The number of cybersquatting cases filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization increased 7% in 2023, WIPO said this week. The total UDRP filings, 6,192, includes national ccTLD variations that WIPO handles but not UDRP filings with other providers. WIPO said that 82% of cases resulted in the domain being transferred to the complainant, with [...] Continue reading →

Verisign said it is “pleased” that ICANN has decided it should be awarded the .web gTLD, but hinted that it might not launch this year. “We now look forward to NDC’s execution of the .web Registry Agreement and submission to ICANN of the request for assignment of the .web Registry Agreement to Verisign,” the company [...] Continue reading →

The new gTLD .hiphop is back on GoDaddy’s storefront, more than six years after the company stopped carrying it in a controversy over prices. Dot Hip Hop, which took over the registry from UNR (formerly Uniregistry) last year, announced the deal in a press release today. The exposure should be good for the TLD, which [...] Continue reading →

DK Hostmaster, the ccTLD registry for Denmark, is changing its name to Punktum dk. The company, which has been running .dk since 1999, said that it’s a move to modernize the brand away from the old days where it only had one narrowly technical task. Google Translate tells me “punktum” is the Danish word for [...] Continue reading →

Whois as we have known it for decades will be phased out of gTLDs over the next couple of years, after ICANN approved changes to its contracts at the weekend. The board of directors signed off on amendments to the base Registry Agreement and Registrar Accreditation Agreement after they were approved by the requisite majority [...] Continue reading →

Verisign did nothing wrong when it won the $135 million .web gTLD auction via a secret intermediary, ICANN’s board of directors has decided. The board voted at the weekend to declare that Nu Dot Co, the shell company that applied for .web “did not violate the Guidebook or the Auction Rules” when it signed a [...] Continue reading →

Verisign cast a slightly more optimistic light on the potential for .com and .net growth last week, as it reported a modest improvement in first-quarter sales. Management told analysts that it’s now expecting domain growth of between 0.5% and 2.25% for the year — a boost to the low-end but a lowering of the high-end. [...] Continue reading →