With significant costs to get a gTLD processed with no guarantee of acceptance, sponsored TLDs are sporting propositions in their own right.A trademark application for "dotsport" has been made by Patrick Vande Walle to the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, and the proposal for submission to ICANN is in the works.The trademark owner has invited interested parties to meet with him at ICANN to discuss partnership opportunities.
The .ASIA registry will be entering the Go-Live, first-come, first-served registration process on March 26, 2008. There are expected to be up to one million registrations for this domain name within the first year of operations.
The Land Rush Period begins on February 20, followed by the Go-Live, DotAsia's first-come, first-served registration process on March 26, 2008. To date, the registry has already received over 30,000 application requests during their Sunrise phases and DotAsia expects up to one million registrations within the first year of operations.
The Land Rush phase requires VeriSign customers to have a registration order pending in their Digital Brand Manager (DBM) Portal by March 7. Orders placed or approved after March 7 will be processed during the DotAsia Go-Live on March 26. No additional supporting materials will be required for the Land Rush or Go-Live. Domain names receiving more than one application during the Land Rush period will be auctioned between the applicants.
As a reminder, the deadline to submit requests for Sunrise applications to VeriSign for .ASIA for Sunrise Phase 2B (General Registered Marks), Sunrise Phase 2C (Extended Protection) and Sunrise Phase 3 (Registered Entity Names) is January 23, 2008. This provides brand owners with the last chance to protect their brand names
in .Asia before the Landrush begins on February 20, 2008. DotAsia has appointed the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) as the global official dispute resolution provider to handle disputes and challenges arising out of the launch of the .ASIA domain.
The DotAsia registry has extended the deadline for Sunrise Phase 2B (General Registered Marks), Sunrise Phase 2C (Extended Protection) and Sunrise Phase 3 (Registered Entity Names) through January 31, 2008. VeriSign will accept Sunrise applications through January 23, 2008, to ensure that all requests are submitted before the registry deadline.
DotMobi will release 100 domain names in a premium auction hosted by Sedo that begins November 28, and lasts until December 5. The auction will feature sports-related domains including clubs.mobi, games.mobi, soccer.mobi, and sports.mobi, as well as leisure names such as florists.mobi, photos.mobi, movies.mobi, and videos.mobi. Several beverage-related premium names will also be auctioned, including beer.mobi, tequila.mobi, vodka.mobi and wine.mobi. The premium domain name auction is dotMobi's third and last of 2007.
The DotAsia registry received more than 15,000 applications during the first Sunrise period for .ASIA domain names. The initial Sunrise registration period was reserved for trademarks applied for before March 16, 2004. The applications came from a wide variety of widely-known companies and organizations. More than 600 domains received more than one application, creating competition for certain .ASIA names. The majority of the applications came from US companies.
Sunrise Phase 2B (General Registered Marks), Sunrise Phase 2C (Extended Protection) and Sunrise Phase 3 (Registered Entity Names) for .ASIA began November 13 and will be open through January 15, 2008. VeriSign will accept Sunrise applications through January 11, 2008, to ensure that all requests are submitted before the registry deadline.
Continue reading ".ASIA Sunrise Phases 2B, 2C and 3 Now Open" »
The Sunrise Phase 2A "Early Bird" Period for trademark holders will close October 30. To ensure that your order is submitted to the registry within this time frame, please place your .ASIA Sunrise Requests through the VeriSign Digital Brand Manager by October 24. To qualify for this phase, trademarks must be valid and registered at the time of the domain name application and the trademark application must have been submitted before March 16, 2004.
EURid, the registry for .EU, has announced it will switch to dynamic DNS updates on October 9. On that date, .EU DNS servers will begin updating instantaneously in response to changes as they occur. This will affect certain services (e.g. Web site and email) since domain names will become active as soon as they are registered. The registry also says that while it is currently possible to correct any mistakes that have unintentionally been made before the next scheduled update takes place, any mistakes made after dynamic updates have been implemented will be effective immediately. Conversely, any unintentional mistakes can be corrected immediately as well.
dotMobi just celebrated their one year anniversary and appears to be gaining momentum with over 700,000 registrations and several well-known brands launching their direct-to-consumer mobile distribution channel via the utility of a the .MOBI domain, notably Bank of America (bofa.mobi), Zagat (zagat.mobi), Time Magazine (time.mobi) and the American Automobile Association (aaa.mobi). Demand has also been increasing for their 5,500 name Premium Name inventory that was held back from traditional first-come, first-served public allocation methods. dotMobi is beginning to auction off a portion of these names, including domains such as credit.mobi, loan.mobi, ask.mobi and atm.mobi.
