Tag Archives: domain names

Make sure you own your domain name

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That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows.

It is important that every business or organization has their domain names (eg slaw.ca) registered in their own name, and that the administrative contact is a senior person within the business.

There are a couple of reasons for that.

Domain names are often registered by an advertising agency, web designer, or IT provider for one of their customers. They should register it in their customer’s name, but often register it in their own name because it is simpler and easier for them.

Given that domain names are valuable assets, they ought to be registered in the actual owner’s name. The problem arises when for some reason the relationship goes sour and the party in whose name your domain is registered refuses to transfer ownership to you, or keeps control of the site, or disables the site.

While there are procedures available to get your domain name back, they take time and money.

If you were counting on getting that new web site up to launch a new product or business, it might be delayed for weeks or months while the domain name is wrestled back.

Even if the domain name is registered in the rightful owner’s name, if the administrative contact is in another party’s name, it can lead to similar problems. Domain name registrars will only take instructions from the administrative contact. That could be for assigning the name, or renewing, or to change the administrative contact.

There are processes available to change the administrative contact without the consent of the listed administrative contact. But because the risk of fraud and abuse is so high, the registrar puts you through a significant process to ensure that the domain name is not being hijacked.

This is one of those things that is simple to get right from the outset, but can be a major pain in terms of time and money to fix if it goes wrong.

As a client recently put it: “All this for a $20 domain … sad”.

A domain name is property

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For the London Free Press – September 19, 2011 – Read this on Canoe

Whether a domain name (such as www.harrisonpensa.com) is property that one owns — or just “a bundle of rights” — has been the subject of legal debate. The Ontario Court of Appeal recently said it is property.

The domain-name-as-property position makes sense in a world where, for example, in the early 2000s, wallstreet.com sold for more than $1 million and wine.com for more than $3 million.

Domain names are registered on a first-come, first-serve basis. The individual or company that registers the name receives the exclusive right to use the name, for which it pays a fee of a few dollars per year.

Registrars accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers act as overlord, allowing domain registrants to use the domain name subject to any restrictions they may impose.

If a domain name is a licence, clauses may be included in a service agreement that might, for example, impose restrictions on assignment. If a domain name is property, such restrictions may be hard to uphold. If a domain name is property, a registrant will have rights relating to the domain name which include the right to use, convey, develop, exclude, bequeath, profit from, assign and dispose of, with or without consideration.

A licence is a special permission to do something on, or with somebody else’s property which, were it not for the licence, could be legally prevented or give rise to legal action.

Conversely, property is the right to control how and by whom a particular thing may be used. If a domain name is a licence, registrants are at the mercy of the registrar to determine how the domain name will be used. If a domain name is property, the registrants are free to use the domain name in any manner they like and cannot be legally prevented from doing so by the registrar.

In the recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision, Tucows.Com Co v. Lojas Renner S.A. (2009), the court settled the licence/property debate, at least in Ontario.

Tucows.Com Co. (“Tucows”) is the registrant of more than 30,000 domain names. Lojas Renner (“Renner”) is a Brazilian subsidiary of JC Penny and has registered the trademark Renner in Brazil and other states. Renner made a complaint to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers regarding Tucows’ registration of the domain name “Renner.” In response, Tucows initiated its own action in Ontario for ownership of the domain name.

The Ontario Court of Appeal examined the traditional common-law attributes of property, specifically whether there exists “a collection of rights over things that can be enforced against others.” The court found the rights associated with a domain name include those rights.

As a result, the Ontario Court of Appeal found the domain name, as a business asset of Tucows, was intangible property.

This decision won’t have dramatic impact on the day-to-day use of domain names, but helps clarify their legal status for many issues ranging from ownership disputes to the right to bequeath them to heirs.

1 character .biz names about to be auctioned

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The Webnames.ca newsletter points out that starting September 23, 1 character .biz names will be auctioned off.   That means addresses such as 1.biz, and a.biz .

It will be interesting to see what kind of money these go for.  On the one hand, single character domain names are as easy to remember as they come.  But on the other hand, they are not intuitively descriptive or obvious ones to try unless a business has some customer connection with a letter or number.  And most people don’t think of .biz as a TLD of choice.

Domain name rules to change in 2009

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for the London Free Press – Dec 1, 2008

Read this on Canoe

A recent decision by the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization responsible for global co-ordination of the Internet’s addressing system, will permit companies and individuals to turn their names into Web addresses: www.david.canton, for example.

The wrinkle? The fee to obtain .canton as a TLD, or top level domain, is about $200,000.

This year, ICANN relaxed the strict rules on TLDs, paving the way for alternatives to .com and the 21 generic TLDs serving the Net. There are also country-level TLDs such as .ca for Canada.

Now ICANN is about to allow new generic top level domains (gTLDs) that anyone can create, opening the door for companies to register their brands as gTLDs, such as “.coke”.

“The Internet has produced great openness and innovation that has led to changes few of us imagined,” said Paul Twomey, ICANN’s president and chief executive. “The effect of opening up the top-level of the domain system will enable more innovation and entrepreneurial applications.”

ICANN also plans to introduce domain names in various languages and scripts, including Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian. This proposal would permit Internet addresses to be created in completely non-English characters for the first time, opening the Internet to millions more people worldwide.

Currently, the addressing system only supports 37 Roman characters. ICANN’s chairperson, Peter Dengate Thrush, has said this move “is going to be very important for the future of the Internet in Asia, the Middle East, eastern Europe and Russia.”

ICANN’s proposal is not without its critics, however. Opponents argue that it will be costly, difficult to administer and could lead to bidding wars over more generic names.

In addition, trademarks will not be automatically reserved. Owners will have to resort to an objection-based mechanism to make arguments for the protection of their trademarks.

ICANN assures critics that these concerns have been “listened to and taken into account.”

The organization released a draft of the applicant guidebook on Oct. 23, 2004, for those interested in applying for a new gTLD. On Oct. 24, 2008, ICANN began the first of two 45-day public comment periods.

ICANN warns, however, that “potential applicants for new gTLDs should not rely on any of the proposed details of the draft guidebook, which remains subject to further consultation and revision.”

With the final applicant guidebook slated for release early next year, ICANN expects to accept bids for new gTLDs as early as the second quarter of 2009.

During the application period, which is expected to be limited, “any established entity from anywhere in the world can submit an application that will go through an evaluation process.”

New gTLDs could be in use as early as the last half of 2009.

ICANN expects additional application periods will follow soon after the initial process ends.