Perth, Western Australia (PRWEB) May 17, 2012

Webpark’s Design division has served the Perth business community for many years and the addition of Domain Name Registration, Dedicated Website Hosting and Website Development services was a natural progression. Now, in addition to offering superior Web Design services to the Perth business sector, Webpark will offer web solutions to online businesses Australia wide.

“Every day Webpark will provide a list of hundreds of expired domain names and an aftermarket catalogue where businesses can buy pre-owned domain names http://www.webpark.com.au/catalog. Many of these expiring and expired domains have great potential for development because they already have a history on the Internet, have valuable back links and valuable keywords that will result in higher placement in search engine pages if developed correctly.

Our domain registration prices are very competitive and are matched by our web hosting services that offer a low occupancy environment using Dedicated cPanel Linux servers http://www.webpark.com.au/client-services/.

For additional information on our special offers and promotions and all the current domaining and web hosting news visit http://www.webpark.com.au or contact Ashley Boardman.

What we say to online businesses coming to us for the first time is: Let us do for your business what we are already doing for our own.”

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/5/prweb9513312.htm

Article source: http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2012/05/17/webpark-expands-online-presence-domain-names-web-hosting-and-web-development-services. Creative Commons (CC)

Federal Commissioner for Data Protection says law enforcements requests for new RAA are against German laws

by Frank Michlick in Categories:
Legal Issues

Tags:
, data privacy, data protection, domain registration, Europe, germany, heise, icann

• Very useful

• People have no idea what they are getting themselves into when they purchase a domain name without adding the privacy feature. Trust me I’ve seen tons of cases of defamation, extortion etc to innocent businesses and individuals that expose basic whois details sometimes unknowingly.

  For many criminals they have turned it into a very lucrative, full time job. If you have a domain and you get a phone call from someone telling you that they will ruin you online, posting your info next to the word scam, unless you cut them a quick check of $10,000, I would recommend you write them a quick check and treat it as a expensive lesson learned.

  The alternative is to pay thousands of dollars cleaning up the mess and on lawyer fees where you end up getting no where.

Article source: http://www.domainnamenews.com/legal-issues/federal-commissioner-for-data-protection-says-law-enforcements-requests-for-new-raa-are-against-german-laws/10779. Creative Commons (CC)

BitTorrent (and especially its users) are familiar with intellectual property lawsuits. But usually they’re on the receiving end.

Now the tables are turned. BitTorrent, Inc. has filed a federal lawsuit in California against BitTorrent Marketing GMBH for trademark infringement and cybersquatting.

According to BitTorrent, Inc. founder Bram Cohen, he first became aware of the defendant when it contacted him in 2003 and asked for permission to register the Bittorrent.de domain name. Cohen refused. The defendant went ahead and registered a lot of related domain names (including the .de domain) and managed to secure trademark registrations for the BitTorrent mark in Germany and Europe. When BitTorrent, Inc. tried to get its own trademarks in Europe, the defendant filed a petition to oppose BitTorrent, Inc’s trademark applications.

BitTorrent, Inc initiated litigation in Germany against BitTorrent Marketing GMBH in 2010. Now BitTorrent is bringing a case against the firm in the U.S.

According to Cohen’s lawsuit, the German company has registered hundreds of domain names that include “Bittorent”, such as the typo bitorrent.com, bittorrent.net, and bittorrent.de.

BitTorrent, Inc also says that the defendant has a history of bad activity in file sharing. It alleges the defendant has tried to usurp trademarks owned by other file sharing companies such as Kazaa and Morpheus.

Cohen’s company is suing for federal trademark infringement and cybersquatting, among other claims. On the cybersquatting claims it is asking for $100,000 per infringing domain name. Both the defendant and the respondent have filed cybersquatting claims in the past, but not against each other.

You can read the lawsuit here (large PDF).

Further Reading:

1. Domain Tools files preemptive lawsuit over copyright claims and its trademark
2. BMW Files Cybersquatting Lawsuit
3. Facebook Files Massive Cybersquatting Lawsuit

Tags: bittorrent, bittorrent lawsuit

Article source: http://domainnamewire.com/2012/05/18/bittorrent-files-its-own-intellectual-property-lawsuit/. Creative Commons (CC)

Publisher Hidden Values has lost a dispute over the domain name TriangleKidsDirectory.com.

