ICANN is on a path to introduce new top level domains. At .ORG, The Public Interest Registry, we are considering this an opportunity to introduce fully internationalized domain names (IDN), bringing our long-standing best practices of managing the .ORG registry to advance the use of the Internet across the globe. more
More and more geographic locations or cities are seeing merit in new gTLDs -- and it's not just the leading cities of the world who are applying. So far, a combination of 34 continents (Africa -.africa), regions (Venetia - .vtn), countries (Scotland - .sco), territories (Yorkshire - .yks), provinces (Leon - .lli), states (Bavaria - .bayern) and cities (London - .london) have announced their intention to bid when ICANN opens its applications. more
As we head into 2010, it's no secret that the issues of security and the prevention of internet identity theft in all its forms are of critical importance. .ORG, the Public Interest Registry, was honored to host the First .ORG Forum in Washington, D.C. more
The popularity of geographical TLDs, often referred to as 'cityTLDs' or 'geoTLDs', certainly appears to be gaining momentum. Various countries and territories have announced their intentions to bid for their own TLD when ICANN's application period opens in mid 2010. more
During the past week, PIR has actively participated in several of the most important current policy proceedings at ICANN, and has joined in the comments filed by the Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG). A brief summary of the issues, the comments, and the URLs for the full text, follows. more
An interesting thing happened on the way to ICANN's new Affirmation of Commitments. ICANN staff has consistently recommended a reversal of its longstanding policy that prohibits a registry from acting as a registrar in its own top level domain ("TLD"). We see two good reasons why this anti-consumer proposal is unacceptable. more
Today Afilias President & CEO Hal Lubsen released a statement concerning ICANN's new Affirmation of Commitments with the US Department of Commerce. more
In a joint document, Afilias, NeuStar, and PIR discuss the salient issues facing the ICANN Board regarding a proposal for registry/registrar vertical integration in the newTLD round. The paper identifies some of the risks associated with the ICANN Staff proposal while at the same time proposing a path forward that does not jeopardize any further delay in the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) launch process. more
Going forward, Neustar is opening its global .BIZ registry to two-character domain names (e.g., NY.biz, MY.biz, I.biz). Because of the highly coveted, unique status of these domain names, Neustar has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) inviting potential .BIZ registrants to submit proposals explaining how they would use and promote a particular two-character domain name. more
Afilias, a global provider of Internet infrastructure services and domain name registry technology, today announced that it is seeking to partner with a select number of organizations that wish to apply to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for a new top-level domain (TLD). more
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