According to a Press release by the ICM Registry, the official registry of the new .xxx top-level domain TLD, ICM “announced that as part of its investigation of reported cybersquatting by a handful of individuals, it has suspended registrations that appear to involve unmistakable, blatant cybersquatting in violation of the Registry’s policies and the Registry-Registrant Agreement”
“The suspended registrations include patterns of abusive registrations for names like businessweek.xxx, cnbc.xxx, geocities.xxx, nextag.xxx, snapfish.xxx, verizonwireless.xxx, washingtonpost.xxx, and gayroom.xxx, amongst others.”
“In announcing this action, ICM’s CEO, Stuart Lawley, reiterated the Registry’s commitment to enforce its policies.
“ICM Registry has raised the bar on responsible registry operations and we intend to maintain the highest standards. We will not tolerate nefarious conduct and will exercise our right to take appropriate action when we detect widespread repeat patterns of cyber-squatting activity. Would-be cyber-squatters are on notice neither ICM Registry nor the .xxx community will be complicit in the theft or abuse of intellectual property. ICM takes a stand to facilitate user choice and parental control, protect the privacy, security, and consumer rights of consenting adults, fight child abuse images, and protect intellectual property,” said Lawley.”
“While cyber-squatters try to take advantage of legitimate rights owners in every TLD (from .com to .edu), ICM’s CEO, Stuart Lawley noted that the rights protections built into its agreement with registrants gives the Registry a number of innovative tools to combat malicious conduct and protect the .xxx TLD space. In addition to its authentication policy, which makes it harder for cyber-squatters to hide, the Registry also makes a variety of innovative tools available to prevent and address abusive registrations, including a Rapid Evaluation Service (“RES”) to take immediate action on clear abuse of well-known, distinctive registered trademarks or service marks of significant commercial value, or of personal or professional names of individuals, and its Charter Eligibility Dispute Resolution Process (“CEDRP”) to resolve challenges to registered names in the .XXX TLD based on alleged use inconsistent with the qualifications for registration. ICM Registry recently conducted a ground-breaking Sunrise process that enabled rights-holders to permanently remove their brands from availability for a cost-based one time fee.”
“Working with its sponsoring organization, the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (“IFFOR”), ICM has implemented a comprehensive and rigorous set of policies designed to protect third party rights and combat malicious conduct. The IFFOR Policy Council, which includes representatives from the adult industry as well as experts in the areas of free expression, privacy, and child advocacy ratified the Registry’s baseline policies, including its policy prohibiting the registration of “strings that infringe the intellectual property rights of a third party, including common law trademark rights; strings that are obvious variants of well-known trademarks not belonging to the registrant; first and last names of an individual other than the individual or his/her agent or names that suggest the presence of child abuse images.” All registrants in the .xxx domain must agree to abide by those policies when they register .xxx names.”
I think this is an unprecedented move by a Registry.
Personally I’m not aware of a Registry pre-emptively suspending domain names even those that seem to be clear trademark infringing domain names.
In previous launches some TM domains actually went to Land Rush auctions and sold for big bucks and we questioned why registries should profit from the premium sale of TM domains as in the case of Toyota.me which sold for $90,000
lol If they truly “raised the bar”, why don’t they refund the millions of dollars spent on defensive registrations by universities and other organizations in the past few months?
Hear that? It’s the sound of crickets when that question is asked of ICM Registry.
Is ‘KUGirls’ a registered trademark?
this is laughable.
of course icm would not hesitate to register these domains to the trademark holders… for a fee.
and to what end?
for protection from a threat icm themselves are responsible for creating.
there will be no content on e.g. cnbc.xxx
it will either not resolve or redirect to .com
why are direct match trademarks like these active domains (registerable) in the first place?
if icm can check domain names against trademarks after the fact, then why can’t they do it before the fact?
why are these names allowed in the zone?
answer: to create a threat that requires protection.
icm are the real cybersquatters, one level removed from liability.
they are using others’ trademarks for their own financial gain: through promoting defensive domain name registrations.
if they could not sell registrations for direct match trademark domain names, how much money could they make?
i forsee icm doing a 180 real soon. they will bend and twist to try to gain acceptance and credibility. but it’s too late. they’ve been caught out.
Tom: So, are you suggesting that ICM blocked *all* registered TMs?? A simple yes/no.
CNBC isn’t a mark used for adult services. It has protection in certain categories…..it’s hypocritical to block some TMs, and then profit from other defensive registrations.
Clearly the costs of the .xxx registry on the public far exceed the benefits to the public. The simple solution is to shut it down (remove it from the root). Same goes for the entire new TLD program of ICANN.
@George
No, not in the least. Just pointing out that not all names registered by universities deserve protection.
