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The announcement that .co has already achieved over 450,000 new registrations since the opening up of the second level a month ago demonstrates that there is strong demand in the global domain name marketplace for quality new domain spaces. Though .co is the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for Colombia, the second-level registrations (i.e. company.co) are available on a global basis and it is being pitched as a direct competitor to the dominant .com gTLD. Google has altered its algorithm to increase the relevance of search results in the .co domain by treating .co as a gTLD... more
New gTLDs continue to be a major topic of discussion within ICANN circles, and the regional meeting currently underway in Tokyo has revealed some interesting updates for potential applicants. ICANN's Chief gTLD Registry Liaison, Craig Schwartz, delivered a great presentation on the progress being made behind closed doors at ICANN and provided the attendees with an insight into a couple of key changes that are likely to be seen in the Final Applicant Guidebook. more
As a result of ICANN's IDN ccTLD Fast Track process, which was launched in November of last year, a number of new ccIDNs (Country Code Internationalized Domain Names) have been successfully added to the root including: China (.??, .??), Egypt (.???), Hong Kong (.?? ), Russia (.??), Saudi Arabia (.????????), Taiwan (.??, .??) and the UAE (.??????). ... With so many new registration possibilities available, and several Sunrise periods quickly approaching, many corporate domain managers are asking themselves whether new registrations should be added to portfolios which are already bursting at the seams. more
Bulgaria is a nation which is directly impacted by the current Fast Track automatic disqualification when Top-Level Domain (TLD) strings are "confusingly similar" to other TLDs, in this case an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD). Bulgaria has already been declined twice (in late 2009, and in May of 2010) to register the *.?? Cyrillic IDN on the premise that it looks confusingly similar to Brazil's *.br ASCII TLD. Being a native Bulgarian, I did not see how these two strings are similar more
A new book by Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis (Lecturer in Law at the University of Strathclyde) provides a passionate yet legalistic and well-researched overview of the legal, institutional and ethical problems caused by the clash between domain names and trademarks. This is really the first decent book-length treatment of what is now a decade and a half of legal and political conflict between domain name registrants and trademark holders. more
New generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) appear to be headed for introduction next year, finally. That's a good thing for many ICANN constituents who have been waiting for them to become available. Important questions persist about how new gTLDs will affect ICANN and its constituents, however, despite a lot of effort to resolve concerns. Pressing those questions should not be taken as criticism of the basic wisdom of making new gTLDs available to many constituents under many circumstances. But too much is at stake not to get it right. more
If the rise of phishing has taught us anything, it's that on the Internet, if a digital asset has value, there's somebody out there who wants to steal it. Whether it's a bank account password, a credit card number, a PayPal login, or even a magic sword in an online game, there's a fraudster somewhere trying to misappropriate it for his or her own nefarious purposes. Domain names have always been a target for such criminals. more
In my last post I discussed some questions that remain about ICANN's generic Top-level Domain (gTLD) budget. Today I discuss the rights protections mechanisms as they currently appear. An economic study commissioned ICANN to analyze the new gTLD process recently concluded that "the biggest likely costs" of approving new gTLDs are "consumer confusion and trademark protection." more
Paul observed that most new domain names are malicious. Are they? Since the "dawn of tasting", some 30 million domain names have been created for the purposes of interposition on existing name to resource mappings. That is a third of the .COM historical growth, and mostly in the last five years. ... It is difficult not to conclude that interposition on persistent, public referents is without malice, and that the malicious parties are advertisers seeking to transform public referents into private property, as promotional devices... more
Almost exactly nine years ago, the .INFO domain first started accepting registrations. This was an historic event as it was the first time a new generic top-level domain (TLD) was launched to an existing domain marketplace and, in fact, was the first new TLD to be added since .com. We've seen (and provided technology to power) many other TLD launches since then, with many business models. As you seek to introduce your own new TLD however, you should carefully evaluate the different launch models that have been tried before and determine which one will work best for your specific TLD. more
One of the major problems for brand owners is protecting the brand in new TLDs. Most new Top-Level Domain (TLD) registries will depend on brand protection registrations for a major part of their registration volume and some may become almost completely dependent on these registrations if the new TLD fails to capture the public's imagination. Short of comparing the registrant data for each individual domain, there is no 100% accurate method of measuring the level of brand protection registrations in a TLD. more
Economists aren't very good at predicting things, as any one with money in the stock market can attest. The most powerful economist in the United States, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is on record predicting a continuing climb in housing prices -- just prior to their precipitous decline. And yet their crystal balls still hold some allure for those who need to present "evidence" about the future. Such is the case with ICANN and the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program. more
The Coalition for Internet Transparency (CFIT) filed an anti-trust suit against VeriSign for their monopoly control of the .COM registry and the expiring market of .COM domains. The claims were many including excessive financial pressure lobbying and lawsuits to force ICANN into renewing the VeriSign .COM agreement under very self-serving terms. ICANN inevitably was paid millions of dollars to settle the suit. However, the saga continues once again. ... In the light of continuous and relentless discussions and proposals by the Vertical Integration working group, one question is in the back of everyone's mind. Could the decision on Vertical Integration backfire on ICANN and invite similar suits in the domain name space? more
DotCo, which is the ccTLD for Colombia, is opening up to general public registration today. According to official sources from both Neustar and CoInternet the registry has handled over 90 thousand registrations in the first 15 minutes! ... While the initial registration phase of any new domain extension can attract a lot of media interest and a flood of registrations you need to look at the "big picture". more
So we finally have a signed root zone. Now when is someone going to answer the question I first asked over five years ago and have still not had an answer to: How do the domain name owner's keys get into the TLD? Before we have a system people can use there have to be technical standards, validation criteria and a business model. Where are they? more
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