Hi Joly, The "big question" was asked by the folks over at Domain Name Wire: "I assume the $33 million judgment, if ever collected, would doom OnlineNic. But what role and under what timeline should ICANN step in to protect customers of OnlineNic?" Let's see what ICANN chooses to do given the circumstances. At the very least, you would think that some type of announcement or advisory would be in order. --- On Fri, 12/26/08, WWWhatsup <joly@punkcast.com> wrote:
From: WWWhatsup <joly@punkcast.com> Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] Another Cybersquatting Registrar To: "NA Discuss" <na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Cc: "At-Large Worldwide" <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Date: Friday, December 26, 2008, 7:11 PM
The OnlineNIC story was also in yesterday's NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/technology/companies/25verizon.html
from the article:
OnlineNic registered more than 900,000 domain names similar to some of the world’s biggest companies, including Google, Adidas, the News Corporation’s MySpace, Wal-Mart Stores and Yahoo, Verizon said in court papers. Verizon accused OnlineNic of using an automated process to register the addresses and employing “numerous means to conceal its true identity.”
OnlineNic’s Web site says the company has been an accredited registrar since 1996 for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, the organization that oversees the functioning of the Internet.
OnlineNic did not immediately respond to e-mail messages seeking comment. Directory assistance could not provide a number for the company. No lawyers for the company were listed on the court docket.
j
At 03:40 PM 12/25/2008, Danny wrote: ICANN accredited registrar OnlineNIC "unlawfully registered at least 663 domain names that were either identical to or confusingly similar to Verizon trademarks". A federal court in the Northern District of California calculated an award based on $50,000 per domain name and awarded Verizon $33.15 million.
Joly MacFie 212 608 1334 http://wwwhatsup.com http://punkcast.com http://pinstand.com
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