January 2012 – Page 8 of 8

eCommerce giant markafoni first company to file .XXX domain dispute

The Turkish private shopping club markafoni has become the first company to file a .XXX domain dispute with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over the domain markafoni.xxx. According to WIPO, the case commenced on December 29.

WIPO Case Number (D2011-2298) was filed by VIPINDIRIM, the company behind markafoni, which was featured last July in TechCrunch, after the company was valued around $200 million following 70 percent of its shares being acquired by Naspers.

According to WHOIS records, the domain <markafoni.xxx> was registered on December 6, by Yasin Kaplan who resides in Istanbul.

December 6 marked the first day of general availability of .XXX domains.

Per the ICM Registry, “General Availability is when members of the adult Sponsored Community get regular, resolving names on a first come, first served basis. Non-members of the adult Sponsored Community can also get “Non-Resolving” names.”

Although the ICM Registry has gone to unprecedented lengths to put an end to cybersquatting by suspending abusive registrations such as BusinessWeek.xxx, there will be other names that fall into a gray area that will get sorted out at arbitration.

As of today, only one other .XXX domain case has been filed under the UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy) — Case number 1421851 commenced on December 30, with the National Arbitration Forum over the domain name heb.xxx.

Discussion: NamePros

When Amazon began slashing prices on its refurbished Kindle 3 models, tech sites began speculating that Amazon would release a new Kindle. That’s when I started paying more attention to Kindle related domain names, as I quickly found out readers eat this type of news up.

My first big story days after speculation started in August, was Amazon acquiring KindleAir.com via MarkMonitor after the domain name had expired. Engadget, PC Magazine and other tech sites ran with the story as well.

But it wasn’t this story that made the Top 10 in 2011…

The number six story in the Top 10 Stories of 2011 here on Fusible was predicting that Amazon’s next Kindle would be named after one of the elements. And my prediction was right, as Amazon finally settled on the element of fire with its Kindle Fire.

Unlike other stories, this one took a little more sleuthing.

As I wrote back then, KindleAir.com was the first hint, but I discovered that Amazon had also secretly acquired the domain names KindleEarth.com KindleWater.com on July 6, 2011. Both were registered at Go Daddy and hidden behind its privacy service Domains by Proxy, but it was simple to reveal Amazon as the owner by using Go Daddy’s public Account Retrieval System, which in June finally addressed other privacy issues with the tool.

While I had correctly guessed the next Kindle would be named after an element, I hadn’t included “Fire” in the list. Though I considered including it, Amazon hadn’t owned Kindle Fire just yet.

Many of my top stories over the past six months dealt with what Amazon’s next Kindle might be, but most never panned out. Names like the Kindle Ice and the Kindle Scribe, which even caught the attention of Time and other publications, have yet to materialize.

Other stories that grabbed attention included Amazon possibly spinning off its Kindle line into a separate company called Seesaw (which went on to get a Techmeme headline) and even Amazon’s massive buying spree of 500 Kindle and Silk related domains, which hinted that a 3G Kindle Fire would be launched.

(Image of Kindle Fire and Kindle DX Graphite via Amazon.com)