Archive for January, 2008
« Older Entries |ICANN Proposal to end Domain Tasting
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
ICANN has announced a proposal to end domain tasting by charging the annual ICANN fee at the time a domain name is registered. If this proposal is approved, then whenever a domain name registration is deleted during the five-day Add Grace Period, only the registration fee (and not the ICANN fee) will be refunded to the Registrant. (See our earlier post describing Google’s efforts to take the profitability out of domain tasting.)
According to ICANN, in January, 2007 “the top 10 domain tasters accounted for 95% of all deleted .com and .net domain names” (45,450,897 domain names out of 47,824,131 total deletes).
Dr. Paul Twomey, ICANN’s President and CEO, stated “Charging the ICANN fee as soon as a domain is registered would close the loophole used by tasters to test a domain name’s profitability for free.”
ICANN’s proposal will be part of the budget process for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2008 and will have to be approved. ICANN-accredited registrars representing at least 2/3 of ICANN fees collected will be asked to approve this proposal.
Posted in Domain Name Disputes | 1 Comment »
Setting Aside a Trademark Default Judgment
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
We recently reported on the trial judge’s decision in Louis Vuitton Malletier S.A. et al. v. Yang et al., a case which discussed the type of damages which can be awarded against a Defendant trading in counterfeit goods.
One of the Defendants in that case, Lin Pi-Chu Yang (also known as Pi-Chu Lin, Wai Ying, Martina and Coco), brought a motion to set aside the Default Judgment by arguing that she was never served with the Statement of Claim and that she had no interest whatsoever (other than as the lessor of the premises) in the business known as K2 Fashions, which traded in the counterfeit goods.
The Federal Court declined the order requested on the basis that the Defendant failed to meet the well-established test for setting aside a default judgment (1. a reasonable explanation for the failure to file a Statement of Defence; 2. a prima facie defence on the merits to the Plaintiff’s claim; and 3. that the Defendant moved promptly to set aside the Default Judgment.) Although Ms. Lin met the third element of the test given her promptness in seeking to set aside the Default Judgment, Ms. Lin was unable to satisfy the Court that there was a reasonable explanation for her failure to file a Statement of Defence, or that she had a prima facie defence on the merits to the Plaintiff’s claim. While Ms. Lin argued that as a landlord and not an owner of K2 Fashions she should not be liable in respect of counterfeit stock, the evidence showed Ms. Lin to be “the person in control of the business”. Furthermore, an affidavit by a licensed private investigator was presented to the Court which showed that Ms. Lin had been correctly served with the Statement of Claim.
Accordingly, the motion to set aside the Default Judgment was dismissed.
Posted in Case Law | No Comments »
Taking the Profit out of Domain Tasting
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
According to a recent article Google will stop allowing Google ads to appear on websites that are linked to by domain names that Google has determined are being kited. The article states that Google will introduce a system to detect “domain kiting”.
Under the current registration system for .com domain names, a registrant has a five-day grace period between the date of domain name registration and the date of payment for such registration. Registrants can delete a domain name registration during that time period at no cost. Through the practice called “domain tasting”, registrants are able to take advantage of this grace period by generating ad revenue with newly registered domain names by linking them to active websites and then cancelling the registrations for those domain names that have not generated sufficient revenue within the grace period. “Domain kiting” is the practice of deleting registered domain names within the grace period and then immediately re-registering such domain names in order to start a new grace period.
Posted in Domain Name Disputes | 2 Comments »