Domain Names

Outsourcing and Registry Operations Present Challenges to New TLD Applicants

After ICANN announced in Singapore approval of the new Top-Level Domain (TLD) program, we heard many prospective applicants say they would start asking registry infrastructure providers to break down their costs into registration and resolution components. The last few TLD launches have shown that although you can achieve some respectable registration volumes for new TLDs, chances are it will take some time for content to be associated with the domain names, and hence, resolutions to pick up. more

New Top-Level Domains Approved by ICANN

The Board of ICANN today gave final approval to the most dramatic change to the Internet in four decades -- allowing the expansion of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). This monumental decision will allow companies and organizations to turn their own brands into Internet domain extensions (that is .brand) or to create broad generic strings such as .CAR, .SPORTS or .BANK. ICANN's TLD expansion plan was first announced three years ago on June 26, 2008 at the 32nd ICANN Meeting in Paris. more

Searching Under Lampposts with DKIM

Email is a complex service and email abuse adds confusing deceptions. Worse, like postal mail and even telephone service, Internet mail is inherently open, flexible and even anonymous, making things much easier for abusers. Bad actors hide their true identity and their true purpose. Most other communication tools for users also are also quite open, and problems with email are being replicated elsewhere, such as instant messaging and social media. more

Now Begins the Third Stage of ICANN’s TLD Triathlon

The ICANN community here in Singapore is celebrating after the historic vote to expand top-level domains (TLDs). And while I wouldn't begrudge anyone a few Singapore Slings, I think it's a little early to start celebrating. The marathon effort ICANN began 5 years ago isn't even close to reaching the finish line. more

Domain Names Without Dots

Now that ICANN has approved a potentially vast expansion in the number of generic Top-Level Domains, there's considerable interest in and confusion about how these names can be used. For example if someone registers "dot BRAND", can they advertise http://brand/ and have it work? more

ICANN Hubris Knows No Ends

Despite all signs pointing to a launch of the new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) program in Singapore, it seems like ICANN could not help poking the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) in the eye one last time. In the latest installment of how a California not for profit technical coordinating body knows best, we have the ICANN Evidence of "Use" Requirement for Trademark Protection document. more

Decision Day for ICANN: The End of the Beginning, or the Beginning of the End?

I've just arrived in Singapore, where ICANN's board will almost surely vote to launch an unprecedented expansion plan for generic top-level domains (gTLDs). As the new gTLDs start lighting-up over the next two years, we'll look back on this week as the "end of the beginning" since it ended several years of planning for the actual expansion. After the vote the real work begins: evaluating applications, implementing new mechanisms, and contract compliance on a scale far greater than ICANN has ever seen. more

Some Considerations for New TLD Operators from a Registrar Perspective

The "hot topic" at the upcoming ICANN meeting in Singapore will, of course, be whether or not the new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) will actually launch or not. Sure, they'll launch at some point, but ICANN has been pushing to make the big announcement at Singapore. There has been a lot written over the last couple of years about new TLDs over the last couple of years. We are now coming into what might be called the "end game". more

Anycast, Unicast, or Both?

A long time ago in an Internet far away, nobody paid for DNS services. Not directly at least. We either ran our own servers, or got DNS service as part of our IP transit contract, or traded services with others. In ~1990 I was the operator of one of the largest name servers in existence (UUCP-GW-1.PA.DEC.COM) and I exchanged free DNS secondary service with UUNET. Two thousand zones seemed like a lot of zones back then -- little did we dream that there would some day be a billion or so DNS zones world wide. more

Using Domain Filtering To Effect IP Address Filtering

In Taking Back The DNS I described new technology in ISC BIND as of Version 9.8.0 that allows a recursive server operator to import DNS filtering rules in what ISC hopes will become the standard interchange format for DNS policy information. Later I had to decry the possible use of this technology for mandated content blocking such as might soon be the law of the land in my country. I'm a guest at MAAWG this week in San Francisco and one of the most useful hallway discussions I've been in so far was about the Spamhaus DROP list. more

Will ICANN’s gTLD Flood the Sub-Domain Registrations?

Obviously, the market will explode if there were a few hundred new gTLDs creating global excitement and building new platforms on ecommerce and cyber-branding. The media hype and breakaway stories will create a boom to the traffic; all types of new and old names will be registered under current and re-registered under new gTLDs wherever possible. more

New gTLDs: Will Application Developers Be Ready In Time to Secure User Confidence?

Last week I pointed out a potential problem with the user experience, if, as envisioned, a large number of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) are added to the root at the same time. The problem I was referring to has nothing to do with the new gTLDs themselves. Rather, it's about the lack of any updated procedures and communication campaigns to application and software vendors. The objective would be to alert them in time and equip them to swiftly update their programs... more

The gTLD Boondoggle

I've been watching at the excitement build in the domain community, where a lot of people seem to believe that at next month's Singapore meeting, by golly, this time ICANN will really truly open the floodgates and start adding lots of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). I have my doubts, because there's still significant issues with the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and the US Government and ICANN hasn't yet grasped the fact that governments do not defer to NGOs, but let's back up a little and ask is this a good idea. more

India: One Country, Many Internationalized Domain Names

If you're interested in learning more about Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), UNESCO and EURid recently released a report on the evolution and challenges of IDNs. It's a good read and it highlights some of the struggles that countries and registries face and taking IDNs mainstream. Though Russia has so far proven to be a major success story - with more than 800,000 IDN registrations so far (and counting) - most other IDNs are have a long ways to go yet. more

Who Cares About 50,000 .CAT’s?

This past May 19th, 5 years after its sunrise, puntCAT arrived at the 50,000 domain names landmark. We know that, nowadays, 50,000 domain names may hardly be described as shocking news, and, certainly, this is not our limit, and we believe there's still plenty of room for .cat to grow. Then, who and why should care about this number? more