Equifax victim of a massive cyberattack

The American company Equifax, based in Atlanta, present in 24 countries, has been the prey of a particularly worrying cyberattack. Equifax collects and analyzes personal data of customers soliciting a credit. At the beginning of September, the company revealed an intrusion in its database. This IT hacking could have potentially concerned around 143 million American customers and many others customers soliciting a credit like Canada or Great Britain. The criminals have exploited a breakdown in a... Read More

The 3 most common DNS attacks and how to defeat them

In October 2016, many popular websites like Amazon, Twitter, Netflix and Spotify have become unavailable to millions web users in the United Sates, during almost 10 hours, i.e. an eternity. The cause, one of the most powerful attacks of Internet history on Dyn’s DNS services, a major actor in this sector. Other companies like Google, The New York Times and many banks have also been the victims of different kinds of attacks aiming at the DNS, the last few years, and if in many companies, the DNS... Read More

DNS – the big forgotten of Internet

“DNS continues to be one of the most targeted Internet services, and it remains the Achilles heel of global Internet infrastructure. DNS was not only the most heavily abused protocol for reflection/amplification DDoS attacks this year, but an attack targeting a specific DNS provider was also the cause of the most widespread Internet outage of 2016 (Note: attack on the provider Dyn, which caused for about ten hours, the inaccessibility of a big part of Internet in the USA, particularly impacting ... Read More

Referendum in Catalonia

Context: Spain, divided in 17 autonomous communities can’t be compared to the administrative division of the regions. Indeed, these Spanish communities don’t have the same autonomy and Catalonia, located in the North East, benefits from an autonomous status, in effect since 2006. Issue of October 1st Last Sunday, the Catalan independent regional government organized a referendum concerning Catalonia independence among 7.5 million residents. This initiative has been quite badly perceived by the... Read More

Acquisition of Rightside by Donuts: What are the consequences on DPML Programs?

At the Internet new extensions launch, Donuts operator, the biggest extensions applicant (.services, .legal, .photos, .vin etc.) has launched a specific protection program in addition to the TMCH. The Donuts Protected Mark List (DPML) allows to block the registration by a third party of a domain name similar to the brand under all the extensions managed by the registry. For example, if the brand “iPhone” is registered in the TMCH (prerequisite) then in the DPML, no one can register <iphone.p... Read More

Irma storm and its unexpected consequences on the domain names industry

.TV means television, .FM, FM radio, .IO tech companies… Actually no. In fact, yes but no. These codes do not designate sectors of activity but territories according to ISO 3166-1 alpha 2: TV is for Tuvalu, a Polynesian state; FM is for Federated States of Micronesia ; IO for British Indian Ocean Territory. Why such a mix of genres? In fact, domain names and geopolitics make a whole. When you communicate with a .COM domain name, you trust Verisign, an American company. With a .FR, it’s ... Read More

.BRAND : 4 episodes, for this summer

Act 4: Reconstruction While a myriad of new extensions were open for recording, the time was to select .COM, .CM, .OM, .CO or .CAM records? .FR or .FRL? The decision to make registrations in all new extensions of course has a high cost and is no longer necessarily wise. This is also why, some brands have chosen a .BRAND: its own TLD, its own sovereignty, its own management rules! Many brands have opted for this configuration and we can see now the blooming of .BNPPARIBAS, .ALSTOM, .SNCF, .LECLE... Read More

How horse names resemble trademarks

Trademarks identify a particular product or service and enable consumers to quickly identify the source of a given good. In order to meet this function they must be distinctive. Trademark law protects the owner’s right to use the trademark exclusively and prevent others using a mark that is confusingly similar. Use of an identical mark on the same product would be considered confusing and could clearly constitute infringement. So far so good. But are you aware that the same standards exis... Read More

Trademark bullying? The Glencoe story

Glencoe is an “unforgettable place of dramatic mountains, rare beauty and haunting history” in the Scottish Highlands. It is also a UK trademark, registered by several companies including The National Trust for Scotland. NTS’s 2016 trademark is registered for goods including beauty products, jewellery and clothing. A prior UK Glencoe mark protecting articles of clothing was registered in 1996 by Glenmuir Limited, a “family-run business dedicated to producing the finest golf wear” but it does no... Read More

.BRAND: The importance of the digital strategy, or the McDonald’s case

McDonald’s! The symbol of globalization: from the invention of the express service by the eponymous brothers to its successful franchise by Ray Kroc (I recommend the film ‘The Funder’), McDonald’s is an example of post-war entrepreneurial success. The BigMac, the Filet o’Fish? These are the inventions of franchisees that headquarters have agreed to develop throughout the world. A model of innovation. What about their digital strategy? When Internet arrives and everyone talks ab... Read More