Before he had even commenced, Thomas Spiller has informed ICANN that he will not be joining the organisation as its Vice President of Europe. ICANN announced Spiller’s appointment to the position on 23 June, during its 41st public meeting in Singapore. A search for an appropriate replacement has already begun. According to a Domain Incite report, Spiller decided to take a position at another company instead, and his decision not to take up position at ICANN “may have predated the announcement of CEO Rod Beckstrom’s July 2012 departure earlier this month.” Spiller is a French national who was to have been responsible for driving ICANN’s strategic objectives in Europe and manage the Brussels office. Previously Spiller has worked for the French Prime Minister’s Office and most recently headed up global policy strategy at SAS, one of the world’s largest independent software vendors. Spiller has worked on topics ranging from education, sustainability and innovation to data privacy and cloud computing.

Dispute resolution procedures for .XXX domains has been unveiled, promising to make life difficult for cybersquatters, reports Domain Incite. The Rapid Evaluation Service, as it is known, is basically a souped-up version of the familiar UDRP that tilts the overall balance in favour of legitimate trademark holders, the report says. Further, the scheme is designed for companies or individuals who don’t want to be associated with .xxx domain names, and has the remedies to match. To read the detailed Domain Incite report, check out domainincite.com/icm-reveals-tough-xxx-cybersquatting-rules . Meanwhile, to register your .XXX domain name, check out America Registry here .

Google has acquired the domain name g.co that will only link to official Google products and services. The domain name acquisition in itself is not much news, but it is further evidence that premium domain names are very important in a company’s branding. “The shorter a URL, the easier it is to share and remember,” writes Gary Briggs, Google VP of Consumer Marketing . “The downside is, you often can’t tell what website you’re going to be redirected to. We’ll only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts. That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service.” It is likely Google paid well into seven figures for the domain name with Domain Incite reporting that they believe the starting price for single character domains believed to be $1.5 million. Other high profile .CO acquisitions include Overstock paying $350,000 for o.co, which it uses to rebrand the company internationally, while Amazon bought a.co, z.co, k.co and cloud.co. Additionally, Twitter acquired t.co for its URL shortening service. Google will continue to use goo.gl as their public URL shortener that anyone will still be able to shorten URLs across the web. The acquisition is also a coup for the .CO ccTLD and will help boost awareness of .CO that now has over one million registrations in less than a year.

The IANA added the .XXX Top Level Domain to the root nameservers yesterday , meaning that when ICM Registry, and its registry operator Afilias, are ready they can begin registrations of .XXX domain names. Domain Incite reports that “sex.xxx and porn.xxx are now also resolving to placeholder sites.” IANA have published their report on the “Delegation of the .XXX top-level domain” at www.iana.org/reports/2011/xxx-report-20110407.pdf . The report gives a detailed background into the application process

The ICANN CEO controversially abstained from voting on the approval of the .XXX sponsored Top Level Domain at the board meeting on 18 March that concluded the organisation’s meeting in Silicon Valley-San Francisco.

Tina Dam, Senior Director of internationalised domain names at ICANN has reportedly resigned according to reports. Dam is responsible for developing and managing all IDN related projects at ICANN and has been responsible for driving the introduction of the successful IDN Fast Track process.

Almost half of trademark-conscious companies are considering a “.brand” top-level domain, according to a survey carried out by World Trademark Review magazine reports Domain Incite.