.mobi Goes Live--Registration Windows Announced

A new sponsored generic Top Level Domain, .mobi or dotMobi, went live this week. dotMobi is dedicated to delivering Internet content to mobile devices. On Monday May 22, the mobile industry will have an opportunity to register their trademark names as dotmobi domain names. The mobile industry has been defined by mTLD and consists of companies that are members of mobile industry organizations such as AMTA, CTIA, CWTA, GSMA, MEF, MMA, NZ Wireless Forum and the RCA. This Limited Industry Sunrise continues until Monday May 29.

Trademark Sunrise
Monday June 12 is the start of the Trademark Sunrise when all other trademark holders can register their trademark as dotmobi domain names. Trademark Sunrise continues until Monday August 21, a period of 70 days.

General Registration
Beginning on August 28, .mobi registration is open to everyone. This period is General Registration and continues indefinitely. General Registration commences with a two-week period known as Landrush; during Landrush, available .mobi domain names will be able to be registered at special prices.

EBay Wins! (at least for now)

The US Supreme Court has reversed a Federal Circuit decision enjoining eBay from practicing two business method patents owned by MercExchange that read on EBay's "Buy-It-Now" feature. The Supremes held that the Federal Circuit erred in not applying in patent cases the traditional four-factor test that must be considered when deciding whether to grant injunctive relief. They thus sent it back to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to apply the four equitable factors:

"a plaintiff seeking a permanent injunction must satisfy a four-factor test before a court may grant such relief. A plaintiff must demonstrate: (1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury; (3) that, considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction." See EBAY INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS v.MERCEXCHANGE, L. L. C., 547 U.S. ___ (2006), Slip Op. at 2, available at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/05pdf/05-130.pdf.

Maryland Spam, Part Two

The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland reinstated the Maryland Commercial Electronic Mail Act (MCEMA), which prohibits anyone from sending or assisting in the sending of emails with false or misleading information from computers in Maryland or to Maryland residents. The Court reversed the Circuit Court (see below post), and held that (1) the MCEMA does not violate the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution (2) the state did not lack personal jurisdiction over defendant First Choice, a New York based Internet marketing company, in a suit alleging MCEMA violations, and (3) the company’s president could be held personally liable for the company’s alleged violations. MaryCLE v. First Choice Internet, Inc., —-A.2d—-, 2006 WL 173659 (Md.App.).

Yahoo sued!

Spyware guru Ben Edleman has signed on to sue Yahoo! over allegations that it uses typosquatting and spyware to generate revenue in its ad placement programs. See http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/05/class_action_targets_yahoo_ove_1.html. The case presents several examples of click fraud and related practices. A pdf of the complaint is available here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/technology/documents/yahoo_may2006.pdf

Maryland Spam Law

Maryland's 2002 Commercial Electronic Mail Act was declared unconstitutional in early December 2004. But appeals courts in California and Washington have upheld similar laws in those states that were declared unconstitutional at a trial court level, so there is hope. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A274-2004Dec14.html

ICANN News: New TLD's

On May 10, 2006, ICANN's Board of Directors voted against a proposed agreement for a .XXX. Sponsored Top Level Domain (sTLD). [Note: sTLD's are referred to as "sponsored" since they are reserved for use by a specific community.] The application was proposed by the ICM Registry.

Here is the list of all current Generic Top Level Domains, as administered by IANA. Note that some are reserved and some are open to anyone:

The .aero domain is reserved for members of the air-transport industry and is sponsored by Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques (SITA).
The .biz domain is restricted to businesses and is operated by NeuLevel, Inc.
The .cat domain is reserved for the Catalan linguistic and cultural community and is sponsored by Fundació puntCat
The .com domain is operated by VeriSign Global Registry Services.
The .coop domain is reserved for cooperative associations and is sponsored by Dot Cooperation LLC.
The .info domain is operated by Afilias Limited.
The .jobs domain is reserved for human resource managers and is sponsored by Employ Media LLC.
The .mobi domain is reserved for consumers and providers of mobile products and services and is sponsored by mTLD Top Level Domain, Ltd.
The .museum domain is reserved for museums and is sponsored by the Museum Domain Management Association.
The .name domain is reserved for individuals and is operated by Global Name Registry.
The .net domain is operated by VeriSign Global Registry Services.
The .org domain is operated by Public Interest Registry. It is intended to serve the noncommercial community, but all are eligible to register within .org.
The .pro domain is restricted to credentialed professionals and related entities and is operated by RegistryPro.
The .travel domain is reserved for entities whose primary area of activity is in the travel industry and is sponsored by Tralliance Corporation.

Registrations in the domains listed above may be made through dozens of competitive registrars. For a list of the currently operating accredited registrars, go to the InterNIC site.
Information about becoming an accredited registrar is available on the ICANN site.

The .gov domain is reserved exclusively for the United States Government. It is operated by the US General Services Administration.
The .edu domain is reserved for postsecondary institutions accredited by an agency on the U.S. Department of Education's list of Nationally Recognized Accrediting Agencies and is registered only through Educause.
The .mil domain is reserved exclusively for the United States Military. It is operated by the US DoD Network Information Center.
The .int domain is used only for registering organizations established by international treaties between governments. It is operated by the IANA .int Domain Registry.

These are the gTLD's that are accessible via the Domain Name System ("DNS"). There are also several domains that operate outside of the DNS. See http://www.new.net/

For more information on gTLD's and registries, see http://www.icann.org/registries/listing.html

Welcome!

This is Brad Frazer's newest blog, specific to Internet legal issues.