Dreyfus

The 100 pioneer domain names of .PARIS have been revealed on last 21st February, but this is just a stage in the project of this new gTLD.

Firstly, it is important to note the 100 pioneers will be able to benefit from an address with .PARIS as from May 2014 during an exclusive period of 6 months whereas other domain names will be visible and accessible for sale only by the end of the year for the general opening.

Moreover, a Sunrise Period of 3 months will be opened for trademark owners as from the month of September 2014. The domain names reserved during this period will be allocated and available online only at its termination.

The new domain names are classified in various categories: Ambassadors (7), Business (8), Ecosystem and Individual Parisians (78), and Namespace Mandate (5). These will be granted to registrants for 3 to 5 years and they are:

• livraisons-restaurant.paris: Service connecting restaurateur making deliveries with clients,
• m.paris: Service allowing creation of an address like mon.adresse@m.paris,
• accessibilite.paris: Service of referencing accessible locations and equipment irrespective of the disability,
• reservation-hotels.paris: Service of hotel reservations in Paris approved by the Office of Tourism, and
• bandb.paris: Service of room reservations in guesthouses

In fact, there are 98 domain names out of which two have been reserved by the City of Paris for the general opening.

The City of Paris also proposes a procedure to oppose to pioneer names before the 21st March 2014. The request can be presented by any person providing evidence of its interest to act on absence of the Pioneer’s legitimate interest and on his bad faith.

The economic contributions of pioneers amount to 416 000 € in addition to the contribution in kind (for e.g. marketing communications aiming at enhancing the notoriety of the candidate’s project and the .paris project).

Find the list of the domain names in the press release of the City of Paris here.

Our consulting firm is at your disposition to advise you on the forthcoming Sunrise period.

By an application of Swiss law, a WIPO expert has made an innovative decision by requiring the transfer of a domain name pointing to an inactive website (DCH2012-0021 Cash Converters Pty Ltd. against Mr. Botana Adolfo Miguel Rojo).

In the Expert’s opinion, the fact that the website attached to the litigious domain name has not yet been activated does not diminish the risk of confusion. Its registration could indeed presuppose imminent activation, which could lead to a preventive action for counterfeiting in accordance with the article 55. litt (a) of the Swiss Trademark Act.

Moreover, even if he does not apply these dispositions, the Expert notes that the Swiss Unfair Competition Act could be applicable to this kind of situation. Indeed, article 2 of this law asserts that is “unfair and unlawful to allow any conduct or any commercial practice which is misleading or which infringes the rules of the principles of good faith and affects relations between competitors or between suppliers and customers“.

However, it seems that there may be a difference between inactive domain names which are identical to a registered trademark and those which are only similar. While the first category can effectively obstruct the commercial development of a competitor by preventing the latter from offering goods and services via a domain name which reflects its own trademark, this is not the case in the second category.

In France, the Courts have made a very different ruling. Indeed, the Supreme Court has stated on numerous occasions since the Locatour decision (Commercial Division, December 13, 2005) that a domain name must be active before infringement can be recognized, unless in the case of a well-known brand (TGI Paris 3rd, 3rd Sec, October 29, 2010, Free c / Osmozis).

As for the UDRP process is concerned, the Experts are divided. If some adamantly refuse to consider that an inactive domain name may infringe a trademark right, others consider that it is appropriate to take all the elements into account to assess possible infringement, including public awareness of the brand.

This week, the Sunrise periods for the new gTLDs .DOMAINS, .LIMO and .CAB will end, but other strings are coming such as the .BLUE, the .WED, or the .移动 which means “mobile” in Chinese.

The Indonesian registry has recently made second-level domain names available. A Sunrise period for Indonesian trademark owners is already opened since January 20th and will run until April 17th, 2014. It will be followed by a Grandfather period where third-level domain names owners (.CO.ID or .WEB.ID) will be able to claim their corresponding .ID names.

We remind you that a Trademark registered in the Trademark Clearinghouse along with the corresponding SMD file is required to register a domain name during a Sunrise period.

1) Sunrises ending in the next 10 days

2) Running Sunrises

3) Sunrises to come

On November 26, 2013, the town of Paris has launched a pioneer program. It revealed the first 100 domain names bearing the extension .PARIS on February 21, 2014.

The candidates for the new extension have been chosen according to their editorial project. Businesses, associations or even bloggers could submit their applications. The Paris City Hall has announced its intention to acquire a strong digital identity and to make the town become a digital territory conducive to innovation.

Among the lucky winners, the town has selected the RATP which has acquired the domain name <metro.paris> and which intends to display a “revolutionary” map of Paris transports on its website. The inevitable <toureiffel.paris>, the Grand Palais or the Fauchon grocery will also aim at improving the virtual image of the town.

“This extension reflects innovation in Paris, and has a symbolic value, where we are opening a new cycle”, said Jean-Louis Missika, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of innovation who chaired the Jury responsible for the screening of the 310 applications. And, during his visit to Paris, the chairman of ICANN, Fadi Chehadé, added: «I am pleased to see the energy deployed by the town of Paris. This achievement must be a model for all the towns around the world”.

