A patent troll is taking action against registrars, according to a Domain Incite report. According to the report, “WhitServe LLC, which beat Go Daddy in a patent lawsuit last year, is now demanding licenses from registrars that could add as much as $0.50 to the cost of a domain name.” The patent troll is demanding monies that could be as high as the millions from registrars on both sides of the Atlantic.

NamesCon 2016 has only just finished with around 1,200 attendees and the organisers have already announced the 2017 event with discounted early bird tickets for individuals. For those wanting to register in advance, there are a limited number of tickets available for $299 plus booking fee. That’s around $700 off the door ticket price. The 2017 NamesCon will be held again in Las Vegas from 22 to 25 January.

For those who like their news swinging way to the right, coming in the northern spring of 2016 is the .fox gTLD. But it won’t only be a home of the networks heavily slanted news programming, it will also be the home of all 20th Century Fox programming, films and sport. And it will showcase everything for your PC, tablet and mobile.

In another Domain Incite report, “registrars are ignoring new provisions in their .sucks contracts that they say amount to a ‘gag order’”. The report notes that “registrars ask for ICANN to convene a face-to-face negotiation between themselves and .sucks registry Vox Populi.” In an earlier report, Domain Incite said “Vox Populi is taking ICANN to mediation over a row about what some of its registrars call a ‘gag order’ against them.”

“Commercial entities will not be excluded from buying domain privacy services, ICANN’s GNSO Council has confirmed,” Domain Incite is reporting. The Council last week “voted unanimously to approve a set of recommendations that would make it compulsory for privacy and proxy services to be accredited by ICANN for the first time.”

The .dk registry, DK Hostmaster, is implementing a new “self-service” option on 31 January. The option was originally scheduled to be effective as of 18 January.

Information is a bit sparse, but it appears the self-service functionality means registrants will be able to update a number of details to do with their domain without going through their registrar using a user ID and a password.

When registering a .dk domain, registrants can designate the proxy or payer (billing contact) or subsequently by using DK Hostmaster’s self-service.

Services that can be performed using this new service include request for delegation, changes to contact information, transferring to a third party, termination of a registration agreement and registration of DNSSEC.

More information on all the above can be found by following the links.