Domain Names

4 Key Dates on the gTLD Timeline

The new "dot-anything" domain extensions or "gTLDs" have been a major point of debate in the domain community for years now -- ever since they were just a glimmer in ICANN's eye -- and it's all come down to a few very important dates over the next six to nine months. more

Court Says gTLDs Aren’t ‘Domain Names’ for Cybersquatting Purposes, Declines LRO Review of .delmonte

A Swiss Del Monte entity that had a license to use the "DEL MONTE" mark applies to operate the .delmonte generic top level domain (gTLD). Another Del Monte entity, based in Delaware, filed a "legal rights objection" (LRO) - under WIPO-established procedures - to the Swiss Del Monte's application. A three member panel sustained the Delaware company's LRO... The Swiss entity sued in federal court seeking a declaration that it had sufficient rights in the "DEL MONTE" mark to operate the TLD... more

Dot Brands Should Not Rush to Market, but Build Effective Strategies First

Brands applied for their new gTLDs to protect their brand and ensure they didn't miss an important new opportunity, but few had a clear business case for how they would use the gTLD platform when they applied. As brands approach the July 29th contracting deadline, the inevitable question is arising: "What do we do with this?" more

The New gTLD Market Will Improve Very Slightly Over the Next Year or So, ICANN Predicts

According to ICANN’s latest budget predictions, new gTLD market will improve very slightly over the next year or so. 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

Securing Weak Links in Supply Chain Attacks

We've all heard the term, "you're only as strong as your weakest link." Whether talking about a tug of war on the playground, a sports team, or a business, this rings as true as ever. Every business relies on a series of suppliers and vendors -- be it the dairy farm supplying milk to the multinational food manufacturer or the payment systems that retailers use. These links form supply chains that every business, large and small, deals with. There is simply no way around it. more

NTIA Committed to ICANN Reform

National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has made a long term commitment to taking the actions necessary to reform ICANN. Specifically, the Department of Commerce's Strategic Plan for FY 2004-2009 discusses the need for NTIA to take action to reform ICANN. The Strategic Plan details three Strategic Goals for the Department to achieve over the next five years. The second goal is to "Foster science and technological leadership by protecting intellectual property, enhancing technical standards, and advancing measurement science."  more

Domain Registrars Given a Six-Month Deadline to Implement Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)

ICANN issued an industry-wide six-month deadline for the deployment of the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) - a replacement for the WHOIS protocol. more

Reflections on the .ORG Domain Registry Sale

For all the many reasons raised by thousands of petitioners by prominent members of the U.S. Congress, and the California Attorney General's office, this "sale" plainly should not be occurring. However, in a very real way, it is déjà vu. For me, as one of the handful of people who were members of the original InterNIC public advisory committee which oversaw the spinout of the registry activity from its DARPA government instantiation to a private enterprise business... more

Who Are the Major New gTLD Applicants and… (Part Four: Donuts)

Donuts is an applicant that threw the entire domain name industry into uproar due to the number of applications it submitted: 307 in total. It is hardly surprising that whenever new gTLDs are mentioned in the media that Donuts are mentioned alongside due to shear number of applications that they have submitted. There are dozens of articles in the media mixing information and opinions about Donuts. Often, they address the benefits to those registrants who are excited about the possibility of acquiring a new domain name and the threats to those who have an existing .COM domain name portfolio. more

Launch of .PARIS

Yesterday, hundreds of sweaty ICANN attendees put on their best clothes and braved the crush of the rush hour metro on a very hot day to crush together for the ICANN gala at the overwrought Hotel de Ville (city hall) in Paris. Most of them missed an interesting announcement. I arrived an hour late, but even so food and drink were not yet served (not even water), and everyone was in desperate need of provisioning. The dull roar of heat-induced complaining drowned out the dignitaries making speeches at the far end of the hall. more

DENIC (.DE) Now Has Over 17 Million Domain Names Registered

DENIC (the registry of .DE and the top-level domain name extension of Germany) has just recently announced that it has cracked the mark of 17 million domain names registered. As one of the most successful ccTLD's (country-code top-level domain names), the press release of DENIC is providing some additional interesting statistics. Such as that there are now 30k new registrations on average every month and that DENIC has over 300 members (mostly domain name registrars) to register domain names on behalf of their customers. more

Technical Viability of Dotless Domain Names

It was never obvious at the outset of this grand Internet experiment that the one aspect of the network's infrastructure that would truly prove to be the most fascinating, intriguing, painful, lucrative and just plain confusing, would be the Internet's Domain Name System. After all, it all seemed so simple to start with: network applications rendezvous with their counterparts using protocol-level addresses, but we users prefer to use "natural" identifiers that act as aliases for these addresses. more

Royal Cat Loses ICANN UDRP Action

This is serious. I'm not joking. You can look it up. Morgan Stanley brought a UDRP action involving the domain name 'mymorganstaleyplatinum.com' against a registrant identified as "Meow ("Respondent"), Baroness Penelope Cat of Nash DCB, Ashbed Barn, Boraston Track, Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire WR15 8LQ, GB." The decision summarizes the response... more

The Wayward AntiCybersquatting Consumer Protection Act

The Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) has lost its way. The ACPA was passed in an era of domain name land grabs, where nefarious individuals would register and warehouse oodles of valuable domain names, and then extract ransom from bewildered-trademark owners. These nefarious individuals are known as "cybersquatters", and, according to the ACPA, they are bad. The Ninth Circuit, in an early reading of the ACPA, stated... more