Hidden Values publishes the Kids’ Directory. It also has a registered trademark for KID’S DIRECTORY.

It’s an admittedly weak mark. It’s even a concurrent use registration that is limited in geographic scope.

But, the registrant of the domain name was a former licensee of Kids Directory and published the directory in the North Carolina “triangle”. And he didn’t respond to the dispute. So the odds were tipped in Hidden Values’ favor.

Regardless of what you think of the merits of this case and if UDRP is the proper venue for it, the case seems to have come down to when Hidden Values got trademark rights in “Kid’s Directory”. And this is where the company screwed up.

Hidden Values’ complaint mentions that it started using the mark in 1990. That’s the first-use-in-commerce date on its trademark application. But the trademark application wasn’t filed until 2005, after the respondent registered the TriangleKidsDirectory.com domain name. It should have been easy for the lawyer to show some common law rights previous to 2005 that would have been acceptable to the panel, but he dropped the ball:

“In the instant proceeding, Complainant has provided no documentary or other evidence to support the date of first use in Commerce referenced in its trademark application. This Panel therefore finds there to be a lack of evidentiary basis by which it might reasonably conclude that Complainant held rights in the KID’S DIRECTORY trademark prior to the May 12, 1995 [sic] date on which Respondent registered the disputed domain name.”

Had the company’s lawyer provided what should have been easy proof, I bet the company wins this case.

No related posts.

Tags: udrp

Article source: http://domainnamewire.com/2012/05/18/from-the-lawyer-udrp-mistakes-file/. Creative Commons (CC)

In a rare preemptive move to secure the domain name of a product that still does not exist, Apple has apparently won its case to take control of the iPhone5.com domain.

Apple made the news on May 6th when it came to light that they were moving aggressively to acquire the iPhone5.com domain by filing a claim with WIPO, the organization responsible for deciding on intellectual property disputes. As of this morning, it appears that Apple has managed to take control of the iPhone5.com domain.

According to the WIPO website, the case for iPhone5.com has been “terminated,” and the iPhone 5 forum that once occupied it is now gone. The tech media is assuming that Apple won its complaint, however, the fact that the case was “terminated” also suggests that Apple may have settled with the original domain owner.

PC Mag explains that ”The domain now belongs to the brand protection agency Corporation Service Company, which is thought to be working on behalf of Apple to take ownership of the domain,” which also provides Apple with a degree of anonymity in taking over the domain, since their name does not show up when running an I.P check on iPhone5.com.

The significance of Apple taking steps to secure the iPhone.com domain is that the company has never done so in the past for rumored devices devices yet to be released. Cupertino did move to acquire iPhone4S.com, but only well after the release of the iPhone 4S last fall. That domain, along with iPhone.com, redirect to the iPhone category page at Apple.com.

Other key branded domains, such as iPad.com, have still yet to be acquired by Apple.

Some in the tech media are presuming that the rapid, aggressive acquisition of the iPhone5.com domain proves that Apple will indeed be naming the next iPhone “iPhone 5,” in spite of the fact that the 2012 iPhone release will technically be the sixth generation of Apple’s popular smartphone.

Another suggestion is that Apple’s quick moves regarding the iPhone5.com acquisition parallels its seemingly desperate move to gain approval of its new Nano Sim standard with the ETSI, in a bid to pave the way for a possible June release of the iPhone 5. Apple is offering its competitors royalty-free use of its new Nano Sim design in order to facilitate rapid passage of the new standard, a striking move, considering the well-documented patent wars between Apple, Samsung, Nokia, and others in recent years.

These two legal moves by Apple, together with our report from a couple of weeks ago that big things are in the works at Cupertino, points to Apple putting the finishing touches on the iPhone 5 which could very well make a surprise appearance at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
By Michael Nace

// ]]

Article source: http://iphone5newsblog.com/2012/05/18/apple-wins-iphone-5-domain-name/. Creative Commons (CC)

Sin ir más lejos, hace diez años un joven como Zuckerberg, nunca hubiese cobrado relevancia para el público masivo. Pero en la historia de Internet hubo muchas otras personas que fueron clave para su desarrollo y que hoy, lejos de tener el reconocimiento popular que se merecen, siguen siendo personajes de culto.

