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Following up from my post yesterday, I thought I would take a look at how spammy each particular TLD is. At the moment, I only track 8 TLD's - .cn, .ru, .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .name. To check to see which one is the spammiest, I took all of our post-IP blocked mail and determined how many times those messages occurred in email, and how many times that email was marked as spam... more
A couple of weeks ago, NetworkWorld published an article indicating that the .com TLD was the riskiest TLD in terms of containing code that can steal passwords or take advantage of browser vulnerabilities to distribute malware... It is unclear to me what they mean by TLD's being risky. The number of domains, 31.3% of .com's being considered risky, what does this actually mean? Is it that 31% of .com's are actually serving up malware or something similar? If so, that seems like a lot because for many of us, nearly 1 in every 3 pages that most people visit would be insecure... more
While many were expecting a decision of strict Registry/Registrar separation, in an unexpected ruling, it was announced that ICANN will not restrict cross-ownership between Registries and Registrars. While the current set of agreements prohibits Registries from acquiring Registrars, they do not prohibit Registrars from applying for or operating TLDs. The Board Resolutions also made note of the fact that while individually negotiated contracts have included restrictions on Registry ownership of Registrars, cross-ownership provisions have varied over time and no formal "policy" on this topic has ever been recommended by the GNSO or adopted by ICANN. more
The ICANN Board has just voted to get rid of all co-ownership restrictions between domain registries and registrars. This is major news, with far-reaching consequences... This is the only principled decision the ICANN Board could have come to, and they deserve a lot of credit for doing it. By "principled," I mean taking ICANN's stated institutional principles and following them to their logical conclusion... more
Once again, and hopefully for the final time, the internet community has an official time-line for the arrival of new generic top-level domains. ICANN's recent decision to publicly name May 30, 2011 as the planned launch date for new gTLD program was courageous, welcome, and absolutely necessary. The ICANN Board and staff alike should be congratulated for their bold commitment to opening the first-round application window less than seven months from now, and for providing the community with visibility into its working plan. more
In an announcement at a registrars meeting in Tokyo on October 19th 2010, JPRS announced that they would be offering generic Top-Level Domains (.com, .net, .org, etc.) to their .jp accredited registrars in the near future. JPRS is already famous for their double-dipping practices, acting as both registry and registrar for .jp domains, for their dubious "campaigns" which are aimed at being dis-advantageous to smaller registrars and for their famous registrar back-end "system" which is circa 1995 technology and even prone to accidental DOS attacks by registrars trying to simply drop-catch domains. more
Wales, a small Celtic country that has proudly withstood the depredations of Anglo-Saxons, Normans, and tourists, which has given the world everything from an enduring mythology to the world's longest single-world domain name, has been informed that they will not be allowed to proceed with .CYM (short for the Welsh name for Wales, Cymru) because that three-letter code is already claimed by the Cayman Islands. more
The king of extensions is .com, and dethroning it won't be easy. But one day soon .com will have a genuine competitor, and there are two things we already know about the competition. First, the newcomer will have been sold as an underdog. Second, it will have attracted businesses that are passionate about being content-quality leaders. more
In a far less dramatic event, the ICANN Board will soon decide the question of vertical integration between domain name registries and registrars in the new Top-Level Domain (newTLD) round. But Adams' statement continues to ring true today and the question the ICANN Board must ask itself is: "what facts do we have before us to justify a change in policy." After 2+ years of intense community discussion on this topic, the answer is clearly -- very few. more
On October 28th, at a Special Meeting of the ICANN Board of Directors, an updated New generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) timeline was adopted as a working plan. The new Launch Scenario indicates that the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook will be declared final at the December ICANN Meeting in Cartagena, Colombia. more
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