ICANN approves 4 Internationalized Domain Names

ICANN today approved the first four internationalized top-level domain names. Egypt, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have passed the language character (string) evaluation, intended to avoid confusion with other top level domain names. Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia and UAE may now request that their Internet names be included in the Internet domain names root system, so they can be accessed by all users globally by mid-2010. These international names will now allow people to type entire domain names …

Verizon wins $33 million in Cybersquatting case

A US court has awarded US telecom firm Verizon Communications $33.15 million in a case in which an Internet domain registration company tried to take advantage of Verizon and Verizon customers by using domain names chosen to be easily confused with legitimate Verizon names. This is the largest cybersquatting judgment ever made.

A federal court in the Northern District of California issued a default ruling against Online NIC for unlawfully registering at least 663 domain names that were identical or similar to Verizon trademarks. …