1. Vinton Cerf. Es conocido como “el padre de Internet” y tal vez es el más popular fuera del ambiente tech. Y no es para menos. Junto a Robert Kahn fue el inventor de los protocolos TCP/IP que hoy todos usamos  y de la arquitectura básica de la web. Comenzó trabajando en el Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) en donde se desarrolló Arpanet, la red que funcionó como precursora de lo que hoy conocemos por Internet. Cerf se desempeña actualmente en el directorio de la Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), desde donde se asignan las direcciones IP. Tiene un título en matemáticas y ciencias de la computación por la Universidad de Standford.

2. Paul Baran. Fue uno de los que inventó las técnicas de envío de paquetes de datos junto a Donald Davies y Leonard Kleinrock. Cuenta con un título en ingeniería electrónica por la Drexel University. Formó parte de la RAND Corporation, donde trabajó en el desarrollo de un sistema de comunicación que pudiera sobrevivir a un ataque nuclear. Recibió premios como la Medalla Nacional de Tecnología e Innovación (en EEUU), entre otras. Falleció a los 84 años, el 26 de marzo de 2011.

3. Robert Kahn. También es nombrado como uno de los “padres de Internet”. Es el co-inventor de la tecnología TCP/IP junto a Vinton Cerf y fue el responsable del diseño general de Arpanet. Fue pionero al tener la idea de una red de arquitectura abierta. Fue galardonado con la Medalla Nacional de Tecnología e Innovación en Estados Unidos. Kahn posee un título en ingeniería por la City College de Nueva York y realizó un master y doctorado en la Universidad de Princeton.

4. Jon Postel. Contribuyó en las bases de Internet al formar parte del proyecto Arpanet. Sus trabajos tuvieron influencia en los protocolos TCP/IP y DNS (Domain Name System), entre otros. Formó parte de los Request for Comment (RFC), una serie de documentos donde se consignan los standards de Internet. Murió a los 55 años, el 16 de octubre de 1998.

5. John Klensin. Fue uno de los hombres clave dentro del desarrollo de los DNS. En 1992, fundó junto a Randy Bush, la Network Startup Resource Center, cuyo objetivo era ayudar  los países a establecer las conexiones con Internet.

Article source: http://www.infotechnology.com/notas/261177-las-cinco-personas-clave-el-desarrollo-internet. Creative Commons (CC)

Oversee.net has hired Raj Beri as General Manager of its travel vertical, the company announced today. Beri was previously Director and COO of IgoUgo, a travel site owned by Travelocity.

The travel vertical is part of Oversee.net’s “vertical markets” business that includes fully developed web sites. Oversee.net is best known to domainers for its DomainSponsor domain parking service.

Oversee.net’s travel properties include LowFares.com, FareSpotter.net, AboutAirportParking.com and AirportParking.com. These are big sites; LowFares.com has a US Quantcast rank of 1,492 and FareSpotter.net is ranked 2,973.

So just how big is Oversee.net’s travel vertical? According to Beri’s LinkedIn profile, it’s a $40MM+ business.

Other vertical markets at Oversee.net include consumer finance (CreditCards.org, IdentityTheft.com) and shopping (ShopWiki.com).

Further Reading:

1. Oversee.net Trademark Attempt Rejected
2. Oversee.net Acquires ShopWiki
3. Oversee.net Launches CreditCards.org Web Site

Tags: lowfares.com, Oversee.net, raj beri

Article source: http://domainnamewire.com/2012/05/17/oversee-net-hires-gm-for-40m-travel-vertical/. Creative Commons (CC)

Of what use is the country code Top Level Domain name, .ng to the economy? It can boost Gross Domestic Product (GDP), drive broadband growth and stimulate economic development, say experts, ADLINE ATILI reports

WITH commercial activities on the Internet on the rise, domain names such as .com, .ng, .uk, .za, .gh, among others, have become part of the standard communications and marketing tools used by businesses to identify themselves, products and activities. Besides boosting the presence of businesses on the Web, experts say domain names, such as the nation’s .ng have the potential to boost the economy as well as ensure rapid uptake of broadband Internet.

