ICANN Should Clarify Position On Key Word New TLDs

Back in September a number of domain name industry leaders wrote to ICANN to express deep-felt concerns about some companies' declared plans for generic domain name extensions. We have sent ICANN another letter this week which is also planned to be distributed in a press release included here in this post. more

Domain Registry/Registrar Cross Ownership: A Reality Check

Funny how marketplace reality can poke holes in claims and theories. A debate is raging between some existing registries (Afilias, PIR, Neustar) and registrars like ourselves over the issue of 'cross-ownership' in Top-Level Domains (TLDs). At question: should the same set of shareholders be allowed to own all or part of a registry as well as a registrar that sells names in the TLD owned by the registry? These registries are saying 'no', and one of their principal objections is they think current registrars have an unfair advantage in pursuing TLD deals. more

Cuba’s Internet Connection to the World Worse Than Expected

Inspired by expansion announcements from companies such as Netflix and Airbnb into Cuba, Fabián E. Bustamante, professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the McCormick School of Engineering, and his graduate student Zachary Bischof, conducted research examining feasibility of the business ideas given the region's notoriously weak network infrastructure. more

Scaling the Root of the DNS

The DNS is a remarkably simple system. You send it queries, and you get back answers. Within the system, you see exactly the same simplicity: The DNS resolver that receives your query may not know the answer, so it, in turn, will send queries deeper into the system and collects the answers. The query and response process is the same, applied recursively. Simple. However, the DNS is simple in the same way that Chess or Go are simple... more

ICANN CEO: Top-Level Domain Expansion Has Been Anything But Rushed

In response to the Washington Post's December 11 article title "What's the .rush?", directed at the expansion of new TLDs, Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's President and CEO has replied in a letter to the Washington Post stating: ""The program of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to open the Internet to new top-level domain names (TLDs) has been anything but rushed..." more

ITU Staff Gone Wild

In virtually all governmental legislative bodies, the staff is there to provide secretariat services for the government representatives. The staff role does not include telling the representatives what decisions they should be making. The stricture is supposed to be the same at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for its treaty making activities. It is with some amazement that last week, the ITU secretariat staff showed up at a seminar in Bangkok they helped schedule... more

What Will Be the Magic Number for New gTLD Applications?

With the application launch period scheduled to begin in less than three months, everyone wants to know just how many new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) applications will be submitted. In terms of the number of applications to be submitted, I've seen estimates putting the figure as low as 500. But just last week, an industry insider told me that he thought the number could go as high as 3,500. more

New gTLDs: What About 10 Years Ago?

In 2003 - what did we have in terms of domain names? In 2003, the .AERO, .BIZ, .COOP, .INFO and .NAME Registries were just born. The . .MUSEUM Top-Level Domain was born that very year and .ASIA, .CAT, .JOBS, .MOBI, .PRO, .TEL and .TRAVEL did not exist yet. However, .EU was on its way. Although this particular TLD was a country code Top-Level Domain targeted at the European Union, it was awaited for by many brands in its Sunrise Period. more

Is Your Company on the Sidelines for Getting Its Own TLD? Here are 6 Questions Worth Considering

By now, I've probably spoken with close to a hundred brand owners who are all trying to make some very important decisions about whether or not to apply for a new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD). Everyone wants to know what "the other guy" is doing. But for the most part (with the exceptions of Canon and Hitachi), brand owners have been tight-lipped about their intentions. Even in a recent New gTLD webinar hosted by MarkMonitor (primarily attended by brand owners), when asked in an anonymous poll whether they intended to apply... more

IPv6 Momentum?

Last month, the Obama administration sponsored one of the first high-level government workshops on IPv6. At the meeting, the administration's Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, announced a remarkable 2012 deadline for federal agencies to support IPv6. So with a high-level US government mandate and a recent spade of vendor and carrier IPv6 announcements (e.g. VeriSign, Hurricane Electric), is the 15 year old IPv6 migration effort finally gaining momentum? more

Institutionalizing Consumer Trust and Public Interest at ICANN

For an organization where people argue for hours over arcane minutiae, it's remarkable that virtually everyone agrees that ICANN should serve the "global public interest" and build "consumer trust" in the Internet. Although it's only three pages long, ICANN's Affirmation of Commitments (AoC) cites "public interest" five times and "consumer trust" eight times. So at the ICANN meeting today in Cartagena, Colombia, a group of participants explored ways to "institutionalize" these concepts within the organization. more

Wine Applications: Results of the New gTLD Prioritization Draw

There are 4 applications related to the wine business in the new gTLD program. Yesterday the new gTLD prioritization draw took place where each application was assigned a randomly-drawn priority number. These priority numbers are used to determine the order in which initial evaluation results are released. In the 1917 applications, 4 applications are related to wine. more

How to Abolish the DNS Hierarchy… But It’s a Bad Idea

There's been a fair amount of controversy of late about ICANN's decision to dramatically increase the number of top-level domains. With a bit of effort, though and with little disruption to the infrastructure -- we could abolish the issue entirely. Any string whatsoever could be used, and it would all Just Work. That is, it would Just Work in a narrow technical sense; it would hurt innovation and it would likely have serious economic failure modes. more

The Path Towards Centralization of Internet Governance Under UN: Part 2

This essay is the second of a three-part series, written by Anonymous, and published by the Publius Project of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. It focuses on the steps of a possible roadmap for centralizing Internet governance under the United Nations. more

Communications and the London Olympics

Communications will be one of the most critical areas during the London Olympic Games. The industry is working to establish shared access networks -- would it not be nice if they did this everywhere, all the time? They are also working very closely with British Olympic Association, London Transport, the broadcasters and content providers. Mobile coverage will be the biggest shared infrastructure in the world. more