I’m actually quite disappointed in the marketing tactics of XXX thus far. And I think this gesture is for publicity.
But I still think some new gTLDs will add value for some.
What a joke. Guess the corporations that paid to have their names blocked last week must feel real good about this considering icm is now selectively blocking names for FREE. What a bunch of clowns
Now we have a Domain Gestapo summarily nixing domains.
Not trial or due course.
Why would anyone invest a dime if these guys can just take your domain away.
Where is the UDRP or court action?
They will tread on someone that does not appreciate it and then get sued themselves.
This is also another reason to stay with .com.
Screw these .XXX dictators and their high-brow antics ; I’ll pass on their felonious capers.
If I was one of the companies, universities etc. who registered my TM or blocked it during sunrise, I’d be furious over them doing this. Ultimately it’s a bad move for a registry to do – not because it’s right for squatters to get the domains, but if they’re not going to monitor every potential TM infringement in this way, then where do they draw the line?
there should be a registry devoted to each international trademark class. with subdomains for geographic regions.
this is a logical system of organising information about commercial products and services. with this, domain name used to represent brands can be traced to their true owners via intellectual property filings, not just spurious whois info.
not a “perfect” solution (no such thing) but much, much cleaner than the icann imposed chaos… which chaos of course benefits them and ensures their racket stays alive.
are we serious about making things easier, more transparent and more trustworthy for internet users trying to find information about products and services?
or do we take pleasure in the chaos? no doubt, there is money to be made by keeping things chaotic and deceptive.
This seems counterproductive for selling defensive registrations.
The irony is that by taking pre-emptive action, ICM might have just lost any “safe harbour” legal protections that they might previously have enjoyed. I.e. they *know* there’s TM infringement going on, and have now set a precedent of taking down domains (without due process, to boot). Will this create an ongoing legal obligation for them to do so in the
future, and also create liability for them if anyone buys a TM-infringing name??
It’ll be interesting to watch the Manwin case, to see if any amended complaints argue points like this.
By the way, I though it cost “outside experts” lots of time (and thus justifying a fee of $200!) to determine that certain terms were trademarked during the sunrise periods??!!?? I wonder how many seconds it took to realize that verizonwireless.xxx or washingtonpost.xxx were famous trademarks?? 2 seconds? Milliseconds? The margins on those $200 sunrise domains must have been enormous. They should rename “Sunrise Periods” to “Gravy Train Periods.”
Ya Can’t Put Lipstick On A Pig And Call It Pretty…………………..
but what about cnbc.ru, cnbc.biz , is that TM infringement too ?!
The laughable part of this is it is not “pre-emptive” at all… SOMEBODY paid the registry for those names.
True, Cartoonz. I meant “pre-emptive” with timing in relation to a court judgement or other legal process. It’s definitely AFTER they got the $$$$.
VeriSign wanted to be able to unilaterally take down .com/net domains without any due process just two short months ago (the Verisign Anti-Abuse Domain Use Policy). Registries should not have that power (and VeriSign backed down, for now).
cmon said it perfectly above “why are these names allowed in the zone? answer: to create a threat that requires protection.”
That applies not just to 2nd level domains in .xxx. It also applies to entire top-level domains that ICANN and its insiders want to foist upon the public against their will.
What a mess
One distinct difference between XXX and New TLDs is that the communities they are meant to serve have expressed a desire for them.
New York City wants .NYC
Scottish businesses are enormously supportive of .SCOT
Many other examples exist
Well Its interesting guys you have stories like these in the mainstream press
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/13/9394862-cybersquatters-pick-up-xxx-trademark-domains
which cites Justin Crews, the owner of the domain name, “Huffington Post.xxx.” who is quoted as saying “he plans on selling the name to “anyone” who might be interested.”
Chigozie Okoro of Snellville, Georgia, “”reached by telephone, said he bought “NBCNews.xxx” for $100 and purchased it strictly “to re-sell it.”
Biagio Como of Boynton Beach, Florida, “says he purchased “msnbc.xxx” not with the intent of doing “anything bad,” but to “make money; that’s the bottom line.”””
and you have a reaction by a registry under the TOS of the registrations.
Interesting
Unprecedented
DejaVuAllOverAgain.com – no mercy for the intentional and well-known and obvious TM infringements
Did you see this one?
Why .XXX And Other New Top-Level Domains Are A Terrible Idea
http://www.businessinsider.com/boonsri-dickinson-esther-dyson-tried-to-buy-an-xxx-to-protect-meetupcoms-brand-2011-12
Regarding DEFENSIVE REGISTRATIONS (from the technolog.msnbc.msn.com story linked above):
“Stuart Lawley, CEO of ICM Registry, said in a recent interview … ‘some people may wish to register as a defensive maneuver; we don’t encourage that’, he said in a podcast interview with CNET’s Larry Magid last week.”