Continue reading "dotMobi to Launch Special Premium Name Auction Series" »
The Register reports that EURid is attempting to strip a suspected cybersquatter of 10,000 .EU domains registered in her name. Although EURid can block alleged cybersquatters themselves, the registry is choosing to take legal action through the Belgian court system. Usually, EURid itself cannot bring litigation against a cybersquatter. Instead, the person who holds the rights to a domain name can bring litigation. In this case, however, EURid believes the cybersquatter, Zheng Quingyin, is not actually a resident of the European Union. Therefore she cannot legally own a .EU domain. Quingyin is filing a countersuit against EURid through the Court of First Instance in Brussels.
The DotAsia Organization announced it is partnering with Pool.com to provide its online auction platform for Sunrise and Landrush; joining Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu as principal worldwide verification agent; and teaming with Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) for Middle Eastern and North African applicants.
The .ASIA registry has launched a new program designed to award .ASIA domain names to applicants based upon relevant content and business plans. Applicants for the Pioneer Domains Program will also be required to submit a deposit in most cases, which will be refunded if the registry does not award them the domain name in question.
There are three categories: "Community Pioneer," which is open to individuals, businesses and other organizations that wish to apply for generic words; "Global Brand Pioneers," for "well-established brand owners to develop active and relevant Web sites and services;" and "Partner Pioneers," which is designed for accredited registrars, technology and service providers to promote the .ASIA extension.
While the Sunrise period is designed to provide comprehensive protective measures for trademark owners, the registry says the Global Brand Pioneers category "offers proactive brand holders who are committed to the Asia community the .ASIA domains that best match their mark and businesses."
In order to qualify for the Global Brand category, the registry says a brand must have or demonstrate:
- Trademark registrations in multiple countries and/or regions, with at least one in Asia;
- Significant investment into the development and promotion of the corresponding brand online and offline; and,
- Substantial sales threshold in connection with goods and services associated with the mark.
The registry says the Pioneer Domains Program is not designed to replace the Sunrise process, but has not yet defined what constitutes "a significant level of investment" and "substantial sales" or what the advantages would be for companies to apply through the program versus the Sunrise process.
The deadline for submissions is August 31, 2007. Detailed information and application forms can be found at: http://pioneer.domains.asia/.
EURid reports that renewal rates for .EU domain names have been between 80 and 90 percent for the second quarter of 2007. The renewal rate for .EU domain names in June was 87.2 percent, which is in line with many other European ccTLDs. For May and April it was 82.5 and 83.1 respectively. EURid says the renewal rates are higher than expected, particularly for the month of April, which included renewals for more than 1.5 million Land Rush registrations.
The .ASIA registry has announced an updated launch schedule. The Sunrise Phase 1 Period (government reserved names) is now scheduled to start October 9 and continue through Land Rush. The Sunrise Phase 2A "Early Bird" Period for trademark holders will also open October 9, and close October 30. Sunrise Phase 2B (general registered marks) and Sunrise 2C (extended protection) will be open November 13, 2007 to January 15, 2008, as will Sunrise 3 (Registered Entity Names). The Land Rush Period is now scheduled to begin in February, followed by first-come, first-served general registrations in March 2008.
DotAsia, the non-profit organization behind the new .ASIA sponsored Top-Level Domain, announced last week that the extension has now been added to the Internet root, thus allowing it to function. The Sunrise period, which will begin in October 2007, will be divided into three phases, with the first stage intended for Governmental Reserved Names, the second phase for Registered Marks (i.e. Trademarks and service marks), and the final stage for Registered Entity Names (i.e. company names, organizations, etc.).