domain

Nintendo loses bid to take control of WiiU.com

Nintendo has failed in its bid to obtain the rights to WiiU.com.

Late last month, a panel of arbitrators ruled that Nintendo could not obtain the rights to WiiU.com, as shown by a case summary originally obtained by GamesIndustry.biz. Nintendo had hoped to take control over the domain, which currently houses ads and a search bar from which the owners are ostensibly generating revenue.

It's not clear from the filing why Nintendo's request was denied, but it appears likely now that in order for the company to take control over that domain, it'll need … Read more

Lawyer brilliantly bites township trying to shut his client's site

The temptation to bully can be too great to resist.

If you don't like something or the someone who's done that something, you want to squish them -- if you're bigger than they are, that is.

One method often used is to get a fancy lawyer to write a cease-and-desist letter, designed to stop the recipient from breathing.

The township of West Orange, N.J., decided that Jake Freivald was a nail for its hammer. He had exercised sufficient temerity to operate a Web site called WestOrange.info.

It's not a fancy site. And it certainly … Read more

ICANN to shift around top-level execs

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is shifting around some key executives, the organization said in a blog posted Thursday.

Starting July 1, Akram Atallah, currently chief operating officer, will transition to a new role as president of the Generic Domains Division. Focusing on generic domain operations, the new division is considered necessary as ICANN's new gTLD (generic top-level domain) program will take on much greater responsibility moving forward, according to ICANN president and CEO Fadi Chehade.

ICANN's new gTLD program will expand the types of Internet extensions that are available -- such as .com, .… Read more

Microsoft said to go after Xbox One domain name squatters

Microsoft appears to be unhappy about a couple of domain name owners that nabbed xboxone.com and xboxone.net before it did.

The software giant is said to have launched a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum to get those domains into its bevy, according to Fusible.

Hot on the heels of Microsoft unveiling its new gaming console, Xbox One, the company reportedly filed the complaint with the NAF. According to Fusible, Microsoft kept the name of its console a secret, presumably to avoid various domain name squatters.

However, both xboxone.com and xboxone.net have been registered since 2011. … Read more

Cat ladies take over the Australian Christian Lobby domain

If you're going to have a Web presence, sometimes it pays to make sure any domain name associated with the name of your organization is accounted for. The Australian Christian Lobby operates out of the acl.org.au domain name, after moving from australianchristianlobby.org.au. But the australianchristianlobby.org domain has been quietly occupied, seemingly kept in reserve -- until a relaunch on Sunday.

Three Melbourne feminists -- Hilary Bowman-Smart, Genevieve Stewart, and Jessica Alice -- snapped up the domain when it became available, turning it into a website for the group, called Australian Cat Ladies, stating that there has been a case of mistaken identity between the two groups. "Please note, it is very important that you do not confuse "Cat-Holics" with "Catholics," the site reads. … Read more

Pinterest goes to battle over Amazon domain play

Here's one that can't come as a surprise to the legal team at Amazon.com: Pinterest is fighting Amazon's bid to win the contract to control the .pin generic top-level-domain, or gTLD.

Among the reasons for Pinterest's objections: Domain names on .pin -- clothes.pin, say, or whatever Amazon has in mind -- would cause confusion and violate the trademarks that Pinterest holds on the term "pin." Those trademarks include "the standalone PIN trademark and a family of PIN-formative marks, including Pinterest, PIN It, P, and others," according to the complaint -- … Read more

Lawyer offers popefrancis.com to pope

If the media is to believed, the new Pope Francis is an extremely modest man.

Eschewing the life of palaces in Argentina, he lived modestly and even cooked for himself.

Such frugality, reticence, and identification with the poor of the world isn't often associated with lawyers.

Yet one member of Chicago's legal faith is offering up an act of generosity akin to just chatting with Mary Magdalene.… Read more

Pope Francis spurs hundreds of domain name registrations

Shortly after the smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel turned from black to white and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was deemed the world's new Roman Catholic leader, hundreds of people took to the Web to register domain names with the new pope's title.

Web hosting and domain registration site GoDaddy told CNET that it racked up more than 100 domain registrations within the first 10 minutes of the announcement. By the first hour, 479 new domains were registered. And, as of this writing, 647 domain names have been registered at GoDaddy.

"The election of Pope Francis is … Read more

Google might open up certain top-level domains to the public

Google appears eager to let other organizations use certain top-level domains that it wants to acquire and manage.

Last June, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Named and Numbers (ICANN) revealed which companies and organizations had applied for their own generic top-level domains (gTLDs). The effort is part of a move to foster competition on the Internet by allowing companies to use a greater variety of TLDs beyond just .com.

Google applied for 101 of the 1,900 available gTLDs, looking to score such obvious ones as .google, .chrome, .gmail, .goog, and .youtube. But along with those gTLDs were ones that … Read more