Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Jeff Neuman quits Neustar for Valideus

Kevin Murphy, January 23, 2015, Domain Registries

Neustar’s top domain name guy is moving to UK new gTLD consultancy Valideus.
Jeff Neuman, who’s been with Neustar for over 15 years, will become Valideus’ senior vice president for North America, starting this coming Monday, according to Valideus managing director Nick Wood.
I don’t know who’s replacing him at Neustar, where he’s been in charge of the company’s domain name business for the last couple of years, overseeing the company’s business as a registry back-end provider and registry for New York’s .nyc new gTLD.
Neuman was previously Neustar’s longstanding VP of policy, a role which also saw him heavily involved in ICANN’s GNSO Council and Neustar’s application for and launch of .biz, back in 2000.
He’s been quite a pivotal and sometimes outspoken figure over the years.
Valideus is the new gTLD service provider sister company to Com Laude, the brand-focused registrar. It provides application consulting and ongoing registry/registrar management for dot-brand gTLD applicants and registries, Amazon among them.
I gather that Neuman will remain based in the US, as his new job title implies.

ICM picks new sunrise partner for .xxx launch

Kevin Murphy, March 4, 2011, Domain Registries

ICM Registry has hired IP Rota, a new London-based company, to handle trademark validation in the sunrise periods of the forthcoming .xxx top-level domain.
IP Rota is the work of NetBenefit co-founder Jonathan Robinson, who also currently sits on the boards of Nominet and Afilias, .xxx’s back-end partner.
The company replaces Valideus, which was originally recruited to design and implement ICM’s sunrise policies, apparently due to grumblings from rival registrars. ICM said:

Valideus was originally retained by ICM to assist with the design of the .XXX launch but graciously withdrew from implementation of the initial rights protection mechanism because of the potential for perceived conflict of interest with a related domain name registrar, Com Laude.

Com Laude is a registrar specialising in corporate brand protection. It shares ownership with Valideus.
ICM is planning three sunrise periods for .xxx, including one that would let trademark holders not in the porn business to pay a one-time fee to have their brand.xxx placed on a reserved list.
The .xxx TLD contract still has not been approved by ICANN, of course. Barring last-minute surprises, that could happen as soon as the ICANN board meeting, March 18.
The registry is IP Rota‘s first client.