That statement would seem to run counter to the $xxx,xxx spent by ICM Registry to specifically promote/advertise defensive registrations.
*
.xxx raising the bar???
Too funny for words.
Alan’s comment is dead on…
🙂
*
“we don’t encourage that”
right.
“but we’re banking on it.”
they have an entire subsystem in their registration process (separate epp commends) specifically to deal with *defensive registrations*.
do other registries have that?
icm or any future new gtld does not *have* to do what icm is doing. they *could* run the registry differently. they can talk all they want about respecting trademarks. but just look what they *are* doing.
that says it all.
new gtld’s are not some big wonderful generic name revolution.
new gtld’s are the icann authorised trademark holder shakedown, part 3.
does anyone really think for a second that all new gtld registries will refrain from selling registrations for direct or fuzzy match trademark domain names?
c’mon.
@emon
– “new gtld’s are the icann authorised trademark holder shakedown, part 3. ”
It all points back to one thing – the .com is the only one on the shelf – Sorry for being to much of a (R)ealist – I do not make the rules – I play by them – big difference
youporn is a registered trademark, but youporn.xxx is being reserved by the registry. Are they going to use it or auction it at a later date? If so, the could be accused of double standards.
The real unfair part is that:
1) They took all that money from trademark holders to “Protect your Brand”
Then they do selective TM takedowns for free…All previous TN registrations should receive a refund.
2) They allowed obvious, blatant TM registrations, collected the money, now take them away.
They owe those people a refund even though they were misguided.
3) Many of the Adult companies that are now fighting ICM, are doing so because they were asked exorbitant fees for their TM and popular .com domain names. In some cases in the hundreds of thousands.
If they had given major Adult companies, with well known websites their domain names in .xxx, for a reasonable fee. Most would not now be fighting them.
This .xxx started out and continues to be a massive cash grab. I saw more obvious TM infringements being registered yesterday , after they took down the named TM registrations. So they continue to let the suckers register the names so they can make the $$$ and subsequently take them away.
Good news for icm is that they can resell the tm names they confiscate again and again and again which is quite likely why lawley is on the record saying he doesn’t encourage defensive registrations
It undermines his ability to resell the names icm takes away at will
Hypocritical, Ludicrous, Comical, Desperate, Embarrassing–I just can’t seem to find the right word.
ICM are showing the world their various scams as regards registrations, so how do they expect people to part with their money while visiting a site with a .xxx suffix?
This is why rapid takedown needed a low price point – to provide a suitably quick and cheap mechanism, and to keep ICM out of the loop.
If rapid takedown were priced at something realistically commensurate to the time it takes to determine that “WashingtonPost.xxx” is a bad domain name – which is all of about 30 seconds – then you wouldn’t see ICM heading into the swamp of selective enforcement.
John
The problem with a “low price point” is what organization is going to do it?
The NAF rep told me the proposed $300 fee for a URS, they can’t do it at that price.
“The problem with a “low price point” is what organization is going to do it?”
There are UDRP panelists who are willing to do it for $200. All that is needed is a web interface for taking the statements and a ticketing system.
The point is that despite the several procedural steps, the actual time needed to identify a “no brainer” is very short. In other words, if a qualified panelist needs to spend more than 15 minutes figuring it out, then it is not a “no brainer”. That is the sum total of professional time required.
Let me put it to you this way, Mike. I probably look at and evaluate five or six c&d letters every day. How much do you think it should cost to sort out “no brainers” from ones raising potential defensive issues?
How much has it cost you, typically?
John
You or I could run through 100 of these in an hour
The thing is, Mike, a lot of no-brainer UDRP’s are filed.
If a low cost route for no-brainers becomes available, what happens to all those no-brainer UDRP’s?
Well for existing extensions they don’t have that option, (not now anyway) for new gTLD’s 90% of these will go the cheap and quick route.
“You or I could run through 100 of these in an hour”
Precisely Mike.
And we could do it with software not much more complex that what this blog runs on.
You could adapt a vBulletin installation to run it on.
“for new gTLD’s 90% of these will go the cheap and quick route.”
That would be disastrous for the $1500 model, no?
Could you remind me who told you it couldn’t be done for less?
“You or I could run through 100 of these in an hour”
(Hit submit before I was finished)
Mike, that is precisely the type of dispute and degree of effort for which URS was intended.
Now, one could say, “but in making ‘snap judgments’ isn’t there a statistical likelihood of error?”
There is.
And that’s why the remedy is reversible with a long time horizon for fixing them.
Once you “get” what the URS is supposed to do – i.e. take care of the blitheringly obvious cases – the notion that it can’t be done for a LOT less becomes hard to support.
