Domain Names

Value or Love for New gTLDs?

ICANN has started its historic and controversial program to expand the number of generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). This essay outlines the factors needed for the program to create economic value, warns against a cognitive trap that complicates selection of a new gTLD and considers the value contribution of the registries. I will not go into relevant macro measures, but I examine the problems associated with the popular measure of simply counting the number of registrations. more

DNS Policy is Hop by Hop; DNS Security is End to End

The debate continues as to whether ISP's can effectively filter DNS results in order to protect brand and copyright holders from online infringement. It's noteworthy that there is no argument as to whether these rights holders and their properties deserve protection - nobody is saying "content wants to be free" and there is general agreement that it is harder to protect rights in the Internet era where perfect copies of can be made and distributed instantaneously. What we're debating now is just whether controlling DNS at the ISP level would work at all and whether the attempt to insert such controls would damage Secure DNS (sometimes called DNSSEC). more

TLD Expansion: ICANN Must Not Back Down

ICANN's plan to open up the domain name space to new top level domains is scheduled to begin January 12, 2012. This long overdue implementation is the result of an open process that began in 2006. It would, in fact, be more realistic to say that the decision has been in the works 15 years; i.e., since early 1997. That is when demand for new top-level domain names, and the need for other policy decisions regarding the coordination of the domain name system, made it clear that a new institutional framework had to be created. more

ICANN Pressured to Reserve Names: “We don’t accept any more reservations!”

It is not a secret that I have been (and I continue to be) against the requests made to ICANN by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Red Cross for special protection of their names and their variations. I am mainly against it because of the problems associated with these types of protection, the potential implications they may have and the fact that any attempt to reserve any names in the Domain Name Space will set a very bad precedent that will be detrimental to the whole new gTLDs experience. Well, the effect of this precedent is right upon us... more

Typosquatted Domain Names Pose Plenty of Risk But Surprisingly Little Malware

A recent study took an in-depth look at the scale and the risk of domain name typosquatting -- the practice of registering mis-spellings of popular domain names in an attempt to profit from typing mistakes. "Applying every possible one-character typo to the domain names of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple and Sophos," Paul Ducklin, Sophos' Asia Pacific head of technology collected HTTP data and browser screenshots from 1502 web sites and 14,495 URLs. In this report, Ducklin analyses the data revealing unexpected results within the typosquatting ecosystem. more

Providing Persistent Domain Names Under .ARPA

Some domains are too big to fail. Quite apart from the obvious ones like google.com and facebook.com, upon whose availability our everyday lives depends, there are many others upon which the infrastructure of the Internet (and much of the modern world itself) depends. These are domains like w3.org and ietf.org, which host the technical specifications which describe the World Wide Web and the Internet themselves. more

Fear of New gTLD Monopolies Is Overblown

You should not worry too much if some of the new generic Top-Level Domain names (gTLDs) become monopolies. ICANN and the registries won't charge monopoly prices as long as they have to worry about the government stepping in. Monopolies normally present two problems for consumers: restricted output and higher prices. In the case of the new gTLDs, restricted output is caused only by ICANN's monopoly over approving gTLD applications. more

U.S. Government Strongly Affirms ICANN Model and New gTLDs

Larry Strickling, who runs the NTIA (the part of the U.S. Department of Commerce that handles ICANN), yesterday gave an important and remarkable speech to the Practicing Law Institute about Internet governance. His speech, timed to coincide with an orchestrated ICANN-bashing across town in the Senate, was a striking defense of the ICANN model and a repudiation of special pleading outside the process. more

US Senate Committee Holds Hearing on ICANN’s New TLD Expansion

As previously noted, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today held a full committee hearing on ICANN's expansion of top level domains (TLDs). The hearing was held to examine the merits and implications of the program and ICANN's efforts to address concerns raised. ICANN will begin accepting applications for new TLDs on January 12, 2012. more

Beyond Words: Diverse Voices at ICANN and Miscommunications

A few days ago, I sat in a meeting here in Ottawa with our IT Director and Director of Marketing and Communications. These are two highly intelligent people working on the same team, for the same company, talking about a common subject. And yet, something was amiss in achieving mutual understanding. Each was seeing things from his own distinct perspective and as such, speaking his own language. As I reflected on my team's internal dynamic, I began to see parallels in areas that have an even more direct impact on the Internet ecosystem. more

Court OKs Private Seizure of Domain Names That Allegedly Sold Counterfeit Goods

Luxury brand Chanel has engaged in a fierce campaign against counterfeit websites in federal court in Nevada. It has seized approximately six hundred domain names in the last few months, reports Venkat Balasubramani. "I'm sympathetic to the "whack-a-mole" problem rights owners face, but this relief is just extraordinarily broad and is on shaky procedural grounds." more

Another Thanksgiving and Another 131 Domain Names Seized by Homeland Security

Last year I wrote a post right after Thanksgiving entitled: "While You Were Eating You're Turkey Homeland Security Was Seizing 9 Domains". Well I could have repeated the headline today except the number would be 131 domains rather than just 9. Looks like Homeland Security is going to make domain seizures on Thanksgiving as common in the US as Turkey and Stuffing. more

European Commission in Favour of New IANA Contract - Disapproves of US Only Bidding Process

In a move that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, the EU Commission has given a rather mixed welcome to the IANA bid. While they obviously like a lot of what they are seeing, they're also not overly impressed with the contract only being open to US companies. more

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

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