Domain Names

Industry Association: An Implementation Model

We read carefully Scott Hollenbeck's call to form a Domain Name Industry association to promote consistency in technical operations across the many moving parts of the industry and we, the Board and members of the Domain Name Association, largely agree. More formal coordination among registry operators and domain name registrars would improve the domain name registration experience for registrants and business operations for the domain name industry in general. more

Finishing What We Started: A Level Playing Field for New gTLDs

While the Internet governance debate devours headlines, it's almost easy to forget that ICANN is in the midst of the most audacious and important policy process it has ever undertaken. And while many new generic top-level domains are now live, the process of ensuring the best opportunity to fulfill their potential is not yet complete. We recently reached the milestone of 280,000 registrations in the Donuts gTLDs that are currently generally available. more

Musings on Metering: An Update from ICANN’s Latest Meeting

ICANN held another update for new gTLD applicants last week, revealing that the proposal to meter the introduction of new gTLDs received many suggestions during the open comment period. This was just the first step to what I imagine will be a long process - one that will continue on September 12 when ICANN holds a public consultation that will offer more detailed discussion on the many different options for metering. more

Creditor Can Execute Against Domain Name Where Registry is Located: Office Depot v. Zuccarini

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's ruling in Office Depot v. Zuccarini, agreeing that a creditor may levy against a domain name in the jurisdiction where the domain name registry is located. The decision is significant for two reasons. First, it affirms (or reaffirms) that domain names are property subject to the claims of creditors... more

The Trademark Clearinghouse: Secure, Reliable, Usable - Pick Any Two

Earlier this week, technical and legal experts from ICANN, Deloitte and IBM met in Brussels with their counterparts from registrars and registry service providers representing as much as 90% of prospective gTLD registries, to discuss the technical implementation of the Trademark Clearinghouse, the database of rights holder information that will support the mandatory rights holder protection mechanisms for new gTLDs. more

Domain Pulse 2008: Internet Governance the Focus of Day One

Around 350 attendees came from Russia in the east to Ireland in the west, as well as a few people from elsewhere around the globe, to attend Domain Pulse 2008 in Vienna on February 21 and 22. Day one's focus was internet governance. The future of the DNS was one of the key issues addressed by Michael Nelson of Georgetown University in Washington DC, with domain names becoming less important, but their numbers still increasing, as online access by a myriad of devices skyrockets connect -- everything from the television, refrigerator, washing machine, pets, sprinkler systems and cars. more

WSIS Leaving More Questions Than Answers

Two things are important to stress. First, nothing was decided in this meeting, and no actions will be taken until the next meeting in 2005. Secondly, and more importantly, as with anything the devil is in the details. Given the vagueness of the documents available, there are few reliable conclusions that can be drawn from the summit...Before any judgments can be made about the effectiveness, or feasibility of the ideas outlined in the Plan of Action more concrete information is needed. The details of these plans are currently unknown to the Internet community at large, and may even be unknown to the members of the WSIS. Based on the information that is available it appears the Plan of Action needs to be thought through a little more thoroughly. more

Country and Regional TLDs Are Vital in Supporting Online Linguistic Diversity, Study Finds

A study conducted by the Oxford Information Labs in collaboration with Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR), finds that the role of country and regional TLDs is imperative in supporting diversity in global online linguistic. more

Warning, Danger Lurks Here: Exploring DKIM/ADSP Edge Cases - Missing message-id

This article is the first in an occasional series on DKIM/ADSP edge cases that may not be generally recognized or understood. Many people advocate DKIM/ADSP adoption without fully recognizing potential implementation and operational issues. The fact is that the email messaging environment is fraught with opportunities for poor outcomes because of common practices that need to be considered or poorly understood implementations that are not considered... more

Bitcoin Domain Names Become Popular - and Attract Disputes

Cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin) are all the rage -- so, naturally, related domain name disputes are, too. The wild fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices (Bitcoin hit a low of close to $6,000 this week, after reaching an all-time high of more than $19,000 only two months ago, and less than $1,000 a year ago) have attracted speculators, regulators and now even cybersquatters. more

New Technique Detects and Eliminates Abusive Domains at Time of Registration

A team of researchers from Princeton University and the University of California has developed a machine-learning algorithm named PREDATOR that can accurately establish domain reputation at the time of domain registration. more

Is a New Set of Governance Mechanism Necessary for the New gTLDs?

In order to be able to reply to the question of whether a new set of governance mechanisms are necessary to regulate the new Global Top Level Domains (gTLDs), one should first consider how efficiently the current Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has performed and then move to the evaluation of the Implementations Recommendations Team (ITR) recommendations. more

How Much Money Is There in Complaining?

Although I don't have a lot of sympathy for the trademark lawyers' argument that trademark holders need to register .sucks domains cheaply before anyone else can, there is one point at the end of their letter that's worth a look. The registry contract for .sucks, between Vox Populi and ICANN, has this sentence that appears (as far as I know) in no other registry contract, in the section on Registry-Level fees. more

Are Domain Names Recession Proof?

We'll only be able to tell whether domain names are recession proof by waiting for the performance of e-commerce sites during the holiday shopping season. Domain name owners and buyers have to remain in suspense a while longer. Some domainers are experiencing drops in sales and prices. However, it is not clear whether those drops are because of changes in valuations by buyers, sellers, or both. more

Generic Top Level Domain Insights for Q4 2015

2015 has been a busy year for the new gTLD industry and 2016 will undoubtedly, be another interesting year. Anticipation of the General Availability for some of the highly contentious TLDs, the development of existing generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) in terms of registrations, and business proposition with the majority of the first round of applicants reaching delegation by the end of the year. While 2015 had over 7 million new gTLD domain registrations, the top 25 Top Level Domains accounted for almost a half of both registration revenues and volumes highlighting the need for the industry to garner further momentum and fortune. more