The other objection that comes up is “what about liability”?
Liability for what? Liability for pointing out that the registrant agreed to the process when they registered the domain name? Liability for pointing out that the complainant agreed to the terms when they filed the complaint?
Show me, realistically, this liability. In ten years, not a single party to a UDRP has gotten within shouting distance of a courthouse door to even try to make a claim against a UDRP provider.
The most surprising thing is that anyone is surprised. I just hope the whole .xxx circus doesnt adversely affect the rest of the new tld rollouts too much.
what exactly do all of these registraions have in common?not one remark on this board states the obvious…what is it? you are all out there bitiching what is the common link here?
now I am going to tell you what it is and start addressing your commets correctly.ALL OF THESE MARKS ARE FAMOUS AND THATS WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE…DID ONE POSTER ANYWHERE ON THIS BOARD KNOW WHAT THE LANHAM LAW IS FOR FAMOUS MARKS? not according to these remarks.
And what this is a half hearted precedence attempt by the icm to correct an ongoing problem with an unsavory suffix..remember the congress is investigating adding more tlds to the root suffix.You are dealing with a bureaucratic organization do not expect a complete exact solution right out of the box..Another example would be martha stewart make an example out of the the biggest most visable violator
for the masses to view….thats what occured here for better or worse…and rememebr even apple had a problem with the iphone and antennas there was no recall what the public got was a case sent to them at a cost of 50 million and the problem dissolved…
My question is, why did ICM take money from thousands of companies to protect their
names when VerisonWireless, CNBC, WashingtonPost etc are getting their “protection” for
free? Does this mean that ICM will be making refunds to the other companies?
A class action lawsuit in the making, imo.
“A class action lawsuit in the making, imo.”
– it all adds up to free (and necessary) advertising for .xxx – i.e. .xxx is not a non.com – it is in a world of its own – did .co, .me and all the non.com garbage get this scutiny – no because they are worthless and non-brandable – except for the cherry picked ones that distort reality.
That said as much as I believe in .xxx and Stewart and all his folks – I opted out so far – the only one that maybe could have worked for me was CheapPorn.xxx to complement my CheapPorn.com – looks like someone in NY has it – hope it works for them _ I am not sweating over it.
I like Michael’s FreePorn.xxx a lot.
For every $ Steart puts into legal fees – he will get a 20x + return in advertising
There are probably trademark lawyers who read this blog, some might even working for registries, some might be advising them or advising ICANN.
How do you distinguish a famous mark from an ordinary mark? Can that process be automated?
What is different about famous marks? Dilution? How might being associated with pornography affect a trademark?
Can you automate the process of deciding what is dilution and what is not?
These sort of questions and many more that deal with trademark law issues will only give rise to more issues and endless argument.
What if we took a different tact? What if we ignored trademark law and simply focused on databases.
Trademarks are listed in government databases. Those databases have to be reasonably accurate and specific as to what each mark covers and the entities that administer them can be held accountable for errors. Those databases have to account for every possible type of product or service that is commercially available to consumers. And those databases are also searchable by various means (boolean, regex, Levenshstein, etc.).
What is DNS?
It’s a distributed database. No one entity oversees its accuracy and no one is accountable for errors. There is no universal agreement on how the information should be organised using what the technology allows. We query an exact match string and we get an IP number. No boolean, no regex, just exact match.
Now, which type of database is better suited for finding information on products and services? Which one is more organised and must cover every possible type of product or service? Which one is run by an entity that can be held accountable for errors?
Is there some reason we should not look at trademark databases and DNS side by side? Is there some reason we should not try to leverage the time-tested organisation of brand information contained in trademark databases in the increasingly more commercially oriented DNS?
Yes, I can think of a couple. 1. It might discourage cybersquatters that are a huge source of income for ICANN and its registrars. 2. It might reduce opportunities for making money via offering dispute resolution services, like URS.
How is this going to work?
region.product.class
region.product.class.status
DNS meets trademark database.
A universal system of finding products and services.
No more difficult to use than craigslist.
“How do you distinguish a famous mark from an ordinary mark? Can that process be automated?”
– NO – and that is the very reason why I have come to accept why the legal profession exists – lawyers are what makes money worth something !!
LOL, this is hilarious.
First ICM Registry launched an ad campaign telling the general public to pay up to protect their name from evil pornographers. Now they take down some of the domains themselves.
Why would anyone be silly enough to pay fro a defensive registration after this?
If anyone registers yourname.xxx, ask ICM Registry to take it down. If they don’t, sue them.
ICM Registry is already protecting the names of 1000+ A-List celebrities for free. Now they took action against tm violators…. for free. Why won’t they protect the names of universities and mainstream business owners for free?