The fight in courts over the US government’s seizure of gambling-related domain names is continuing with Wired reporting “federal prosecutors are asking a judge not to return the domain names of one of Spain’s most popular websites, seized as part of a major US crackdown on internet piracy.” “The legal filing over Rojadirecta.com represents the government’s first legal response to a lawsuit challenging ‘Operation in Our Sites.’” The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized as many as 208 domains the authorities claim are linked to intellectual-property fraud, Wired reports, with the first seizures taking place in 2010. “The court-ordered seizures are aimed at web sites that sell counterfeited goods, as well as sites that facilitate illegal music, film and broadcast piracy.” “The Rojadirecta .com and .org domains were seized in January along with eight others connected to broadcasting pirated streams of professional sports.” To read the Wired report in full, see: www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/domain-seizures-defended

Hosting Reviews – REDMOND, WA — Microsoft Corp. today released its global “SMB Cloud Adoption Study 2011,” which investigates how cloud computing will impact small and midsize businesses (SMBs) in the next three years. The research finds that 39 percent of SMBs expect to be paying for one or more cloud services within three years, an increase of 34 percent from the current 29 percent.

[news release] ICANN has announced that two seasoned professionals have been hired to bolster its contractual compliance team. Maguy Serad, an experienced technology and business manager, has been named Senior Director of Contractual compliance. Ms.

EURid, the .eu top-level domain (TLD) registry, issued today its quarterly progress report for Q4 2010, revealing 6% annual growth in .EU web address registrations for 2010 compared with 5% annual growth in 2009. “.EU continued its upward trend during 2010, allowing us to meet our objective of sustained growth.

A screen shot of NTT Europe’s website (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Telecommunications provider NTT Europe ( www.eu.ntt.com ) announced on Monday it will merge with its managed hosting subsidiary NTT Europe Online. The decision is part of NTT Communications Group’s overall strategy to to accelerate international growth and become a true ICT solution provider.

A screenshot of GlobalSign’s new German-language website (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — SSL provider GlobalSign ( www.globalsign.com ) announced on Tuesday that it has established a presence in the German market with the launch of a new German-language website ( www.globalsign.de ) supported by German sales and technical support representatives. This announcement comes almost a month after Danish SSL provider FairSSL became a platinum partner with GlobalSign. The new website will enable GlobalSign’s German customers to have access to its digital certificate solutions with an ordering system in a localized language, as well as German-speaking sales and support services

Website Hosting News – NUREMBERG, Germany – Open-Xchange has been selected by five additional system integrators from all over the world that will offer collaboration online to their customers as software-as-a-service (SaaS), as well as traditional on-premises software. Open-Xchange has been selected by five additional system integrators from all over the world that will offer collaboration online to their customers as software-as-a-service (SaaS), as well as traditional on-premises software.