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Before
heading into the weekend
I
wanted to bring you up to date on a number of
interesting developments in the domain industry.
First kudos to Andrew Allemann and
George Kirikos who have uncovered some
remarkably embarrassing shenanigans involving
both complainants in UDRP proceedings and
National Arbitration Forum (NAF)
panelists who are charged with rendering
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New
revelations cast doubt on
how well justice is being served in
some UDRP domain proceedings. |
fair
decisions in those UDRP disputes. It
started with an item Andrew posted at Domain
Name Wire yesterday blowing
the whistle on Citizen
Hawk for cutting and pasting
erroneous and irrelevant information
(apparently from an unrelated case) into
a UDRP complaint they filed in an effort
to take LetzTalk.com away from
the rightful owner. Panelist David
Sorkin spotted the bogus material
and shot down the complaint.
Following
up on the item at DNW, Kirikos studied
some other recent cases and discovered
that some UDRP panelists at NAF have
been churning out boilerplate cut/paste
decisions of their own, with the
the inserted material having nothing to
do with the case at hand. George just
posted a very revealing article on this |
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deplorable situation
at Circle
ID. Kirikos rightly called
on ICANN to investigate writing,
"I call upon ICANN to seek an
explanation from NAF, who has a very
interesting
history
(each of those three words links to
different examples) Indeed, a case might
be made that they should be decertified
as a provider." Now that this
stone has been overturned by George and
Andrew expect to hear a lot more in
upcoming weeks about the muck they found
underneath it. |
Speaking
of Domain Name Wire, in association with SnapNames
they currently have an online
domain auction running that features
names submitted by a number of domain bloggers.
The auction will end on Tuesday (April 27) at
3:15pm (U.S. Eastern time), so check out the
catalog now to see if anything catches your eye. Elsewhere,
Jason Cupp and Patrick Ruddell (Chef
Patrick) have just re-launched GoDrops.com,
a site that provides a filtered list
highlighting the the top domains on each's day
drops list. The site has a free service
covering .com and .net domains as as well as a
new $19.97 a month premium service
that covers more extensions and provides more
statistical information on each domain.
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Another
popular site that has just been revamped
is Catchy.com
(formerly Mocus.com). The site, operated
by Domaining.com
owner Francois Carrillo, features
short brand able domain names for sale.
The redesigned site has added ccTLDs to
its inventory list and unveiled a more
generous affiliate
program. |
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The
domain industry is in for a busy week ahead. On Monday
(April 26), the .CO
registry begins its Global
Sunrise period that will run through June
10. This phase allows qualified trademark holders to
claim matching names. Land Rush will be
held June 21-July 13, with general availability
of .CO domains beginning July 20. A
pair of major domain conferences will also be
held next week. The T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conference in Milan, Italy opens
Tuesday (April 27) and runs through
Thursday. The GeoDomain
Expo in New Orleans gets
underway Wednesday (April 28) and will
continue through Friday. GeoDomain Expo
organizers posted some significant additional agenda
details today and told me the schedule is now
virtually complete. I'll be in New Orleans to
speak and cover the show for you. I had
committed to be there before the conflicting
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Milan dates were announced and
will certainly miss being with the many European
domainers gathering in Milan for what should be
a great show as well. We'll try to have some
photos and details from that event sent to us
during the week so we can show you what is going
on on the other side of the pond as well as in
New Orleans. |
