ICA to Host Annual Dinner at NamesCon

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November 14, 2018

The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) will be hosting its annual dinner during the NamesCon conference in Las Vegas. The ICA dinner will be held at the House of Blues restaurant, the B Side lounge at Mandalay Place on Monday, January 28th at 6pm.

The annual ICA dinner was started as a way for ICA members to meet and to get to know each other. I believe there will be one or two members of the ICA board who will briefly speak during the event to give an update on ICA initiatives. Some ICA members include Sedo, Escrow.com, GoDaddy, NameBright, and quite a few other companies that are in the domain investment business.

Dinner attendees do not need to be NamesCon conference attendees, so people are invited to purchase tickets for industry friends, significant others, or others who want to support the ICA. In addition

ICA Fires Back at Verisign

By

Elliot Silver

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November 13, 2018

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Verisign and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently reached a deal that will allow Verisign to raise the price on .com domain name registrations (and renewals). The Internet Commerce Association (ICA) which represents the interests of domain investors and domain industry companies, had previously organized a campaign in opposition of the price increase. The campaign included a Change.org petition, which achieved over 2,300 signatures of support.

Shortly after the agreement between Verisign and the NTIA was announced, Verisign published a concerning article, which, in my view, seemed to mischaracterize domain investors and domain investing. The blog post referred to domain speculation as “domain scalping.” The company seems to have called out industry leaders GoDaddy and HugeDomains in the article. The sentence I found most concerning was this one that called into question the business of domain investing:

ICA Seeking Nominations for 2019 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award

By

Elliot Silver

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October 19, 2018

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Shortly after the unexpected passing of Lonnie Borck, the Internet Commerce Association (ICA) created a domain industry award in his memory. The inaugural award was presented to David Weslow ofWiley Rein, and this year’s award was given to Kathy Kleiman.

The ICA is currently seeking nominations for the 2019 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award. Here’s a description of the Award:

“The Lonnie Borck Memorial Award is granted to an individual for indelible contribution to domain investor rights, and we invite you all to take part in the process and submit your suggestions for the nominees. The nomination process is open to the entire domain name community.”

Nominations will be accepted until November 1st. The ICA Board of Directors will review the nominations and vote on the winner. The Award will be presented during the NamesCon conference in January.

If you know of someone who has made a lasting contribution to protecting and enabling the rights of domain name investors, you should think about submitting a nomination. There are quite a few people that go above and beyond to help protect the rights of domain investors, and it is nice that we can honor them. I already know who I am going to nominate.

Not a week goes by that I don’t think about Lonnie. It’s nice to see this Award being given to someone deserving.

Complainants Winning More at WIPO Each Year, But…

By

Elliot Silver

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July 31, 2018

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Earlier this morning, I published a poll asking readers about the results of UDRP proceedings to gauge if readers think outcomes have recently been shifting more in favor of domain investors when it comes to valuable (generic / acronym) domain names. So far, it looks like approximately 2/3 of readers who voted in the poll believe domain registrants are faring better now than they did in prior years.

I did some researching using DNDisputes.com, and I was able to find some facts about how UDRP results have changed over the years at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). WIPO is the largest UDRP provider, and DNDisputes.com primarily archives decisions from WIPO.

Using DNDisputes.com, I shared the percentage of complaints denied (meaning the domain registrant won) since 2008:

Zak Muscovitch Unanimously Appointed General Counsel of the ICA

By

Elliot Silver

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May 8, 2018

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When Phil Corwin left the Internet Commerce Association (ICA), domain industry attorney and ICA member Zak Muscovitch stepped up into the role of General Counsel on an interim basis. According to an email I received this morning, Zak has been unanimously approved by the ICA’s Board of Directors as the organization’s General Counsel.

I think this is great news for domain investors. Not only is Zak looked upon as one of the smartest intellectual property attorneys with a focus on the domain name space, but Zak also has a stellar reputation among his peers outside of the domain industry. He has been advocating on behalf of domain name owners and investors, and it is great that the interim label has been removed from the title.

I reached out to Zak to ask about how this role will impact his law practice, and here’s what he shared with me

Dribbble Loses Effort to Get Dribble.com via UDRP

By

Elliot Silver

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April 30, 2018

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A company called Dribbble (notice the 3 “b’s” in its branding) filed a UDRP to try and wrest control of the Dribble.com domain name, which had been owned by the registrant since 1997. As I suspected when I saw the initial UDRP filing, the domain owner won the UDRP proceeding and will be allowed to retain the domain name.

The domain owner has owned Dribble.com for many years. According to the decision, “When the Complaint was filed, the disputed domain name resolved to a website which essentially consisted of pay-per-click links for services such as logo design, website design, illustration design, flyer design, graphic design and the like.” In a UDRP though, the complainant must prove that the domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith. The first part of that would seem to be impossible given the registration date and the date Dribbble was founded.

Here’s what the panel ruled:

ICA

ICA to Host Annual Dinner at NamesCon

ICA Fires Back at Verisign

ICA Seeking Nominations for 2019 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award

Complainants Winning More at WIPO Each Year, But…

Zak Muscovitch Unanimously Appointed General Counsel of the ICA

Dribbble Loses Effort to Get Dribble.com via UDRP

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