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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
DNSSEC adoption has been slow, but is now picking up speed, thanks to organizations leading the way. ... While some registries have already signed, some have announced plans to sign and others are still trying to figure out their plan. Either way, DNSSEC is here. How can we make DNSSEC adoption quicker and easier not only for the registry but for individual name owners? more
In the coming months, ICANN will ambitiously expand the number of top-level domains (TLDs). ICANN could add ".movie" and ".paris", among others, to the existing ranks of ".com", ".org", ".gov", and ".edu". Here's another they should consider: a new ".pol" TLD that is reserved exclusively for political candidates and entities. A ".pol" TLD is needed to alleviate problems linked to a now-common phenomenon called political cybersquatting... more
With the launch of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) expected to occur early next year, many are closely examining the opportunities and risks associated with ICANN's Program. Although still in draft format and subject to change, keep these gotchas in mind as you think through your strategy. more
When it comes to stealing domain names, I suspect that there are two reasons why so many web bandits appear to be immune from ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers uses the acronym ICANN): the first reason I discussed in my last column on domain name theft (where I described a substantive void in domain name "regulation" as a primary factor for the increasing incidence of domain name theft), the second reason, which is the focus of this column, is the procedural anomaly that currently infuses ICANN's uniform dispute resolution process (UDRP) by providing no administrative forum for domain name registrants who become victims of domain name theft carried out by ICANN's registrars. more
Last week ICANN took another very significant step forward in the expansion of the internet by approving the delegation of a number of Chinese script IDN ccTLDs. Although we have all heard statements that portray the introduction of IDN ccTLDs as being perhaps the single most important factor in the achievement of ICANN's "One World, One Internet" vision, we should take a moment to appreciate the true significance of this latest round of IDN ccTLD approvals. more
Now that ICANN has added IPv6 name servers for the root zone, and that many registries have enabled IPv6 on their DNS servers, I thought it would have been easy to update the DNS records pointing to my domain to mention a IPv6-only DNS server. This way, we could have native name resolution end-to-end in IPv6. We are not there yet, it seems. more
On April 16 ICANN issued a breach notice to Turkish Registrar Alantron for not consistently providing access to its WHOIS database via Port 43, a command-line query location that all Registrars are required to supply under conditions of their contract with ICANN under section 3.3.1. Four days later they issued a breach to Internet Group do Brazil for the same problem. ... The WHOIS record, as we all know, is a massive fraud with illicit parties filling records with bogus information and hiding behind anonymity. more
ICANN's 38th get-together, in Brussels, may become known as the meeting where the dust finally began to settle. Long-standing issues were settled, compromises were reached, no-one complained too much about the latest version of the Applicant Guidebook, and the Board stood by its project plan dates, even scheduling a Board retreat to solve remaining issues. Finally, there were no surprise "gotcha!" delays that generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) applicants have been used to seeing at ICANN meeting. With one possible exception... more
At Friday's meeting of the ICANN board in Brussels, they voted, probably for the last time, to approve the 2004 application for the .XXX domain. Purely on the merits, there is of course no need for a top level domain for porn. This isn't about the merits, this is about whether ICANN follows its own rules. Despite overheated press reports, .XXX will not make porn any more available online than it already is (how could it?), there is no chance of all porn being forced into .XXX (that's a non-starter under US law), and .XXX will have no effect on the net other than perhaps being a place to put legal but socially marginal porn far away from any accidental visitors. more
In this action under the usTLD Dispute Resolution Policy (which mirrors the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy), Complainant sought transfer of the Domain Name grazia.us. Complainant, an Italian company, has used the mark GRAZIA for many years in several markets around the world in connection with its fashion magazine. more