ICANN

New gTLD Program to Be Finalized After June ICANN Meeting

Today, in a presentation made to attendees of the McCarthy Institute Symposium, Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN Chair, announced that the Final New generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Applicant Guidebook would be completed after the ICANN Meeting in Amman, Jordan which is scheduled for June 19 - 24, 2011.

The U.S. “Scorecard” for Brussels: Draconian Trademark Rules & The End of Private-Sector Leaders

The U.S. "Scorecard" for Brussels Proposes Draconian Trademark Rules - And May Mean the End of Unlimited New gTLDs and/or the ICANN Experiment in Private Sector-Led Internet Governance... On Friday, January 28th the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) circulated its submission to ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) containing suggestions for what positions the GAC should push for at its February 28 - March 1 meeting with ICANN's Board to air disagreements over provisions of the Proposed Final Applicant Guidebook (AG) for new gTLDs.

San Francisco is the Best Place to Kick Off the New gTLD Program

With the ICANN Silicon Valley in San Francisco meeting just six short weeks away, the Internet community's hopes of seeing the launch of the new generic top-level domains (gTLD) program have been once again reinvigorated. A meeting of the ICANN Board of Directors last week produced encouraging resolutions that have given hopeful gTLD applicants the clearest indication yet that San Francisco will be the venue for the final approval of the Applicant Guidebook and the beginning of the Internet's next extraordinary phase of evolution.

Are We at the Dawn of a New Cold War?

Over the past say six months there are trends and events on and around the Internet that made me come up with this bizarre sounding question. Still it may actually make sense if we look at some facts. I'll be honest up front. This is a contribution that is not totally thought over and more a compilation of ideas and impressions gathered over the past weeks and months. Still, it could well serve as the beginning of a discussion on giving the recent events a place. There's nothing better than a provocative question in that case! Let's start here.

New gTLD Auctions and Potential Unintended Consequences

Auctions will play a critical role in ICANN's new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) process, the only question is whether they reinforce ICANN's position as a steward of a global public resource, or undermine it. Auctions are one of two widely used mechanisms used in the allocation of scarce global resources, the other being a comparative analysis (aka beauty contest). ... This paper seeks to highlight those potential unintended consequences and propose a more equitable model consistent with ICANN's role as a steward of public global resource.

Which Internet Extensions (gTLDs) to Apply For?

The number of possible new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) to apply for is daunting. Where do you start? This essay warns against some common pitfalls and outlines three logical steps that you need to follow in making your selection. Remember that there is money to be made in owning the right gTLD. Skeptics focus on the success, or lack of it, of previous expansions such as .name, .biz, and .info. They're using the wrong lens.

2010 Domain Name Year in Review - Oh, What A Year It Was!

Many of us were expecting radical changes in 2010 to the domain name market. There definitely were some of those -- just not the ones I expected. From the seizure of domains names by the US Government to ICANN's removal of restrictions on Registry/Registrar cross-ownership, 2010 was a year full of surprises. In this post, I've compiled what I think were the biggest domain name stories in 2010.

Domains and the Freedom to Speak

For a very long time, predating the birth of ICANN, there's been a running battle about what should be required when one registers domain names. To oversimplify quite a lot, one side sees domain names as an essential component of free speech, so anyone should be able to register any domain without limit, the other notes that they're primarily used for commercial purposes and they enable quite a lot of mischief, so the more control, the better.

What New gTLDs Mean for Developing Economy Applicants?

Everyone seems excited about new gTLDs being just around the corner. All of the overarching issues will soon be resolved: GAC and the ICANN Board will sit in a room and the wisdom of our leaders, ICANN and National, will produce the grand compromise. The starting flag will be flourished! A thousand flowers will bloom! Hooray! But it is only the developed world that can be excited about this, for it is hard to understand how the developing world could be very excited about an overpriced round of gTLD offerings that is unfairly beyond their means.

Insight: .JOBS and New TLD’s - Are You Paying Attention?

A lot of the people are planning to attend the .nxt conference next month ask me to point out the benefits of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs), and today gave me a fantastic opportunity... If you are thinking of applying for a new TLD and haven't been paying attention to the latest happening with .JOBS, maybe you should be. Though .JOBS has been a bit of a quiet TLD, they've been a favorite of mine because of the specific focus of the extension.