Google has obtained no less than 763 domain names containing the word ‘google’ after recently filing a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum.

In what Google calls ‘one of the most aggressive campaigns of domain name infringement’ that it has ever come across, someone had registered domains like googleiphone5.com, googlevodafone.com, googlegayfacebook.com, googleclooney.com, googlespiderman.com and googlenewshoes.com.

Google claims this person also forwarded the hundreds of domains to a site under the .xxx top level domain, and that this suggests that he or she was planning to host adult and/or pornographic content.

Amusingly, the respondent filed petitions to cancel two of Google’s US trademark registrations for the ‘GOOGLE’ mark, and tried to defend the domain name registrations by asserting that ‘google’ has become a generic term anyways.

The National Arbitration Forum of course ordered the domain names to be transferred to Google immediately.

Apple has filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in an attempt to obtain ownership of the domain names Applecom.com and ApplePrinters.com (best to avoid visiting those, by the way).

Not that this is the first time the Cupertino computer and phone giant has targeted typosquatters. In fact, it’s something all major companies need to deal with.

See also: Google / YouTube, Verizon, Twitter, Wikipedia, Virgin and so on.

Apple, however, isn’t always super diligent when it comes to protecting its trademarks by claiming domain names from squatters. For example, it doesn’t own iPad.com – and has never claimed it, not even after – the launch of the iPad – even though it owns the trademark since acquiring it from Fujitsu in March 2010).

It also took the company ages to – successfully – claim the domain iPods.com.

It also doesn’t own iBooks.com (oddly, this one is in Barnes & Noble’s hands) or iBookstore.com for that matter. Apple shows very inconsistent behavior, clearly.

And it’s not that Apple doesn’t care about domain names enough to go after them from time to time. It paid heavily for iPhone.com back in 2007, and it owns iPod.com, iMac.com, iWork.com, iTunes.com etc. (but not MacBook.com, curiously).

Related: rnicrosoft.com up for grabs for a mere €3,500

80% of mistyped URLs lead to typosquatting sites, says study

Fusible, always on the lookout for new domain name registration from major tech companies, and always ready to jump to conclusions rather quickly, has noticed that Google appears to have registered a slew of interesting domain names this week.

Let’s start with the list:

appsonplay.com
booksonplay.com
gamesonplay.com
googleplayapps.com
googleplaybooks.com
googleplaydownloads.com
googleplaygames.com
googleplaymagazines.com
googleplaymovies.com
googleplaymusic.com
googleplaynewspapers.com
googleplaynewsstand.com
googleplaytv.com
googleplayvideos.com
magazinesonplay.com
moviesonplay.com
newspapersonplay.com
tvonplay.com

Fusible asserts that the play on ‘play’ domain names coupled with things like magazines, books, movies, apps, music and games means Google might be considering the name ‘Play’ for its rumored Google-branded 7-inch tablet computer.

This sounds perfectly plausible indeed, although Google does not own GooglePlay.com, and neither has it attempted to claim the domain from its current owner so far. I’m sure it will at some point, though.

We should also point out that it’s not 100% sure that Google in fact registered the domain names. They’re currently registered to a company called MarkMonitor, which offers domain name protection services to Google but also other companies. That said, it’d be weird for any of their other clients to register domains with the trademarked term ‘google’ in them, so it’s safe to assume Google did.

And as I said, not an unreasonable conclusion to think the domain names may have something to do with an upcoming Google-branded Android tablet.

After all, it would be very odd if Google didn’t jump into the tablet computer fray at some point, not so much to challenge the iPad but rather Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and Play wouldn’t be a terrible name for a 7-incher. Then again, the nicely named Playbook didn’t work wonders for Research In Motion either.

Guess we’ll just have to wait and play see (production of the rumored Google-branded tablet is slated for next April, CNET claims).

A small but noteworthy victory for Google as it has won 32 typo-squatted domain names, including Gougle.com, Go0gle.com, Googole.com, Goolgle.com and Googer.com. Probably best to avoid visiting those, btw.

