Safenames has partnered with Distil Networks, the global leader in bot mitigation. Together, we empower our customers to protect their website, mobile apps, and APIs from automated threats. Competitors, hackers, and fraudsters alike use malicious bots, which are the key culprits behind web scraping, account takeovers, competitive data mining, online fraud and downtime. Distil Networks offers industry leading techniques to defend against bad bots – without impacting legitimate users. By building a fingerprint of each incoming connection, Distil Networks allow customers to precisely detect bots in real time and then provides numerous options to mitigate the attack.

Court documents denying a motion to dismiss(pdf), reveal that hosting company Solid Host, NL is suing domain name registration company NameCheap.com over cybersquatting claims for a domain name registered under the NameCheap whois privacy services WhoisGuard. Solid Host’s domain name had reportedly been stolen by a “hacker” who used NameCheap’s privacy service.

Safenames has received its accreditation to provision domain names directly from the Peruvian registry. This allows Safenames’ customers to extend their brand(s) to Peru by registering .pe extensions with Safenames. As experts in registry rules and registration regulations for .pe, Safenames will help customers promote and protect trademarked brands in Peru with ease and efficiency.

The social networking Web site, Facebook, announced that it will now allow users (individuals and companies), the ability to personalize Web links their Facebook profiles. Therefore, a company can now create a custom URL that would be www.facebook.com/comany_name which would be linked to its Facebook profile.

ICANN announced yesterday that the registries for four country code top level domains have the successfully completed the IDN ccTLD Fast Track String Evaluation. The approved requests are from Egypt, the Russian Federation, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Presently, ICANN has received a total of 16 requests for an IDN ccTLD String Evaluation review that represent eight languages.

During 36th International Public ICANN Meeting presently being held in Seoul, Korea, ICANN announced that there will be another delay in the launch of new generic TLD extensions. While ICANN did not provide a timeline for when the applications will begin, it is expected that the launch will be delayed until at least the later half of 2010.

In light of the ICANN Board approval on 30 October 2009 for a modification to the implementation rules for Uniform Domain Name Resolutions Process, ICANN formally announced that beginning on 10 March 2010 all UDRP’s must be filed electronically.

ICANN is soliciting information, advice and proposed models as it considers soliciting expressions of interest in new gTLDs. The public comment forum will be open until December 11, 2009 however, community members that wish to have their input considered by the Board during its December meeting, should submit comments no later than November 27, 2009.

SHARM El SHEIKH - With the launch of the Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) ccTLD Fast Track Process by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Egyptian Minister of Communications Tarek Kamel revealed that Egypt will open the world's first Arabic language internet domain.

In response to the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s Court order from October 2008 (whereby Safenames was ordered to initiate the transfer of the domain name FullTiltPoker.com) Safenames’ client Pocket Kings initiated proceedings in the English High Court to obtain a declaration from the High Court of Justice;

NIC-Brazil has announced that there will be a 6 month Sunrise period for the .net.br domain extension. Any registrant of a “.com.br” domain, registered prior to 6th April 2009 will be eligible to register the same domain name in the “.net.br” extension. This Sunrise period will last until 6th October 2009.

ICANN announced that the third verison of the the New gTLD Application Guidebook is now available for review. To read the complete guidebook visit http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/draft-rfp-clean-04oct09-en.pdf

Lamar Smith and Howard Coble, two senior leaders of the House Committee on the Judiciary in the US Congress, sent a letter to new ICANN president, Rod Beckstorm on the issue of new Top Level Domains.

A summary of the 223 Public Comments received between 29 May 2009 and 6 July 2009 on the IRT final report is being compiled. Additionally staff is reviewing the IRT recommended solutions to incorporate, as appropriate, into the draft Applicant Guidebook version 3 planned to be published in September 2009.

In September 2009, the current contract between ICANN and the US Government is due to expire. There is speculation that this will mark a truly privatised ICANN which will be based outside of America, possibly in Europe, for the first time since its conception.

ICANN recently posted an acknowledgement of the 10 expressions of interest (EOI) received for evaluation panel roles for new gTLDs. ICANN has elected to re-open the EOI process and has posted an amended EOI summary, dated 31 July, 2009 on the ICANN website.

ICANN has received a proposal from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) regarding suggested changes to the implementation rules to allow for a paperless UDRP proceeding, or “eUDRP.” The proposal also includes sections relating to proposed changes to WIPO's supplemental rules for the administration of UDRP proceedings.

Beginning in June and concluding in early August, ICANN initiated a series of Global Consultation and Outreach events. The initial locations for these events were Sydney, New York, London Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi.

Events will be held by ICANN to update the global Internet community on the plans for new gTLDs, the timing of launch and an opportunity to discuss trademark issues related to this initiative.

Two new reports are available for review and comment. The first report addresses ICANN’s proposed methods for the introduction of new gTLDs. The second report is in regards to the market for registration services as authorized by the ICANN Board.

To address a 2008 request from NTIA to secure the DNS system from vulnerabilities, ICANN has announced that it is working with the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)

Japan Registry Services have published their JP Domain Name Registry Report 2008 which stated that, as of May 1 2009, there have been 1,090,476 registrations

The Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT), formed by representatives of ICANN's Intellectual Property Constituency, posted its Final Report on Trademark Protection in New gTLDs.

ICANN continues to work on the details of the launch of the new gTLD Program. The public comment period on the second version of the applicant guidebook recently closed and the organization’s attention continues to focus on the discussion and resolution of the four, previously identified, overarching issues:

The registry operator of the ccTLD for the .MX domain extension, NIC.MX, has announced that it will make domains at the second level available for registration. Businesses will soon be able to register “company.mx” verses “company.com.mx”. In an effort to help registrants protect brands associated with existing third level domains such COM.MX, .NET.MX, .ORG.MX, .EDU.MX, or .GOB.MX, NIC.MX

ICANN opened a public comment forum on a proposed amendment from RegistryPro to Appendix C and K of the .PRO Registry Agreement. On 8 April 2009, ICANN posted for public information a request submitted by RegistryPro through the Registry Services Evaluation Process (RSEP).

Don't miss the opportunity to get the CO.NL that you want. The new CO.NL domain extension does not have any restrictions, residency rules nor local contact requirements. Any business or individual can register a CO.NL domain. Landrush Period - March 17, 2009 to March 31, 2009