ICANN warns deadline new gTLD owners to delegate, .emerson terminates its registry agreement

ICANN has warned new top level domain name applicants whose contracts have been signed to move to the delegation phase. One .brand new gTLD applicant Emerson Electric Co (NYSE:EMR) has terminated its new TLD ambitions. There are about 200 TLDs with approaching delegation deadlines between now and the end of August 2016. ICANN is working …

DomainMondo: dotAFRICA, Public Interest, Judge Holds ICANN Accountable

It was a rough week for arrogant and unaccountable ICANN. A U.S. District Court Judge, The Honorable R. Gary Klausner, in Los Angeles, actually held the California corporation accountable, a rare event, to which most stakeholders can attest, sweeping aside every one of the arguments interposed by Jones Day, ICANN’s lawyers, and granted a preliminary injunction “barring …

.Africa: US Court grants Injunction to DCA Trust, says Balance of Equities tips in favor of DCA

On April 12, 2016, a United States District Court in Central District Of California has granted DCA Trust a Preliminary Injunction on the .Africa gTLD, the decision was made for case no. 16-CV-00862 RGK (JCx) [PDF],  DotConnectAfrica Trust v. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers & ZA Central Registry. This will be the second …

.Africa: ICANN’s Self-Described “Discretion” Doesn’t Grant It Absolute Immunity

ICANN had an “unbridled discretion” to do as it pleases with DCA’s .Africa application   But no gTLD applicant would expect that this “discretion” could include biased, arbitrary, and unfair treatment, after submitting an $185,000 application fee to ICANN” – DCA Trust DCA Trust has filed an opposition to ICANN’s Claim to dismiss its first amended …

ICANN accused of Stonewalling Congress by US Senators Cruz, Lankford & Lee

On Monday, April 4th 2016, Senator and Republican Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz along with James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have sent yet another pressing letter to ICANN seeking feedback about outgoing CEO Fadi Chehadé’s and ICANN’s relationship with the Chinese government and the planned transition away from U.S. government oversight of the Internet. …

DCA Trust Preliminary Injunction on .Africa Proves Likelihood To Succeed In Court: Here is Why?

DCA recently dismissed ICANN’s opposition to its preliminary injunction on delegation of .Africa as #HotAir, in a news report covered  by the premier DomainNewsAfrica. On January 20, 2016, DCA Trust took ICANN to court over a disagreement with how ICANN processed its application, after DCA prevailed in the Independent Review Process (“IRP”) against ICANN in …

Cybersquatting cases are on the rise triggered by New gTLDs says WIPO

According to the latest report from The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), trademark owners filed 2,754 cases under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) with the agency in 2015 — an increase of 4.6 % over the previous year. The cybersquatting disputes related to new gTLDs accounted for 10.5% of UDRP caseload in …