The search and advertising giant initially filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum against the single (apparently Hong Kong-based) owner of the slew of domain names on the 5th of January, around the same time it also won five YouTube related typo-squatted domains.

Understandably, the Forum ruled that the domain names (full list below) should be transferred to Google immediately. Especially because the soon-to-be-former owner of the domain names failed to submit a response in this proceeding, despite multiple attempts by the Forum to reach him/her.

In its decision, the National Arbitration Forum asserted that all domains met the three requirements to transfer the domains to Google under ICANN rules:

(1) The domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights; and

(2) Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and

(3) The domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

Here’s the full list of domains obtained by Google:

geoolge.com
gggoogle.com
ggolge.com
ggoole.com
go0gle.com
gogelmail.com
goggleemail.com
gogglemails.com
gologle.com
googemail.com
googer.com
googlae.com
googlecalander.com
googlede.com
googledevice.com
googleen.com
googlehomepage.com
googleparking.net
googlepictures.com
googletr.com
googlev.com
googlp.com
googlse.com
googlu.com
googne.com
googole.com
googu.com
goolggle.com
goolgle.com
goolglemail.com
gooogly.com
gougle.com

The Internet is collectively raging at domain seller Go Daddy for supporting the “Stop Online Piracy Act“, with people like Ben Huh threatening to pull away 1,000 domains owned by his company Cheezburger.

In response, Go Daddy has published a blog post that is as useful as a pile of day-old dogshit.

Many of our customers have asked us about our position on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Below are statements from Go Daddy Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Christine Jones. We’ve made them available here on our blog so all our customers can read our position.

Basically, all Go Daddy has done is copy and paste the statements it submitted to the House of Representatives about SOPA on October 28th and November 15th of this year. You can read them here if you want.

The real kicker is that Go Daddy doesn’t want to hear what you, its customer, thinks. So they turned commenting off on the post.

There you have it folks, this is the type of Internet that Go Daddy supports. Now if you don’t mind, I have a few domain names to transfer.

According to a report by Ars Technica, Verisign submitted a request yesterday asking for the power to scan sites for malware and to shut them down when it sees fit. It would also like the ability to shut down a domain name at the request of law enforcement.

Verisign of course operates a huge part of the internet networking infrastructure including top-level domain names like: .com, .net, and .name.

Verisign says:

All parts of the internet community are feeling the pressure to be more proactive in dealing with malicious activity

ICANN has recognized this and the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook requires new gTLDs to adopt a clear definition of rapid takedown or suspension systems that will be implemented.

The full request submitted through ICANN’s Registry Services Evaluation Process on October 10th can be viewed below.

It’s not just malware Verisign is worried about. Apparently the company has been piloting a program with cyber security experts to seize domain names that are harboring malicious content or have broken the law in some way. These takedown procedures would include a “protest” capability for those who feel that their domain name was taken in error.

Do you feel like this is a new government way of controlling the internet with Verisign at the lead? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Catch the latest essential tech industry news at TNW Insider.

Verisign Com Net Name Request 10oct11 En

ICANN today approved the first top-level Chinese language domain names: .中国 and .中國 for China; .台灣 and .台湾 for Taiwan; and .香港 for Hong Kong (China and Taiwan get two each because of Simplified and Traditional Chinese – whereas the characters for Hong Kong are the same in both).

This opens the door for domain names entirely in Chinese, which should at some level better serve the 20% of the world’s population that speaks the language. Currently, many Chinese specific websites can be found / entered using Chinese characters in a browser’s navigation bar, but the top level domains were still, up until today, exclusively in Romanized letters.

In China, although the country has .cn and .com.cn domains already (as well as .org.cn, .net.cn and provincial-level domains), .com is still the preferred top-level domain. Whether this will change with the introduction of fully Chinese domain names is yet to be seen. One disadvantage of course is that non-Chinese speakers will have a harder time finding the website, so it works both ways to an extent (there are people that are interested in Chinese sites that don’t necessarily read Chinese, but not that many probably).

Regardless, this is an overdue and welcome move, though it will be interesting to see in Mainland China how restrictive it will be to register these domains in the wake of last year’s tightening on .cn domain registration rules.