domains

ICANN, the Internet overseer that's begun a process to expand Net domains dramatically beyond the likes of .com and .edu, said today 100 organizations have registered to get involved.

The expansion concerns generic top-level domains, or GTLDs. ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) spent years putting the new program together so the Internet could use Web and e-mail addresses ending in .paris, .canon, .hotel, and .eco.

As of Monday, 100 registrants successfully joined the program, but ICANN didn't say who they are or what GTLDs they're seeking to establish. Organizations have until March 29 … Read more

Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and H.G. Wells' "Things to Come" may have first been published decades ago, and have long been in the public domain, but that doesn't mean they won't soon be under copyright once again.

That could be the result of a Supreme Court ruling today that Congress can re-copyright public domain works, Wired wrote.

With its 6-2 decision in Golan v. Holder (PDF), the top U.S. court held that Congress has the duty to comply with an international treaty known as the Berne Convention, which permits re-copyrighting works--books, musical … Read more

You're one of the 2.1 billion people actively using the Internet.

Looking at the state of the online world throughout 2011, traffic site Pingdom found that the number of Internet users has jumped from a mere 360 million at the end of 2000 and now accounts for 30 percent of the planet's population.

Sweeping across the continents, Asia holds 922 million Internet users, Europe has 476 million, and North America is in third place with 271 million. Drilling down to individual countries, China is on top with 485 million people using the Internet, more than 36 percent … Read more

ICANN has started to accept applications for new generic top-level domains, which will include words for brands and non-Latin characters.

The organization said that the move "could trigger a dramatic expansion of the Internet" in a statement yesterday to mark today's launch.

"Starting today, ICANN begins accepting applications for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs)," said the statement. "The world of .com, .gov, .org and 19 other gTLDs will soon be expanded to include all types of words in many different languages."

Read more of "ICANN opens generic domain application process" at … Read more

Salesforce.com lost an attempt to gain control of the domain name Forces.com, which it wanted because it has a product called Force.com.

The panel that handles disputes about domain names, the National Arbitration Forum, said in its ruling that Salesforce.com doesn't have rights to the name because the owner, Internet Venture Holdings, registered Forces.com before Salesforce.com trademarked and began using Force.com.

Salesforce.com argued that Internet Venture Holdings was typo-squatting--in other words, using a name that's confusingly similar to its trademark with the hope that sloppy typers will end up on … Read more

Go Daddy is trying really, really hard to distance itself from the Stop Online Piracy Act.

The domain registrar today announced that its name is no longer on a U.S. Congressional list of SOPA supporters. That's right: Go Daddy is announcing that its name has been removed from a list. But it's not just any list to Go Daddy. The company's off-and-on love affair with SOPA is having a profound impact on its operation. And at this point, even saying that it's not on a list is important for the company.

SOPA, which was introduced … Read more

Playboy's frequent portfolios of college women across the U.S. are bad enough--never mind the prospect of porn sites with names like "www.USCleazy.xxx."

That seems to be the thinking employed by colleges that, according to the Associated Press, are grabbing .xxx domain names to keep them off the market and prevent the sullying of their collegiate reputations.

The AP offers up the example of the University of Kansas, which, it says, spent nearly $3,000 to lock down names like "www.KUgirls.xxx" and "www.KUnurses.xxx."

Businesses, too, are buying … Read more

Apple has won its dispute with a domain name squatter and now is in control of iphonesex4s.com and six other names that contain the term "iPhone."

Apple filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization earlier this month, aiming to gain control of the names.

The names still serve up sites pushing porn--so you've been warned--but Apple terminated the case this morning. All seven names are now controlled by brand protection agency MarkMonitor, the company that handles domain names for most big companies, including Apple.

Domain Name Wire, which first reported the story, said Apple … Read more

Porn bigwig Manwin Licensing International has filed a lawsuit arguing that the new .xxx top-level domain arises from a monopoly aimed at hurting the adult film industry.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which obtained the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, Manwin specifically targets the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN), as well as ICM Registry, the company that is managing the domain. In the suit, Manwin argues that those companies have engaged in "monopolistic conduct, price gouging, and anticompetitive and unfair practices," according to the Journal.… Read more