In Loco Tenologia tried to withdraw it. But the domain name owner said he’d only consent to this if it was with prejudice, meaning that it couldn’t be filed again at a later date. He also wanted the panel to rule on reverse domain name hijacking.

The three-person World Intellectual Property Organization panel agreed with the domain name owner:

To allow a complainant to simply withdraw a complaint without prejudice after a response has been filed would allow for the possibility of a complainant refiling a complaint against the same respondent at a later point. Such “eleventh hour withdrawals” of complaints without prejudice invites the filing of potentially abusive complaints for strategic reasons.

It found that the Complainant had no chance of winning the case and attempted reverse domain name hijacking.

Flatten.ca: a great domain and great idea

by — Uncategorized 1 Comment

College students registered Flatten.ca to help flatten the curve in Canada.

Screenshot of Flatten.ca

Canadian college students started Flatten.ca to monitor COVID-19 cases.

We’ve all heard of “flattening the curve” by now. Some Canadian college students have created a website to contribute to the effort, and they chose a great domain for it.

The students, who are home from college due to the COVID-19 crisis, hand-registered Flatten.ca on March 19. They’ve turned it into a site where people can self-report COVID-19 symptoms. The site turns this into a heat map of potential cases and hotspots, which augments official data on verified cases.

I like this story for a couple of reasons. First, it’s great that these college students have found something helpful to do while not at college. Second, I like how they chose this simple (and available) domain to launch their website. The domain name states the objective and is easy to remember.

(Thanks Bill Sweetman for bringing this to my attention.)

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!