Apple Wins 16 Domain Names via UDRP

Apple has won 16 domains from Daniel Bijan, including macbookpro.com. This is by far the most domain names I’ve ever seen awarded to Apple in one hit.

Here is the official list:

blueipod.com
iphonecheap.com
iphonetoys.com
ipodaccessories.info
ipodkits.com
ipodsbaratos.com
macbookpro.biz
macbookpro.com
macbookpro.net
macbookpro.org
macfriend.com
redipods.com
macbook.us
macbookpro.us
macbooks.us
macpro.us

Claim Numbers: FA0911001294886 and FA0911001295941.

Microsoft JV Acquires News Domain Name

MSNBC (a Microsoft / NBC Universal joint venture) has announced the acquisition of BreakingNews.com, complementing its @BreakingNews alert service on Twitter.

Charles Tillinghast, president of the msnbc Digital Network, said in an interview:

“Our goal as a news organization is to provide the most relevant experiences to satisfy distinct needs. Hard and fast breaking news is currently an underserved market. With www.breakingnews.com we can now provide the optimal solution.”

Tillinghast said the acquisition was made in mid-December, but he declined to provide further details about the terms or the sellers.

ICANN Annual Report – Privacy & Proxy Services Under Spotlight

ICANN has released its 2009 Annual Report over the Christmas / New Years period (just when nobody was looking).

Here is one very interesting paragraph on private registrations. “ICANN has obtained preliminary results of its study of domain names, registered among the top five gTLDs, which appear to have been registered using a privacy or proxy service. ICANN published preliminary findings on its website (that 15-25% of these domain name registrations used these services) and will seek validation of the study’s findings with the registrars of record for those domain names.“  Of course, some would call that an invasion of privacy. The results will make an interesting read….

Overall, the 2009 report is a goldmine of breach notices, consumer complaints, terminations and non-renewals – far too many to list here. If need some humorous bedtime reading you can download it directly.

Google Loses Domain Arbitration To Canadian Start-Up

Announced today, the National Arbitration Forum has dismissed Google’s complaint that it was entitled to the domain name, Groovle.com.

Young Canadian entrepreneurs Jacob Fuller and Ryan Fitzgibbon, launched the web site in 2007, to provide users the ability to upload photos and customize their Internet start page.

Jacob Fuller stated “Google never had anything to fear from our web site. The arbitrators’ decision that the two domain names are sufficiently different should put Google at ease and we look forward to a renewed positive relationship with Google.”

auDA Puts Domain In Pending Delete & Goes On Holidays

On the afternoon of Thu 17th, 2009 SAPIA Pty Ltd registered the domain name “stephenconroy.com.au” as a satirical platform on which to air grievances and promote debate about the Australian governments proposed mandatory Internet filtering scheme. By 5pm the next day, the website was forcibly taken offline by auDA.

SAPIA was given merely 3 hours to issue a response which is an unusually short period of time for domain eligibility complaints to be arbitrated. A request for additional time was denied personally by auDA’s CEO shortly before the domain was taken offline.

The domain name stephenconroy.com.au is now in PendingDelete and the auDA office is closed for the holiday season – Merry Christmas.

Meanwhile, Electronic Frontiers Australia has expressed its surprise and concern:

“This incident reflects worrying concerns about the power that private domain
name regulators have to silence critical political speech without going
through legitimate legal channels.”

SAPIA Pty Ltd appears to have re-established the site (out of the range of auDA’s jurisdiction / claws) at stephen-conroy.com (no more .au).

Just in case you don’t know what the fuss is all about regarding Internet censorship in Australia, have a look at this video:

More information is available at: PRWeb, Open Letters & EFA.

Burger King Delayed In Russia After Domain Name Dispute

Burger King has delayed the launch of its Russian expansion until 2010 after failing to register the domain name burgerking.ru.

A Scandinavian company registered the domain name and Burger King Corporation (who registered its trademark in Russia back in 1994) doesn’t want to pay for it.

It appears that this dispute is headed for the Russian courts.

Source: Kommersant (Written in Russian).

Pamela Anderson In Crazy Domain Name Video!

This company has obviously been influenced by the Bob Parsons school of highly effective commercials. Warning to our “straight” female readers, you may find this objectionable.

Since watching this commercial, I’ve decided to quit domaining and apply for a job with this organisation.

Twitter DNS Records Compromised By Iranian Cyber Army

It appears that Twitters DNS Records have been compromised and people going to Twitter.com are being redirected to another website.

There is an obvious lesson to be learned about keeping your credentials safe! This isn’t the first Twitter security incident – a few months ago their web admin password was “password” !

If I was a betting man, I’d say that’s probably gonna be easy for the kids to guess.

In a blog post a few minutes ago, Twitter stated:

“Twitter’s DNS records were temporarily compromised tonight but have now been fixed. As some noticed, Twitter.com was redirected for a while but API and platform applications were working. We will update with more information and details once we’ve investigated more fully.”

The question is, how many ID’s and Passwords does the Iranian Cyber Army now have? After all, they could have easily started capturing them if they redirected the DNS records. I’m sure more details will come to light about exactly what happened. Watch this space!

VeriSign Increases Domain Name Fees In 2010

The thieves at Verisign announced today that effective July 1, 2010 there will be an increase in domain name fees for .com and .net.

The registry fee for .com domain names will increase from $6.86 to $7.34 and the registry fee for .net domain names will increase, from $4.23 to $4.65.

In a release to the market today, the organisation appeared to justify the increase saying:

“Over the last decade, the volume of Internet traffic and domain name system (DNS) queries on VeriSign’s global infrastructure has increased from an average of approximately 2 billion queries per day in the year 2000 to more than 50 billion queries per day today..”

To save you some maths, the industry is looking at a .com increase of 48 cents and .net increase of 42 cents. Happy New Year!

ICANN Report Says Domain Tasting Down 99.7%

ICANN has released the second update to the GNSO Council on the implementation of its recommendations for the Add Grace Period (AGP) Limits Policy.

Since April 2009 (when ICANN implemented policy to interfere with a free market), “the number of AGP deletes across all TLDs has held steady at around 55-65k names per month approximately 0.3% of what it once was”.