Donald Trump loses second UDRP case

Former US president Donald Trump has lost a second cybersquatting case related to his Mar-a-Lago resort, where he lives in Florida.

A three-person WIPO panel late last month ruled that DTTM Holdings, which has owned a trademark on the term Mar-a-Lago since 1997, had failed to show that the registrant of maralago.com, Michael Gargiulo, did not have a legitimate interest in the domain.

Gargiulo, an investor who bought the domain from a third party in 2021, had argued that “mar a lago” is a generic term, meaning “sea to lake” in Spanish and other languages. He also said it could mean the personal name “Mara Lago”.

DTTM failed to convince the WIPO panel otherwise. It ruled (pdf) that “the Complainant was unable to provide persuasive specific evidence to overcome the Respondent’s arguments”. It did not rule on whether the registration was made in bad faith.

It’s the second Mar-a-Lago case DTTM has lost recently. Late last year it lost a UDRP complaint against a company called Marq Quarius (from which Gargiulo acquired maralago.com) over the domain mar-a-lago.com.

The single panelist in the earlier case (pdf) ruled that while the registrant’s defense (that the three words in the domain corresponded to the names of dead pets) strained credulity, there was no evidence of bad-faith cybersquatting.

Trump uses maralagoclub.com for the club’s official web site.

Trump nominee open to retaking ICANN oversight role

The incoming head of the US Department of Commerce has indicated that it is unlikely he’ll try to reestablish the US government’s unique oversight of ICANN, at least in the short term.
But at his confirmation hearing in Congress yesterday, Trump nominee for secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross said he’d be open to ideas about how the US could increase its power over ICANN.
He was responding to a question from Ted Cruz, the Texas senator who made halting the IANA transition one of his key concerns last year.
Cruz, framing the question in such a way as to suggest ICANN is now in the hands of an intergovernmental consortium (which it is not) asked Ross whether he was committed to preventing censorious regimes using ICANN to hinder Americans’ freedom of speech.

Ross replied:

As such a big market and really as the inventors of the Internet, I’m a little surprised that we seem to be essentially voiceless in the governance of that activity. That strikes me as an intellectually incorrect solution. But I’m not aware of what it is that we actually can do right now to deal with that. If it exists, if some realistic alternative comes up, I’d be very interested.

His response also mischaracterizes the power balance post-transition.
The US is not “essentially voiceless”. Rather, it has the same voice as every other government as a member of the Governmental Advisory Committee.
Its role is arguably still a lot more powerful than other nations, given that ICANN is now bylaws-bound to remain headquartered in California and under US jurisdiction.
As head of Commerce, Ross will have authority over the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the agency most directly responsible for dealing with ICANN and domain name issues in general.
NTIA itself will to the best of my knowledge still be headed by assistant secretary Larry Strickling, who handled the IANA transition from the US government side. (UPDATE: this may not be correct)
Ross, 79, is a billionaire investor who made most of his estimated $2.5 billion fortune restructuring bankrupt companies in the coal and steel industries.

Trump trends in .com, while stoners hit .net

The US elections last month seem to be responsible for almost all of Verisign’s “top trending keywords” for November.
Donald Trump topped the company’s monthly list of fastest-growing strings in both .com and .net registries.
The four words of his idiotic campaign slogan “Make America great again” also appear individually in the .com top ten.
The votes to legalize medical and recreational marijuana use in several US states also seems to have inspired speculation in “pot”, “weed” and “cannabis” names, though more noticeably in .net.
In fact, the only string in the .com list not related to the US polls appears to be “near” (at least, I cannot find a connection).
The Verisign report includes words that achieve a certain level of growth month-to-month, factoring out strings that are commonly registered every month.
Here are the November lists.
[table id=47 /]

Cruz’s ICANN paranoia is now official Republican policy

US Republicans have endorsed hitherto fringe views on the IANA transition as official party policy.
Yesterday delegates at the Republican National Convention approved the party’s 2016 Platform of the party, which “declares the Party’s principles and policies”.
Internet policy takes up just half a page of the 66-page document, but it’s half a page straight out of the paranoid mind of former presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz.
It talks of the transition of the US government from its involvement in DNS root zone management (what the GOP calls “web names”) as an “abandonment” of internet freedoms to Russia, China and Iran, which are ready to “devour” them.
Here’s the relevant passage in (almost) full.

Protecting Internet Freedom
The survival of the internet as we know it is at risk. Its gravest peril originates in the White House, the current occupant of which has launched a campaign, both at home and internationally, to subjugate it to agents of government. The President… has unilaterally announced America’s abandonment of the international internet by surrendering U.S. control of the root zone of web names [sic] and addresses. He threw the internet to the wolves, and they — Russia, China, Iran, and others — are ready to devour it.
We salute the Congressional Republicans who have legislatively impeded his plans to turn over the Information Freedom Highway to regulators and tyrants. That fight must continue, for its outcome is in doubt. We will consistently support internet policies that allow people and private enterprise to thrive, without providing new and expanded government powers to tax and regulate so that the internet does not become the vehicle for a dramatic expansion of government power.
The internet’s independence is its power. It has unleashed innovation, enabled growth, and inspired freedom more rapidly and extensively than any other technological advance in human history. We will therefore resist any effort to shift control toward governance by international or other intergovernmental organizations. We will ensure that personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach. The only way to safeguard or improve these systems is through the private sector. The internet’s free market needs to be free and open to all ideas and competition without the government or service providers picking winners and losers.

Previously, such views had been expressed by just a handful of elected Republicans, notably Cruz, who has introduced a bill to block the IANA transition until Congress passes law specifically allowing it.
The irony in the latest GOP statement is that the transition is actually a transfer of power away from governments (specifically, the US government) into the private sector.
The current plan for a post-US ICANN, which was put together over two years by hundreds of participants mostly from the private sector, would see Governmental Advisory Committee advice carry less weight unless it receives full consensus.
In other words, if Iran, China and Russia want to destroy freedom of speech, they’ll have to persuade over 150 other governments to their cause.
Should that ever happen, a new multi-stakeholder (and in this example, government free) “Empowered Community” would have the power to put a stop to it.
The goal is to have the transition completed shortly after the current IANA contract between ICANN and the US Department of Commerce expires at the end of September.
That’s before the US presidential elections, of course, which take place in November.

Donald Trump files UDRP on wine domains

Donald Trump, who recently got into the wine business, has filed cybersquatting complaints against the owners of trumpwine.com and trumpwines.com.
Both domains were first registered prior to Trump’s purchase of a Virginia vineyard in April this year, which appears to be the first time he was connected to wine.
The registrant of trumpwine.com has had it since 2008, while the owner of trumpwines.com evidently picked it up in February. It was previously owned by DirectNIC, after the original 2007 registration expired.
Both registrants appear to have some connection to the alcohol industry. That said, neither of the domains currently points to an active web site.