Domain Name Blogger

GoDaddy has changed an employee policy for bidding against customers on it’s TDNam.com website and domain auction/backordering service.

According to an article on the Domain Informer, “GoDaddy VP of TDNAM Adam Dicker (also owner of the popular DNForum.com) was caught bidding against customers at the company’s auctions and wining some of the domains he bid for.”

I have used TDNam before to secure domain names and know exactly what others are thinking about the feeling of a bidder hiding behind the curtain.

Last Monday, GoDaddy announced the change of its policy.

“To ensure customer confidence and to avoid any possible future questions of impropriety all GoDaddy employees are now and in the future prohibited from participating in TDNAM auctions, purchasing, sales and back orders,” said Go Daddy general counsel and corporate secretary Christine Jones.

ICANN Domain Names Stolen and Redirected

The non-profit agency known as The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, had its domain names transferring to someone elses domain account by error.

The hijacked domain names were ICANN.com and IANA.com which are normally redirected automatically to the organization’s main sites at ICANN.org and IANA.org. Although ICANN’s domain names were restored within 20 minutes, some directories which retain cached information (for up to a day or two) may have been redirecting traffic elsewhere for longer.

Although the hackers did not get away with much or make any permanent changes, it does show how easy it is for scammers to gain access to even the most secure of internet companies. ICANN claims to have since implemented security measures to prevent this from occurring in the future.

ICANN released an offical statement about the incident:
http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-03jul08-en.htm

Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. Copyright legislation is part of the wider body of law known as intellectual property. Intellectual property has a right to protect the interests of creators by giving them property rights over their creations.

In 1967, The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) gives the following list of subject matter protected by intellectual property rights such as:

• Literary, artistic and scientific works
• Industrial Designs
• Scientific Discoveries
• Inventions in all fields of human endeavor
• Protection against unfair competition
• Performances of performing artists, phonograms and broadcasts
• Trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations
• “All other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.”

Intellectual property has two branches:

Industrial property is form into range. This includes patents to protect inventions, and industrial designs, which are aesthetic determining the appearance of industrial products. Industrial property also covers trademarks, service marks, and layout – designs of integrated circuits, commercial names and designations, as well as geographical indications, and protection against unfair competition.

Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works, artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, and architectural designs. Rights related to copyright include those of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and those of broadcasters in their radio and television programs.

Domain names are simply the addresses of the Internet. E-mail is sent and web pages are found through the use of domain names.

When a company finds that the domain name corresponding to their corporate name or product trademark is owned by someone else, the company can either choose a different name or fight to get the domain name from its current owners. When a dispute over a domain name occurs, the parties can turn to the courts. While courts and judges have the authority to award control and ownership over domain names (just as they have authority to award control and ownership over any other property), the judicial process is notoriously slow. Many parties have avoided the courts and turned to the domain name dispute policies of the domain name registrars.

Companies that do bring a court action must present legal arguments on why a domain name registered to someone else should be cancelled or transferred to an organization who wasn’t fast enough to register the name first. Historically, these arguments were based on trademark law or dilution law. It was sometimes difficult to present a strong case under the traditional principals of trademark law, especially when the party seeking to obtain a domain name either could not prove a likelihood of confusion (which is required under trademark law) or was a famous individual who never technically established trademark rights in their name.

On November 1999 the Congress passed the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. The act made it easier for individuals and companies to take over domain names that are confusingly similar to their names or valid trademarks. They must establish that the domain name holder acted in bad faith.

The experience necessary to successfully challenge domain ownership and defend against domain claims in arbitration proceedings under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) established by ICANN in 1999.