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The Registration Operations Workshop (ROW) was conceived as an informal industry conference that would provide a forum for discussion of the technical aspects of registration operations in the domain name system and IP addressing. The ROW series is being co-sponsored by Verisign and ICANN and organized by Cofomo, and we are looking forward to an engaging set of talks, panel discussions, and conversations with individuals involved with the operation of domain name registrations systems. more
Over the past twenty years of my engagement in the ICANN multistakeholder process, one topic that has always been near and dear to me has been improving the accuracy and access to domain name registration data in a way that respects the legal rights of both registrants and requestors of registration data. Sadly, the glacial pace at which ICANN develops and implements policy has prevented a holistic solution to the problem. more
TLD registrations in the Internet's root-zone file currently are divided into two broad classifications: generic and country-code top-level domains. With respect to the latter classification, no new "strategy" is required to add further ccTLDs as a relatively well-working process is already in place to integrate the occasional new country-code top-level domain. With one of these two classifications under reasonably sound management, it is therefore perfectly understandable to see that the ICANN organization consequently views its obligation to "Define and implement a predictable strategy for selecting new TLDs" as a mandate "to begin the process of allocating and implementing new gTLDs"... the flaw in this conclusion, however, stems from the presumption that the Internet's taxonomy must necessarily contain only the two above-so-mentioned broad classifications. I am proposing a third TLD classification -- based on languages. more
On January 17th in the closing days of the Biden Administration, NTIA issued the following Response for Information in connection with the .us ccTLD. While responses to the RFI will be held in confidence by NTIA per the RFI, some organizations such as M3AAWG made their response public. In the spirit of openness and transparency, Rick Lane and I are sharing our response on this important topic. more
By now anyone who's part of the domain investment or broader ICANN community is aware of the curious saga of the recently launched .XYZ registry. Soon after its young CEO boldly stated, "we hope to reach 1 million .XYZ registrations in the first year and 5 million registrations in the first three years", the registry launched with a remarkable total of nearly 18,000 registrations on its first day, a total that has quickly grown to more than 100,000. But it was soon noted that "the zone files showed that over 70% of all .XYZ registrations had been made at NetworkSolutions... more
CENTR, the association which represents European country code top-level domain name registries (ccTLDs), such as .de for Germany or .no for Norway, has published the latest edition of its quarterly CENTRstats TLD Market Report, covering the global status and registration trends in all top-level domains (legacy gTLDs, new gTLDs and ccTLDs), with a specific focus on the European ccTLD market. more
A recent survey conducted by the Neustar International Security Council confirmed the heightened interests on domain name system (DNS) security. The survey reveals that over three-quarters of cybersecurity professionals anticipate increases in DNS attacks, especially with more people shopping online amid the pandemic. Yet, close to 30% have reservations about their ability to respond to these attacks. more
In my first CircleID post, I compared the cyberspace to a farmland, which has to be cultivated and developed. I ended by asking: Where is cyberspace? I have asked this same question from many people, many of whom are internet experts. They all said the cyberspace is in the computers, networks, or servers, or the Internet itself. I agree with these cyberspace ideas. In addition, my opinion is a bit different. more
Once again it is time for CircleID's annual roundup of top ten most popular posts featured during the past year (based on overall readership). Congratulations to all the 2015 participants and best wishes in the new year. more
ICANN Board Chair Vint Cerf now works for a company whose motto is, "Do No Evil." So how could Vint and his fellow board members be engaged in a massive capitulation to the enterprise greed of dot-com operator VeriSign? The story of how the Internet community got to its current impasse over the future of the ICANN-VeriSign relationship is overly complicated but the bottom line is that we are suffering from woes created by the U.S. Government with the best of intentions over the past fifteen years. And only the government has the capacity to stop equivocating and do the right thing for all of us. The road to hell is paved with good intentions... more
When a brand goes so far as to ask a domain name registrar for Whois (the registration contact details) of a potentially abusive domain name, there's likely a lot at stake. Most often, the request is prompted by consumer safety concerns, such as the risk to consumers posed by a malicious site. Other times, the demand has a simple goal: to have a dialog with the registrant about the use of trademarks or other intellectual property in order to avoid extreme action. more
You could call this Part Three in our series on Illicit Internet Pharmacy. Part One being What's Driving Spam and Domain Fraud? Illicit Drug Traffic, Part Two being Online Drug Traffic and Registrar Policy. There are a few facts I'd like to list briefly so everyone is up to speed. The largest chunk of online abuse at this time is related to illicit international drug traffic, mostly counterfeit and diverted pharmaceuticals. more
Whenever you register a domain name, your contact details are published in a publicly visible database called "Whois", where your contact details are instantly harvested by spambots and marketers who proceed to email and postal mail you marketing offers, deceptive "domain slamming" attempts, ads for dubious products, and perhaps even telemarketing calls. Nobody likes that, so over the years people started resorting to various tactics to protect themselves from the deluge of crap that inevitably comes with simply registering a domain name... more
In December 2003, the testing phase of Multilingual domains also known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), went live with the addition of over 350,000 multilingual domains to the .com and .net registries. As of 1st January 2004, the .com registry contained 300,409 IDN's, whereas the .net registry had 79,630 IDN's, representing around 1.25% of the total .com and .net domains. WebHosting.Info has analyzed these 380,039 IDN domains that are now live, and provided a detailed insight on trends and patterns across these domains. more
Two months ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alerted the public to a list of domains that could easily be mistaken to be part of its network. The list of artifacts contained a total of 92 domain names, 78 of which led to potentially malicious websites, while the remaining 14 have yet to be activated or are no longer active as of 23 November 2020. more