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The new organization called Coalition for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) has filed a lawsuit against ICANN and VeriSign in order to stop implementation of the proposed .com registry agreement. According to its description, "CFIT is a not-for-profit Delaware corporation based in Washington, D.C. CFIT’s supporters include individuals, organizations, institutions and companies who are committed to the core principles on which ICANN, the internet governing body is founded." more
The following is an analysis based on the hypothesis that trademark holders are not, in general, registering their trademarks as domain names across the existing top-level domain namespace. To determine if the hypothesis is true, we examine domain names registered in the popular generic top-level domains ("gTLDs" such as .com, .net and .info), also using other publicly available information such as the USPTO database of trademarks, the English dictionary, DNS entries, UDRP records and whois records. more
In a press release issued Wednesday, March 03, 2004, Go Daddy Software, Inc., defended ICANN's right to regulate VeriSign's registry services and called for a formal review of the company's position as an "exclusive registry." This announcement from Go Daddy, which comes one week after VeriSign filed a lawsuit against ICANN, pledges $100,000 to ICANN for its defense of the VeriSign lawsuit. Go Daddy, which ranks among the top 3 largest domain name registrars in the world and one of VeriSign's largest customers, has also sent a letter to both the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) strongly urging both groups to undertake a formal review of VeriSign's registry position.
In this special interview, CircleID has caught up with Bob Parsons, President and Founder of Go Daddy, where he provides in-depth discussions of Internet Innovation, ICANN, VeriSign's Global Registry Services, Top-Level Domains and the current legal battles. more
This is the first part of a two-part series interview by Geert Lovink with Milton Mueller discussing ICANN, World Summit on the Information Society, and the escalating debates over Internet Governance. Read the second part of this Interview here. Geert Lovink: "Would it make sense to analyse ICANN (and its predecessors) as a test model for some sort of secretive 'world government' that is run by self appointed experts? Could you explain why governments are seen as incapable of running the Internet? This all comes close to a conspiracy theory. I am not at all a fan of such reductionist easy-to-understand explanations. However, the discontent with 'global governance' discourse is widespread and it seems that the International Relations experts have little understanding how the Internet is actually run. Where do you think theorization of Internet governance should start?" more
As new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) are launched, the industry mustn't overlook the customer experience. A key question is this: Will the software applications we all use, recognize the new TLDs and know what to do with them in a timely fashion? Think email and even form-fill applications. I speak from experience here. In 2006 when we launched the .MOBI TLD, there were arguably only a handful of .MOBI email addresses in existence. To my dismay, I found that often emails sent only from my .MOBI account were not being received at the other end... more
"CreditCards.com, the domain name, has been purchased for $2.75 million by ClickSuccess, L.P., an Austin, Texas-based firm specializing in marketing financial products online. The purchase, announced yesterday (July 20, 2004), represents the fifth highest selling price for a domain name on record." I have to admit, when I looked at those opening lines from a new press release today I started trying to find out who was behind the joke! more
Where is the domain industry with the adoption of DNSSEC? After a burst of well publicized activity from 2009-2011 -- .org, .com, .net, and .gov adopting DNSSEC, roots signed, other Top-Level Domains (TLDs) signed -- the pace of adoption appears to have slowed in recent years. As many CircleID readers know, DNSSEC requires multiple steps in the chain of trust to be in place to improve online security. more
There are two types of domain name appraisers, designated here as type "1" and type "0," with the former being appraisers who rely on a scientific approach. A large number of domain owners use the services of type "0" -- the nonscientific -- or do the appraisal themselves. Approaches used by scientific appraisers include regression-type statistical modeling, discounted cash-flow analysis, and reliance on the Law of Large Numbers. This post looks at some of the typical erroneous arguments against taking a statistical approach and provides an example from law... more
ICANN has launched three task forces on WHOIS restructuring...It sounds innocuous enough -- nobody likes spam -- but the restrictions being discussed reach further than marketers. Pushed by registrars who feel that WHOIS amounts to forced disclosure of their customer lists, the task force is seriously discussing closing off port 43's straightforward access to WHOIS information, replacing it with GIF-based barriers or similar access restrictions. more
I, for one, have been a proponent of new gTLDs from the early days of their policy development process within ICANN. I always believed that the existing gTLDs -- and mainly the .com space -- have created artificial scarcity, which is primarily responsible for much of the cybersquatting and the abuse trademarks experience. I do not share the same fears as those who argue that new gTLDs will create intolerable levels of cybersquatting or will necessitate defensive registrations from brand and trademark owners alike. more
Despite the significant traffic that comes from typed-in domain names, the public harumphing and clucking about type-in traffic is climbing in volume as it becomes clear how much money is involved. Articles this week show that domain names, and the people who make money on them, are making some commentators uncomfortable. more
On Thursday, May 20, a final decision was issued in the Independent Review Process (IRP) brought by Afilias against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), rejecting Afilias' petition to nullify the results of the July 27, 2016 public auction for the .WEB new generic top level domain (gTLD) and to award .WEB to Afilias at a substantially lower, non-competitive price. Nu Dotco, LLC (NDC) submitted the highest bid at the auction and was declared the winner, over Afilias' lower, losing bid. more
ICANN today issued a press release and a series of documents about its relationship with the U.S. Department of Commerce. ...ICANN is no longer bound by the specific set of milestones that were in its prior MoU with DOC. With this freedom comes great responsibility. Without detailed government oversight, and without market competition for policymaking for domain names, ICANN (and the ICANN Board) has a great obligation to be accountable to its community. more
In the past, most measurements of registrar market share have tracked overall registrar shares -- number of domains registered by a registrar divided by number of domains registered by all registrars. In this article, I propose some alternatives -- particular subsets of domains in which to measure registrar market shares, providing a basis for comparison with overall market shares. Results vary dramatically across these subsets, with implications on the future customer retention rates of the corresponding registrars. more
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced today its approval of non-Latin string evaluation of Iran. This approval will allow the availability of Iran's top-level domain in its own native language, Persian, also known as Farsi (that is, the domain name .IRAN, in non-Latin characters). According to ICANN, there are currently 33 requests for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) representing 22 languages out of which 18 countries/territories have so far been approved. Other countries that have also successfully passed this string evaluation by ICANN include: India, Republic of Korea, Syrian Arab Republic and Singapore. more
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