Questions by the court arose when attorneys representing the Commonwealth of Kentucky filed a late response to the Internet Casino case. The Motion for Enlargement which would allow the late filing failed to give a reasonable excuse, implying the reason was the state thought it was due the day after. In addition, the large number of parties involved may have caused the delay. According to the motion, they had “calculated a due date for the filing of a Reply Brief in this action on Thursday, June 18th.”

The next step involves the court reviewing the briefs to decide whether the case merits further judicial review. If the verdict stands, however, the order will be dismissed.

Via: OnlineCasinoAdvisory

The Bright Orange Software Inc. is accused of using an “identical” or “confusingly similar” name, because visitors are being redirected to the Burger King site. The competitor is accused of false advertising.

Sonic insists Bright Orange is guilty of “cyber-squatting” and according to vice president Nancy Robertson they are “prepared for the pending litigation to proceed unless the issue is resolved outside of the courtroom.”

Source: Newsok

A gift delivery business called “Champagne Messenger” has been forced to change their name after being pursued by our frog eating friends. The CIVC claims their intent is to protect the history and reputation of sparkling wines produced in the Champagne region of France.

After a seven day warning was issued to forfeit the name, or face federal court proceedings, the small business in the rural town of Coffs Harbor in Australia conceded.

Small business owners Stuart and Kyla Holley told the Coffs Coast Advocate:

“But we’re just a small business that is less than a year old, we can’t possibly afford to fight this in court… even though we feel we are being bullied.”

“It’s madness really. Will it get to the stage where you can’t buy champagne ham or enjoy a champagne breakfast any more, just because the French ‘own’ that word?”

Source: Coffs Coast Advocate

CEO of Morris Mohawk Gaming Group, Alwyn Morris, stated “It felt akin to taking ownership of a piece of Bodog’s history.” The return of the domain is also thought to benefit all global licensees, as they will be redirected to the right licensee for their jurisdiction when going to Bodog.com. With these battles now behind them, Bodog.com will again be serving North American players.

Source: CalidaGaming and PokerListings.

Here is a small extract that I found interesting:

“CFIT alleged that in order to get ICANN to agree to the terms VeriSign desired, VeriSign paid lobbyists to support its position, “stacked” ICANN’s public meetings with VeriSign supporters, hired purportedly independent organizations and individuals to advocate VeriSign’s position, paid bloggers to attack ICANN’s reputation, planted news stories critical of ICANN in mainstream media, threatened ICANN with litigation, arbitration, and government investigation, and indeed eventually brought suit against ICANN in federal and state court.”

“CFIT alleged that ICANN and VeriSign conspired to set artificially high prices for VeriSign’s services and to ensure that VeriSign would receive successor contracts with ICANN without having to go through a competitive bidding process.”

Conclusion

“We REVERSE the district court’s grant of VeriSign’s motion to dismiss CFIT’s complaint for failure to state a claim, and REMAND to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

Here is the original court document for your viewing pleasure.

National American University is suing NAU (Naughty American University) for claims of trademark violations. The civil complaint was apparently filed in a Rapid City federal court. Financial damages are being sought in addition to the prevention of the use of the school’s trademark.

The National American University is said to have been offering educational courses since 1997 and has since spent millions of dollars promoting its name. When the porno site registered its similar name on September 12, 2003, an embarrassing mix up ensued.

Via: Rapid City Journal and Twincities.

The lawsuit was apparently filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, the compliant suggests the Web hosting company was cyber squatting. The specifics of the suit are not clear, as the site is now closed down.

Via: ContactMusic and eOnline.

Cuzner told CBC News “Guys watch for these opportunities and they see the opportunity and then they come back and sell you back the domain site.”

Unfortunately for Rodger, he still hasn’t changed his Facebook page – its still showing “Website: http://www.rodgercuzner.ca” under Detailed Info. Good on you Rodger!

About Rodger

Born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, he is a current member of the Liberal Party of Canada in the Canadian House of Commons, representing the riding of Cape Breton—Canso. Cuzner is a former organizer of events. He was parliamentary secretary to former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien from January 13, 2003 to December 11, 2003.

Over the past week I’ve received far too many notices from parking companies telling me to change my password. At first I thought I had been transported back to 1990 or a scene out of the Matrix whereby someone types in a password and gets access to “the mainframe”. Here is why changing your password isn’t enough.

Identity Theft

Your parking accounts provide valuable information such as your name, address, telephone number, credit cards etc.. While there are legitimate reasons for companies asking you for this information (such as to verify your identity when you sign up), if the information is stolen then it can be combined with other information so that:

• Loans can be taken out in your name.
• Credit cards can be obtained in your name.
• Other identity documents can be issued.
• Someone else can become you!

Domain Theft

Just when you thought that getting your identity stolen was bad enough, your portfolio is being transferred. I’ve already written about how you can secure your domain names before, so I won’t go into it here – just read the article.

Money Laundering

Change your passwords on your paypal account and bank account. Paypal have a Security Key that costs you $5. It provides extra security on top of your password. It’s not fool proof, but will help deter the dumb crooks. I suggest you use it. The last thing you need is for your paypal account or bank account to be emptied and/or used to transfer large sums of money on behalf of criminals.

Next Steps

1. Use Password Safe and randomly generate a passwords for all your accounts.

2. Change your EMAIL (pop3/IMAP) passwords. These are often used to reset passwords. eg: people click on “Reset my password” or “I’ve forgotten my password” and an email is sent to you. Of course, the crooks know your ISP (from your domain name in your email address)and can probably login your your email via webmail and get that password reset email before you. Didn’t think of that, now did you?

3. Change your server, blog, paypal and any other passwords.

I hope this has given you a few things to think about. Your domains are valuable assets. It’s time to treat them that way.

Name.com just had a promotion where $.50 from every .ORG registered until 12/31/08 was donated to Kiva.org.  On top of that, they were selling .orgs for a crazy $6.49 – which means you should buy them anyway. In case you didn’t know, Kiva lends money to entrepreneurs in the developing world, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty. It’s the “teach the man to fish” approach using micro-transactions.

Earlier today I came across another headline – Verizon Wins $33 Million in Suit Over Domain Names. Apparently, “the default judgment of $50,000 for each of 663 addresses registered by the Internet company, OnlineNic, was issued last Friday by United States District Judge Jeremy D. Fogel in San Jose, Calif. Judge Fogel froze OnlineNic’s assets and ordered the transfer to Verizon of all identical or confusingly similar addresses. Verizon sought as much as $66.3 million in damages over names that included myverizonwireless.com, iphoneverizonplans.com and verizon-cellular.com.”

So, it got me thinking. What about donating a large chunk of that to charity? Of course I don’t know how much of the $33M will go in legal expenses. The point is (assuming they get the money) that Verizon have scored $33M. What about doing something good with a % of that?