The first websites using the extension .PARIS will be accessible in Spring and will be available to the general public at the end of this year. The list of the 100 pioneer domain names is available on the website of the town of Paris.

Dreyfus can help you to manage your presence on the web or issues relating to your domain names. Do not hesitate to contact us for further information.

The .GURU is available to the general public since February 5 2014.

This extension, intended for gurus of all kinds, is at the forefront and still breaks records among the new gTLDs. Indeed, according to the website registrarstats.com, the number of domain names registered in .GURU stands today at 39139 names!

For comparison purposes, here is the list of the first 10 new extensions classified according to the number of registrations:

Some names are already on sale. On sedo.fr, the website for the purchase/sale of domains, the names are available as from 45GBP and the offers are up to nearly 20000 USD, but there are also many names for which we can propose an offer.

Our firm is available to register your domain names in .GURU or in any other extension.

WHOIS databases are particularly useful for finding information on domain name holders. Their name (who is) clearly indicates their purpose, which is to provide essential information about protagonists with regards to a domain name and especially concerning the name reservation date, the registrant, the administrative contact details or the registry office of the domain name. In summary, WHOIS is the database of domain names registered with a registrar or a registry.

In application of the Affirmative of Commitment (AoC) of 30 September 2009, ICANN is responsible for implementing existing policy regarding the WHOIS, under the auspices of applicable legislation. To this effect, the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), a contract by which ICANN accredits a registry office, outlines their obligations, especially concerning the accuracy of WHOIS data. The latest accreditation contract, the RAA 2013, came into effect on 1st January 2014. The registry office is required to take all reasonable measures in the event that inaccuracies within the WHOIS database are notified by “any parties”.

The present WHOIS service has a number of weaknesses and needs to be reformed to adapt to the digital world and e-commerce in particular. An Expert Working Group was formed by ICANN in 2013 to examine the registration service for gTLDs. The aim is to replace the current service with another, the Aggregated Registration Data Service (ARDS), by which the data would only be collected, validated and shared for authorized purposes such as spot checks, domain name research or to protect personal data. In addition, only certain data would be available to authorized enquirers who would be held accountable for its use.

Currently this project has not been finalized since questions remain outstanding relating to costs and implications. The Group is awaiting community feedback on their initial proposals before going further. And already a number of contentious issues have been raised…the project will need time to be developed and adapted before being launched.

To be followed…

Online harassment has developed from the web 2.0 as well as from the advent of the social networks, thus differentiating from physical harassment.

In “The 51%”, Nathalie Dreyfus relates on the particularities of virtual harassment and the means to solve it with Olivia Salazar-Winspread. Harassment suffered by woman is alarming. However, procedures currently set up by social networks are inadequate and unclear. Changes are afoot, but will not be instantaneous.

The broadcasts of the programme are scheduled as follows:

16:45:00               Friday 14/02
05:45:00               Saturday 15/02
13:10:00               Saturday 15/02
22:45:00               Saturday 15/02
09:45:00               Sunday 16/02
14:45:00               Sunday 16/02
19:15:00               Sunday 16/02
00:45:00               Monday 17/02
17:45:00               Monday 17/02
10:16:00               Tuesday 18/02
16:16:00               Tuesday 18/02

The programme “The 51%” is also visible on the website of France 24.

With its expertise, Dreyfus & associés can help you to better manage your presence on internet. Do not hesitate to contact us for any information.

On 14 May 2013, the German Federal Court of Justice found the search engine Google guilty on the grounds that the autocomplete function that reflects the search activity of web users can be detrimental to individuals and companies. Indeed, when a user enters a term in the search bar, a series of key words are presented to him in the form of predictions, which can sometimes have negative connotations.

In the case at hand, a German company and its director sued Google, claiming infringement of their personality rights when their names were associated to the terms “fraud” and “scientology”. They thus sought compensation as well as the removal of such predictions.

The Court of Appeal of Cologne did not side with the company and its founder. It considered that the average user understands that predictions are the outcome of Google’s algorithm-based software process.

The German Federal Court of Justice however, took a different stand and considered that there was an infringement of personality rights due to the negative connotation attached to such an association. Based on this, the Court held Google to be liable and requested that the related predictions be removed as they did not bear any relevance to reality.

Google will thus be liable in Germany as soon as infringement is communicated by a plaintiff and no measures are taken by the search engine to prevent such happenings. Thus, the cancelation of Google’s autocomplete function is not required by the Court. There is no obligation to monitor predictions for infringements of personality rights.

The stand of the German Federal Court of Justice requires the search engine to set up a monitoring and evaluation procedure in order to remove all predictions infringing personality rights. One can envision the difficulties that such a task would entail.

A harmonization of European case-law on the autocomplete function will most likely not be achieved (Cass. 1st civ 19 February 2013, TGI Paris 23 October 2013) until a decision of the European Court of Justice.