Recent Posts
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- Epik gets acquired again! The plot thickens…
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- Epik to reveal its owners soon
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Porn firm wins .cam after years of objections
The controversial new gTLD .cam has been won at auction by Dutch porn site operator AC Webconnecting, putting an end to over two years of back-and-forth objections.
Rival applicants Rightside and Famous Four Media both withdrew their applications earlier this week.
The contest for .cam was marked by several objections and appeals.
In 2013, Verisign filed and lost String Confusion Objections against AC Webconnecting and Famous Four, but won its near-identical objection against Rightside.
Verisign had claimed that .cam and .com are so similar-looking that confusion among internet users is bound to arise.
Because the SCO panels in the three cases returned differing opinions, Rightside was one of two applicants given the right to appeal by ICANN in October 2014.
I never quite understood why Verisign wasn’t also given the right to appeal.
Rightside won the right to stay in the .cam contention set almost a year later.
Despite all that effort, it did not prevail in the resulting auction.
Separately, back in 2013, AC Webconnecting filed and lost Legal Rights Objections against its two rivals, based on a “.cam” trademark it acquired purely for the purpose of fighting off new gTLD competitors.
I’d be lying if I said I knew a lot about the soon-to-be registry.
Based in Rotterdam, its web site comes across as a wholly safe-for-work web design firm.
However, it seems to be mainly in the business of operating scores, if not hundreds, of webcam-based porn sites.
Its application for .cam states that it will be for everyone with an interest in photography, however.
When it goes live, its most direct competitor is likely to be Famous Four’s .webcam, which already has an 18-month and 70,000-domain head start.
It remains to be seen whether its clear similarity to .com will in fact cause significant confusion.
I think if anything, people will enter example.com because they are used to .com over the newer.cam if there is any confusion.
True, if they’re typing rather than clicking.