Organization: ICANN

New suspension rules tip balance in favor of trademark holders

Cybersquatters are going to find it much harder to profit from domain names with new suspension rules and financial penalties coming into effect later this year.

Under new rules, trademark holders will pay just $375 for up to 15 domains to be suspended pending a review of the domain's use. If an independent panelist finds that a domain name is being misused, the domain will then be suspended and redirected to an information page.

Decision by new gTLD panel sparks flurry of letters

The largest applicant for new Internet extensions, Donuts, has successfully passed a background check, removing a question over its eligibility.

In the latest release of initial evaluations from the new gTLD program's evaluators, five applications from Donuts (out of 307) and one from United TLD have passed, seemingly putting an end to claims they should be disqualified under cybersquatting rules.

"GAC advice" will ask for new policies for certain applications

The five-year process for adding over 1,000 new extensions to the Internet is currently waiting on a final set of recommendations from the world's governments.

At ICANN's meeting taking place in Beijing, a range of last-minute issues covering the new gTLD process from contract changes to the protection of names and trademarks are being discussed.

The biggest impact on the process however will be "advice" from the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) that will require certain groups of applicants to introduce additional "safeguards" before they are approved to run a new extension.

It's only the most important ICANN process you've never heard of

"ICANN is reviewing itself to death. So it would be nice to know why the current review process doesn't work."

There is a certain irony in the fact that ICANN Board member Chris Disspain was asking this of the organization's lead review team - the Accountability and Transparency Review Team, or ATRT.

Disspain is right though, as he often is when it comes to identifying the problems, many self-inflicted, that ICANN faces. He went on to identify a number of other structural and cultural issues, as well as spot where the organization had actually improved in the past year.

Right of the Dot posts legal opinion decrying anti-trust suggestions

A fight over private auctions is disrupting efforts to resolve a large number of conflicting applications for new Internet extensions.

The latest missive in a battle over rights to dozens of new names on the Internet is a legal opinion commissioned by one of the main companies hoping to profit from such auctions.

DNS security and stability report big on bark, light on bite

Operator of the dot-com registry and the Internet's primary address book, Verisign, has warned that a plan to add hundreds of new Internet extensions over the next year may destabilize the domain name system if key issues are not addressed.

In a report from the company's technical labs to the organization running the "new gTLD" program, ICANN, the Internet infrastructure company warns that there could be "significant consequences" if the program does not address technical issues before the program launches that could "perhaps even destabilize global operations of the DNS".

Camera maker follows Heinz and General Motors

Camera maker Olympus has become the latest household name to withdraw from the new gTLD process, pulling its only application for dot-olympus.

Olympus joins Heinz and General Motors in pulling out completely from plans to add over a thousand new Internet extensions in the next year, with the first due to be approved by the end of next month.

Dot-heinz and dot-ketchup ditched weeks after buyout by Berkshire Hathaway

Buffett: Spends $28 billion; saves $130,000 by ditching Heinz gTLD applications.

Heinz has shelved its two new gTLD applications just three weeks after the company agreed to be bought out for $28 billion by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.