An Internet domain name is the address on the Internet. According to the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA), the body charged with the management of the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), .ng is the two-character country code reserved for, and used by Nigeria in consonance with the unique identities upon which a global Internet is predicated. This is, otherwise, referred to as Nigeria’s ccTLD.

A ccTLD, NIRA said, is used or reserved for specific countries, sovereign states or independent territories in the Domain Name System. ng, like our currency, the naira and the +234 country code, is the official Internet Council for Assigned names and Numbers (ICANN)-approved ccTLD for Nigeria, the body stated.

An Information Technology (IT) expert and Managing Partner of TransitIT, an IT consultancy firm, Mr Femi Akinyemi, said domain names were developed to make it easy for people to find things on the Internet. He said the importance of website domain name and its identity is as important as the identity of a human being.

He said: “In the Web world, there are millions of websites. You can imagine how much difficult it would be for the Internet user to find a site without an appropriate name or information. But a domain name makes it all very easy. Basically each website has a unique IP address which is very difficult to remember; therefore it is replaced by a domain name to easily remember and find by people. This is the name you type in the address bar of the Internet browser such as Internet Explorer.”

Akinyemi noted that in the world of electronic commerce (e-commerce), having a domain, especially a local one, will often give the buyer more confidence when making a purchase as they consider the site to be local, therefore governed under the same laws as the buyer. This makes it easier to follow up and sales and make complaints if any problems occur during the purchase of the product. It also helps to settle any nerves if the buyer is able to see a street address that they recognise, rather than a foreign address.

He said that a local domain name would also enable a business owner identify potential and existing customers in any part of the country, their needs and culture. In addition to improving e-commerce, experts say local top level domain names can stimulate economic development in all sectors of the economy.

Chief Executive Officer of One Network, Mr Shola Bickersteth, said adoption of the nation’s ccTLD name has far-reaching economic and societal benefits on the economy in addition to significantly lowering costs for Internet users.

He berated organisations and individuals who use domain names such as .co.uk, .com, .za, in their websites and email addresses, saying there was no comparison between Nigeria and countries that have discovered the inherent benefits of keeping Internet traffic local.

He said: “Most countries now relate their development in terms of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to the number of domain names and impact of such on their GDP. Tokelau is a small island with population of about 1,500 but with a GDP that has risen higher than Nigeria’s because of investment in ICT. The country is among the world’s top 20 domain names with corresponding high GDP.

 “The United Kingdom has about 11million domain names; this means one in every five citizens use the country’s domain name; South Africa is 1:100. The same cannot be said of Nigeria which has only 40,000 registered domain names that is ratio 1:12,000. In Nigeria, for us to hit the global average, we need at least 800,000 registered domain names and for ratio 1:5 to be achievable, we need 30million.”

He criticised organisations and government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) who host critical company and government information at servers located abroad, saying aside revenue repatriated to offshore organisations who own the servers and datacentres, security of critical information and database was at stake.

“A lot of government agencies, banks and other organisations host sensitive information in servers located abroad. This poses serious security risks not only to the organisations but to the nation at large. If those servers are infiltrated, there would be serious problems,” he said.

To address this, he called on the Federal Government to make it mandatory for government officials to use only .ng domain name in websites and email addresses and deny individuals without such, critical government services such as National ID registration, international passport and company registration.

He said in developed countries such as Germany and some parts of the United Kingdom, by law, citizens cannot use any other website except the country’s domain name (.ge in the case of Germany).

On how Internet users can access some websites blocked due to cybercrime issues, Bickersteth called on Google, Yahoo, telecommunications services providers and Internet Service Providers to host their servers and datacentres in the country so that traffic can be routed within the country and be recognised by Internet Protocol addresses of the parent organisations abroad.

Meanwhile, NIRA is putting a lot of effort into boosting the economy by N250million annually, through adoption of the .ng domain name. NIRA said it would spend N11million on infrastructure upgrade as part of measures to achieve its target of registering 250,000 .ng ccTLD domain names by 2013.

Chief Operating Officer of NIRA, Mr Ope Odusan, said the upgrade was critical to facilitating growth of the nation’s domain name, “which is Nigeria’s unique identifier or signature on the World Wide Web, as approved by the ICANN, adding that this would contribute N250million annually to the economy.”

