What Will Be the Magic Number for New gTLD Applications?

With the application launch period scheduled to begin in less than three months, everyone wants to know just how many new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) applications will be submitted. In terms of the number of applications to be submitted, I've seen estimates putting the figure as low as 500. But just last week, an industry insider told me that he thought the number could go as high as 3,500. more

Growth in Commercial Sinkholing Operations

The last couple of years have seen a growth in commercial sinkholing operations. What was once an academic method for studying botnets and other types of Internet-born threat, has more recently turned in to an increasingly profitable business for some organizations. Yesterday I published a blog on the DarkReading site titled Sinkholing For Profit, and I wanted to expand upon some aspects of the sinkholing discussion (there's only so much you can fit in to 800-ish word limits). more

How a New gTLD Should Choose a Back-end Registry System - Part 3

This part 3 of the selecting a back-end registry service provider series focuses on Whois and sharing data in new gTLDs. If you've ever looked up information about a domain name you've used a Whois service. It's the public information system about contact information for a domain name or IP addresses, though in this article, we will just talk about domain name Whois. In some generic and sponsored Top Level Domains (gTLDs), Whois is run authoritatively by the gTLD. In older gTLDs such as .com and .net, the authoritative Whois service is run by the registrar responsible for the domain name. While some TLD operators run their own infrastructure... more

The Introduction of New Domain Name Services: “Due Process” and Innovation

For those interested in encouraging innovation in the domain name space -- which presumably includes the ICANN community currently convening in Dakar -- the recent episode in which VeriSign proposed, and then quickly withdrew, a bundle of new services (the VeriSign anti-abuse domain use policy) raises important issues that will be revisited as new gTLDs are introduced. Some of those issues are referenced in a recent blog post by Milton Mueller, but his emphasis on "due process" suggests a regulatory framework that is not friendly to innovation. more

The Last Domain Name You’ll Ever Register

We read with interest the 20 Sept., 2011 article in The Hollywood Reporter. This confirmed that there is a lot of misinformation about the expansion of the domain name space circulating. Sadly, a creative opportunity is being seen as a threat by the most creative of industries. The arrival of an open playing field for .ANYTHING is not a threat, it is unquestionably a long awaited opportunity and solution to the murky waters of the .COM namespace.
The opportunity is the restoration of trust and authenticity. Trust and reputations have been eroded by cybersquatting, phishing and fraud that are endemic to the current naming system. more

A Month in Africa Charts the Promise and Perils of Internet Governance

There may be no better illustration of how far we've come in Internet governance, than this: twice in the past 30 days, the global Internet community has gathered in sub-Saharan Africa to plot a path to bring the Internet to its next billion users. Just weeks after wrapping up the sixth annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Kenya, Internet stakeholders from around the world traveled back to Africa for ICANN's 42nd meeting in Dakar, Senegal. more

Big Brands Should Embrace New TLDs & Stop Giving Away Money

Advertisers have given Verisign a free gift worth billions of dollars over the past 10 years. Sports Stadiums provide a great analogy... What do office supplies have to do with basketball? What does oil have to do with football? Yet, Staples will pay the Lakers $116 million dollars and Lucas Oil will pay the Indianapolis Colts about the same (over 20 years) to associate their company names with these stadiums. more

dot Brands Need to Look Under the Hood Before Partnering

As the countdown for the ICANN gTLD program ticks away its final 100 days, potential dot Brand applicants have to make important decisions in a short space of time: whether to apply for a new TLD, how to best leverage a new top-level domain, and which gTLD partner to choose. Most dot Brand applicants have excellent IT departments, but these resources are already over-stretched with current projects, and they likely lack the specific skills and experience needed to meet ICANN's exacting standards in the highly specialized area of top-level domain registry technology. more

The Sins of the Flash

Recent news stories (based on research by Stanford student Feross Aboukhadijeh) state that an Adobe bug made it possible for remote sites to turn on a viewer's camera and microphone. That sounds bad enough, but that's not the really disturbing part. more

Oil and Gas Cyber Security Forum

A reader recently brought to my attention an upcoming conference in London in the UK -- The Oil and Gas Cyber Security Forum. Here's a little blurb: "Despite investments into state of the art technology, a majority of the oil and gas industry remain blissfully unaware of the vulnerabilities, threats and capability of a malicious cyber attack on control systems..." I bring this up because it is relevant to the trends in cyber security that we see this year - that of the Advanced Persistent Threat. more