Industry News Summary – Week 46

Recent domain name news from the last week:

Web domain transfer market defies the recession

The number of domain names being sold continues to defy the economic downturn, according to the latest figures from domain name marketplace Sedo.  The firm’s Secondary Domain Market Study Q3 2009 found that the number of domains, or properties, being exchanged had increased by 5.5 per cent, and that the value of these transfers was over £14m.  Read full article here

.IC ccTLD Sought by Canary Islands

The Canary Islands government is discussing whether to seek approval to operate the .IC country code reports ABC.es.  The Canary Islands government believes having the ccTLD would be advantageous to assist in promoting the islands, a very popular tourist destination, in much the same way as .CAT has worked to promote the Catalan community.  Not only that, it would make available some interesting domain names such as fanat.ic, lunat.ic and fantast.ic.  Read full article here

Michelin wins domain name case

Michelin, the world’s largest tyre manufacturer submitted a complaint to the National Arbitration Forum requesting the domain name michelintires.org to be transferred from the respondent to the complainant. The complainant is the owner of many registered trademarks for ” Michelin” all over the world. Therefore, the company represented by Neil M. Batavia in this case contended that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to its trademark.  Read full article here