News, insight and opinions
from Com Laude experts.

Domain name transfers: tracking your technical settings

Written by Phillipa Pook on 10.02.2012

Transferring a domain name can be more complicated than you might first expect. It’s not difficult, but you have to take care of all the fine details. In performing transfers recently, I’ve noticed that a lot of people forget about the importance of a domain name’s technical settings.

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ICANN opens the doors to new gTLDs applications

Written by Ashley Roberts on 12.01.2012

Today marks the first day of the application period within which parties can apply to ICANN to run a new generic top-level domain (gTLD).

After seven years of contentious policy development and planning, the new gTLD programme is finally live and accepting submissions to the TLD Application System (TAS). According to ICANN, the programme could “trigger a massive expansion of the internet”.

Potential applicants have until 29 March to begin their application in TAS, and until 12 April to complete it.

Com Laude’s sister company, Valideus, is working with a number of companies and brand owners to make their applications at this historic phase of the internet’s history.

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Trademark Clearinghouse under construction

Written by Ashley Roberts on 12.01.2012

Work is underway on the construction of the trademark clearinghouse for the new gTLD programme. The clearinghouse is expected to open its doors in October this year, according to a new document published by ICANN.

The clearinghouse is one of the trademark protection measures fought for by Com Laude in the policy development process for new gTLDs, the application window for which opens on Thursday. The clearinghouse will allow brand owners to deposit their trademarks so that they can be used by several other rights protection mechanisms, such as the IP Claims service, which notifies a brand owner in the case of a potentially infringing second-level domain name registration.

Nine companies responded to ICANN’s tender process in a bid to run the clearinghouse. Reading between the lines of the document released by the ICANN board after a meeting last week, four of those nine competitors just were not up to scratch.

The document states: “A clear division could be discerned between those responses that represented a feasible approach in terms of timeliness, effectiveness, cost, and experience, and those that would require additional capacity development or additional complex work streams to implement within the required timeframe. Based on this analysis a shortlist of five candidate providers has been invited for follow-up discussions.”

These follow-up discussions are taking place now, in the form of oral presentations. This process is supported through the Implementation Advisory Group (IAG), which comprises IP lawyers, registrars and registries.

The board expects the selection to be made in early February.

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New gTLD customer service centre feels the strain

Written by Nick Wood on 07.01.2012

Anyone interested in applying for a new gTLD may have come into contact with ICANN’s Customer Service Portal. Launched last November, it is the only way of submitting a query to ICANN staff on the new gTLD programme. We have sent many questions through the portal for our clients, some seeking clarification on the fine detail of the application process others on substantial points. Unfortunately we have been so underwhelmed by the experience that we would be hard pressed to award more than 3/10 to ICANN for its efforts.

“Should have done better” is our verdict. Can you imagine how frustrating it is to ask a question about a requirement in the Applicant Guidebook where the drafting is unclear only to be told that the answer is stated in the Guidebook? Furthermore, the customer service staff seen unable to respond in a timely fashion: some of our queries have lain unanswered for two or three weeks.

Whilst we are having a moan, we might as well mention that the library of documents that ICANN promised it would provide within the portal is lamentably inadequate. On the rare occasion that a document is helpful, its presentation leaves much to be desired. Documents are not indexed to a system that we recognise, there are many duplicates and it is not possible to sort the hundreds of documents by date so you might miss the latest update.

Of course it is easy to throw rocks and ICANN is a soft target. We acknowledge that the customer service centre is probably being inundated with questions, but ICANN has had nearly five years to get ready for the launch of the new gTLDs.

With a new gTLD application representing a significant financial investment by any applicant, ICANN really must try harder to make sure that the application policies, rules and requirements are clear for all. Let’s hope that this is simply teething trouble, not a precursor to trouble ahead.

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