Emmanuel Gillet

Domain Name Governance

New gTLDs: first revocation of a dotBRAND for breach of the registry agreement

On 25 June 2020, ICANN terminated with immediate effect the Registry Agreement for .AIGO, the dotBrand of Aigo Digital Technology Co., Ltd, a Chinese electronics manufacturer which had obtained the extension in 2016 to support its expansion beyond Chinese-speaking markets. From 30 March 2018, ICANN's compliance department had notified breaches — unpaid fees and missing mandatory notices on the institutional website — to which Aigo never responded. ICANN then triggered the mediation-arbitration mechanism provided for in the Registry Agreement and its Specification 13; Aigo did not take part in the proceedings. As Aigo was the sole registrant of all .AIGO domain names, no successor registry operator was needed. DotBrand extensions are regularly abandoned voluntarily (.DODGE, .CHRYSLER, .TELEFONICA), but .AIGO is the first to be revoked at the end of a formal contractual dispute with ICANN.

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Domain Name Governance

.ORG: California Attorney General enters debate

The planned sale of the .ORG registry to the investment fund Ethos Capital brought a heavyweight into the debate: the Attorney General of California, Xavier Becerra. The article retraces the sequence — ICANN's proposal in 2019 to lift the price caps on .ORG despite more than 3,250 opposing comments (against six in favour), then the announcement in November 2019 of the sale by the Internet Society of Public Interest Registry, prompting an outcry from NGOs and the internet community. In his letter, the Attorney General asks why ISOC did not organise a competitive procedure to select a new operator, deplores the lack of consultation of stakeholders, and stresses that an investment fund accountable to its shareholders does not answer to the public interest as a non-profit does. He urges ICANN to reject the transaction, stating that .ORG and the global internet community will be better served — a warning that carried weight, ICANN being a Californian non-profit corporation.

Domain Name Law · ICANN
23 April 2020
Initially published on iptwins.com
Domain Name Governance

Whois and GDPR: the US response is underway

Since the GDPR took effect in May 2018, WHOIS databases have gone dark, to the dismay of investigators and right holders. The article reports the American counter-offensive: on 26 February 2020, Congressman Bob Latta introduced a resolution urging that WHOIS records — 'the identity card of a website' — remain accessible, in the name of national and economic security, intellectual property, cybersecurity, health and privacy itself. The difficulty is squaring such legislation with the GDPR: American registries and registrars would face contradictory obligations. The author sketches possible compromises — disclosing professional contact data only, or withholding data solely for EU-domiciled registrants — while doubting the European Commission would embrace them. The transatlantic tug-of-war over WHOIS access was only beginning.

ICANN · WHOIS & Registration Data
18 March 2020
Initially published on iptwins.com
Third-Party Liability

Lacoste v Shein: When a Platform Can No Longer Hide Behind Hosting Status

A platform is not one legal object. In Lacoste v Roadget Business Pte. Ltd. and Infinite Styles Services Co. Ltd. (Paris, Pôle 5 ch. 1, 8 July 2026, RG 25/12454), the Court of Appeal refused to let the operators of shein.com shelter behind the hosting exemption of Article 6 of the Digital Services Act: goods “sold by Shein”, Shein labels and packaging, and the Commission’s designation of the service as a very large online platform revealed a hybrid activity, and the characterisation attached not to the platform as a whole but to the role actually played in the disputed transactions. The judgment reaches beyond the twenty offending products. “Lacoste”, typed into the internal search engine, infringes the word marks; “crocodile”, a free word, grounds unfair competition and parasitism. Interim damages rise from €30,000 to €300,000 — the defendants’ own failure to disclose their turnover counting against them — and the measures run across the European Union.

Counterfeiting · Court Litigation · European Digital Law · Marketplace Enforcement · Trademark Law
28 August 2026
Initially published on iptwins.com
Domain Name Law

COSHIELD: The Scope of the UDRP in Trademark Disputes

Not every dispute involving a trade mark and a domain name amounts to cybersquatting. In Polyco Healthline Limited v. David Beatson (WIPO Case No. D2026-1893), the panelist denied the complaint brought against coshield.com, a domain used since 2020 to sell personal protective equipment in the very sector where the complainant has exploited its SHIELD trade mark since 1997, and despite a settlement agreement concluded between the parties in 2021. The decision turns on the moment of acquisition: created in 2014, the domain name appears to have changed hands in May 2020, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the combination of “Co” and “Shield” could describe the business rather than target Polyco. The evidence being “finely balanced”, bad faith was not established. This article examines why trade mark infringement and cybersquatting are two paths that do not necessarily converge.

Cybersquatting · Domain Name Law · Trademark Law · UDRP
23 August 2026
Initially published on iptwins.com

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Article Information

Author

Emmanuel Gillet

Publication Date

9 July 2020

Jurisdiction

ICANN

Topics

dotBrand · ICANN · New gTLDs

Industry

Technology

Related Decision(s)

ICANNTermination of the .AIGO Registry Agreement (Aigo Digital Technology Co., Ltd)2020-06-25
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