Domain Names

Here They Come

Something has shifted. I think it might be the end of the holding pattern we as new gTLD applicants/followers/enthusiasts and generally speaking, the entire community, have been caught up in. We´re all looking forward to ushering in the next generation of the Internet. Someone press start please. Several major milestones have been reached. more

How Insider Domain Theft Can Bring Down ICANN

If a hired philosopher graced ICANN, the work would get down to brass tacks. "What is it?", she would ask, that drives ICANN beyond the mysterious dot that apparently represents the root. One can picture subsequent appeals from senior management to its navels, for clues as to what in the end game the root truly represents. I surmise that contemplating bred-in-the-bone values does not resonate easily or often at ICANN. Its like that unreachable itch that evades our scratch; we can't get at the source. more

Yet Another Embarrassing IDN Gaff from ICANN

Hot on the heels of other ICANN Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Top-Level Domain (TLD) launch errors, we now have another example of ICANN's failure to comprehend the differences between IDN and ASCII names, this time to the detriment of potential IDN registrants and the new IDN generic TLD (gTLD) Registries. This gaff really makes you wonder whether the SSAC and Multilinguism departments at ICANN have ever met. 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

ICANN’s Strong Rebuke to Verisign’s Chuck Gomes

Word to the wise: Fadi Chehadé's ICANN isn't going to take criticism lying down! In the past, the organisation has tended to react to criticism with a silence that was probably considered a way to avoid aggravating critics any further, but instead tended to infuriate people that were expecting answers. No longer. Since Chehadé came in as CEO, they get answers! more

Will Uniform Rapid Suspension Be a Substitute for Defensive Domain Name Registrations?

Many law firms and Intellectual Property departments in charge of managing brands and domain names for their customers or businesses must have had that same question: "how do I protect a brand online under the ICANN new gTLD program?" The first potential answer that is usually offered up to an enquirer is: "the Trademark Clearinghouse does that". As time goes by, and the rules under which the Trademark Clearinghouse operates are better defined and understood this answer becomes clearly fallacious. more

Domain Name Registrar Allows Completely Blank WHOIS

In a very casual and low-key footnote over the weekend, ICANN announced it would be further bypassing the Affirmation of Commitments and ignoring the WHOIS Review Team Report. There will be no enhanced validation or verification of WHOIS because unidentified people citing unknown statistics have said it would be too expensive... As a topic which has burned untold hours of community debate and development, the vague minimalist statement dismisses every ounce of work put in by stakeholders. more

ICANN and Your Internet Abuse

In spite of the material we were presented with in Durban something has gone very wrong inside of ICANN Compliance. KnujOn has published a report which demonstrates that ICANN Compliance appears to completely collapse between September 2012 and December 2012. Following December 2012, ICANN seems to stop responding to or processing any complaints. It is around this time certain compliance employees start disappearing. This was not limited to the Sydney office as some would have us believe... more

ICANN Opens GNSO Whois Study on Privacy/Proxy Abuse for Comment

ICANN has opened the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) Whois study on privacy/proxy abuse for public comment. Performed by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), this study is one of many commissioned by the GNSO to examine the current, disparate, and often maligned registration directory service, and aims to measure the hypothesis that "a significant percentage of the domain names used to conduct illegal or harmful Internet activities are registered via privacy and proxy services to obscure the perpetrator's identity." more

Phishing: A Look Into the E-Crime Landscape

At the recent Anti-Phishing Working Group meeting in San Francisco, Rod Rasmussen and I published our latest APWG Global Phishing Survey. Phishing is a distinct kind of e-crime, one that's possible to measure and analyze in depth. Our report is a look at how criminals act and react, and what the implications are for the domain name industry. more

New gTLD Registration Strategies: Preparing for the Inevitable

As we draw closer to the first new gTLD registry launch, many companies are beginning the arduous task of developing their new gTLD registration and blocking strategies. And after speaking with dozens of clients, I can tell you that the planned approaches are ranging from very minimal registration and blocking strategies for one or two core brands, all the way through to registrations of multiple brands in every single new gTLD registry. more

New gTLDs Are Like Derivatives on Wall Street With No Value, Says Esther Dyson

In a story ran by the New York Times over the weekend, the viability of introducing hundreds of new top-level domains in the market has been criticized by individuals including Esther Dyson, a technology investor who served as the founding chairwoman of ICANN. Dyson likens ICANN's plan for the introduction of new gTLDs to creating derivative-like businesses on Wall Street that have no value. "You can charge people for it, but you are contributing nothing to the happiness of humanity." more

You Just Signed a Registry Contract With ICANN. What Are Your Plans?

Back on February 4, 2013, I wrote a CircleID post entitled 'How the registrar Cash Flow Model Could Collapse with New ICANN gTLDs.' My key point back then was this: new gTLD applicants need to be mindful of how the cash flow policies of their registry (and of their back-end service provider) could impact whether their TLD is actively promoted by ICANN registrars... registries have historically assumed near-zero risk. This is going to change. more

Wow. That’s a Lot of Reserved Names

ICANN recently updated the list of reserved second level domain names. Those are names that you won't be able to register in any of the 1500 or so new domains they're planning to add. There's rather a lot of them, currently 629. The names are in three groups, the ICRC (the Red Cross), the IOC (the Olympic games) and everyone else. Several years ago the Red Cross and later the Olympics came to ICANN and insisted that they make a special list of forbidden names, separate from the various trademark registries. more

More than 85% of Top 500 Most Highly-Trafficked Websites Vulnerable

Over the last 5 years, hacktivists have continued the practice of redirecting well-known domain names to politically motivated websites utilizing tactics such as SQL injection attacks and social engineering schemes to gain access to domain management accounts -- and that, in and of itself, is not surprising. But what IS surprising is the fact that less than 15% of the 500 most highly trafficked domains in the world are utilizing Registry Locking. more