According to him, “With a vision to benchmark the .ng registry with world-class registries and maximise efforts to increase the uptake of the .ng domains to 250,000 within a short period, it has become paramount to make the technical infrastructure of the registry more robust.”

He said plans have reached an advanced stage to invest N11million in equipment upgrade for the achievement of the target, adding that such infrastructure investment would focus on network subsystem and server upgrade, power systems upgrade, redundant bandwidth provision and customer support system.

Highlighting NIRA’s business goals for the year, Odusan said the Internet body would increase .ng domains by 50 per cent; ensure stability and security of .ng ccTLD; organise the ‘Swhichto.ng Campaign’ in five more geopolitical zones in the country, as well as organise Internet awards by the fourth quarter of 2012.

He said: “With the Switchto .ng campaign, our target is to have 250,000 registered domain names in the .ng registry for government MDAs, businesses, educational institutions, and individuals who use the Internet daily. This would contribute N250million annually to the economy.”

According to him, “Rather than registering our emails, websites and other Internet presence in foreign domain names, and hosting our Internet presence abroad, where our information could be tampered with, it would be more beneficial to us as individuals, businesses and as a nation to adopt the .ng domain name.”

He stressed that to achieve its business goals, NIRA would review and update relevant policies concerning the registry, registrants and registrars; strengthen industry engagement; improve complaints and dispute resolution mechanisms, as well as develop a Memorandum of Understanding for registry operators.

On how the .ng domain name would drive broadband growth, Odusan said government services under the .ng domain like electronic payment of salaries, application forms for government services will encourage faster adoption of broadband Internet services. Speaking in the same vein, President of NIRA, Mrs Mary Uduma, said if more Nigerians on the .ng domain name integrate the Internet, broadband services, computers and various mobile telephony devices into their daily lives, the country would witness an information revolution that would impact positively on all segments of the economy.

She added that adoption of .ng could rake in huge foreign exchange earnings for the economy and make possible 50 per cent growth rate in Internet usage over the next decade.

She said: “With enabling regulatory policies, it is possible to achieve an average of 50 per cent growth rate in Internet usage over the next decade. This would translate to more Nigerian content on the World Wide Web, thereby counteracting the pervasiveness of 419 scammers; .ng could attract 50 per cent of this figure. The advantage of the sheer size of our population makes the figure enormous.”

She enjoined corporate Nigerians to tow the path of being identified by the truly Nigerian brand on the World Wide Web with pride. According to her, the usage of .ng by credible Nigerians and corporate citizens will facilitate the needful change in the current battered image of the country on the Internet. 

Mrs Uduma opined that a wide adoption of .ng by Nigerians shall constitute a good tool in the effort to project the good people of Nigeria and the nation, noting that, “Our collective adoption of the .ng will be a strong tool in reversing the adverse publicity projected by foreign media.

She noted that: “The ‘bad image’ war will be won on local and international fronts when institutions of government; credible, real and legal persons and entities in Nigeria, adopt the use of the .ng, not just from a consumerism perspective, but by generating Nigerian content on the Internet.”

She urged the National Assembly to enact policies that would enforce the adoption of the .ng domain name and emails for government-to-government, government-to-business and government-to-citizen transactions, to engender economic growth and vitality.

“Our prayer to the government is to put in place a legislative mandate that would compel the adoption of a government policy to recognise only .ng domain name and emails for government-to-government, government-to-business and government-to-citizen transactions.

 She listed the challenges of the .ng domain name to include: the dent on Nigeria’s image due to the activities of scammers, ignorance and lack of awareness, perceived instability of the system, dearth of funding and inadequate government mandate, saying a holistic approach was needed to explore the .ng ‘goldmine.’

“Our objective is to engender the deployment of the Internet to bring immense economic growth and vitality to the nation. Also, that the .ng be integrated into the re-branding project of the Ministry of Information and that there should be an enforcement unit for the use of .ng domain and emails,” she said.

Article source: http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/business/infotech/46802-using-nigeria%E2%80%99s-domain-name-for-economic-growth.html. Creative Commons (CC)