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Still Think .brands Might Be a Waste of Time? Google Doesn’t!

The new Top-Level Domain (TLD) program was designed from the outset to enhance competition and foster innovation. It was a great result for the wider industry to see approximately one-third of the applications received by ICANN submitted by some of the world's largest companies seeking to own and operate their own .brand TLD. Even with organisations such as Apple, Citibank and IBM applying for their respective TLDs, scepticism remained on the potential for .brands to succeed. more

Threat of Tiered Pricing Continues in New gTLD Guidebook Version 2

The draft New gTLD Applicant Guidebook (version 2) has been released along with an analysis of the comments to the prior version. The documents are voluminous. I glanced at the revised draft Base Agreement, and it's clearly unacceptable as there continue to be no price caps in place to protect domain name registrants... more

DOTZON Study: Digital Company Brands 2021

DOTZON presents the fourth edition of the Digital Company Brands study. After having introduced the study in 2018, DOTZON continued to expand and enhance the underlying data to display how cities successfully use their Digital Company Brands. The Digital Company Brand is the digital dimension of a company brand and mirrors the "digitalness" of a company. Purely digital company brands developed for the first time in the 1990s, with the emergence of Internet business models. Some of them were based solely on a generic Internet address, for example, www.hotel.de or www.amazon.com. more

GDPR and WHOIS - We’ve Heard from the Article 29 Working Party, Now What?

Well, here we are on Friday the 13th and I couldn't think of a better way to spend the day than providing an update on GDPR, WHOIS and ICANN. There's lots to cover, so let's dive right in. As we have been talking about for a number of months now, the EU's new General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) will become enforceable on May 25th. The ICANN community has been struggling with how GDPR will impact the WHOIS system. more

Mauritius Steps In: Unraveling the AFRINIC Crisis and Its Impact on African Internet Governance

A Supreme Court judge in Mauritius has been appointed to investigate AFRINIC, Africa's IP address registry, following allegations of misconduct, legal irregularities, and criminal falsification. The inquiry marks a pivotal moment in African internet governance, with implications for regional digital infrastructure and the continent's credibility in managing critical online resources. more

Verisign Dodges a Bullet, Gets to Keep .COM Pricing

According to a filing with the SEC, the Department of Commerce renewed the .COM agreement for six more years. The renewal was held up until the last minute (the old agreement expired yesterday) due to antitrust concerns, specifically about pricing. The main change in the new agreement is that Verisign is no longer allowed to increase the price above the existing $7.85... more

DNS… Wait a SEC

Complete DNSSEC implementation requires that domains are authenticated at the root by the Registry, and that DNS zones and records are authenticated as well. Now before I go any further, let me begin by stating that I fully support the development and deployment of DNSSEC and that the vulnerabilities presented by Cache Poisoning are very real, especially for those websites collecting login credentials or other types of sensitive information. more

Preserving ICANN’s Independence Through Bold Action – Not Inaction

This week, the ICANN Board will vote on whether to approve the transfer of control of the .ORG domain to a private equity firm called Ethos Capital. This is a weighty decision for ICANN, since in order to approve the sale, it will have to convince itself that this is the right choice in the face of tremendous and widespread opposition, including from those who will be most affected by the sale. more

The At-Large: An Insider’s View

February 2002 was a seminal month in the evolution of the ICANN At-Large movement. We began hearing reports from our European members that ICANN's chief lawyer, Joe Sims, was in Brussels, Belgium, holding closed-door meetings with European Commission members to gauge their reaction to plans that completely restructure the ICANN board, replacing the At-Large with a body of government representatives! The rumors were confirmed days later when ICANN President M. Stuart Lynn posted his "ICANN - The Case for Reform". more

Do We Need The New Top-level Domains?

After a long and exhaustive process it was finally decided by ICANN to introduce seven new top level domains in December. Well, they are not really introduced yet because the United States Government has the final word and they have not approved of them yet. Did you understand what I just wrote - the United States Government decides what names you can have on the Internet? more

2023 Review of the Online Brand Protection Market

Having been involved in this sector for over fifteen years now, the rate of change in the market dynamics continues to surprise me - from its early years when MarkMonitor and NetNames clearly led the space for several years, then seeing well-funded startups such as Yellow Brand Protection and Incopro challenge that, followed by a period of heavy M&A, it is now extremely diverse. more

New Work in the Development and Management of EPP Extensions

On Dec. 12, 2013, the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) announced the formation of a new working group, Extensible Provisioning Protocol Extensions (eppext). The working group was formed to create an Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) registry of Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) extensions and to review specifications of extensions for inclusion in the registry. EPP is the standard domain name provisioning protocol for generic top-level domain (gTLD) name registries that operate under the auspices of ICANN. more

ICANN 44 Prague: A Look at the Future

ICANN's 44th public meeting is about to start in a few days with a number of topics on the agenda. Some of them are new, while some of them are ongoing. First off, ICANN will be announcing the new CEO this Friday afternoon in Prague. Whoever it is will be coming to the organisation at a time when it faces a number of significant challenges. While the actual official meeting does not start until Monday morning there will be plenty of meetings on over the weekend as well... So what's on the "menu" for Prague? more

ICANN Bans Dotless Domains

Any new top level domain approved for the Internet will have to be more than just a single label. ICANN's new gTLD program committee (NGPC) has decided to ban the use of "dotless domains". TLD operators that had planned to use their new suffix as a keyword, i.e. just the string and nothing else, will now have to reconsider. more

GAC New gTLD No Fly Zone

I have struggled over the past couple of weeks to come up with a metaphor to succinctly describe the standoff between the ICANN Board and the ICANN Government Advisory Committee (GAC) over the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) implementation process. So here's my best attempt to explain these dynamics in terms a layperson may be better to understand. I chose the metaphor for its timeliness, without meaning to offend anyone. more