New TLDs

Expression of Interest for New TLDs: Time to Shine!

Like many of those present at the ICANN Seoul meeting last October, and indeed along with those around the globe who were eagerly awaiting new TLDs, I too was angered and frustrated at ICANN's deadlines that were slipping like a cartoon character running on an oil slick, caused by an incessant search by certain industry factions for perfection in an imperfect science. (We do work with the internet remember?). more

Will Stonewalling on .xxx Be Beckstrom’s First Big Mistake?

The .xxx controversy is a legacy of the Bush era. In the dark period of WSIS and the Iraq invasion, ICANN's independence was fatally undermined when a political appointee of the Bush administration, in response to an email campaign from rightwing groups in the Bush "base", issued a direct threat to Paul Twomey that if ICANN approved the .xxx Top-Level Domain (TLD) it would not put it in the root. more

XXX Saga Continues

Sex and the internet. Put the two together and you are bound to find an interesting story. While the saga surrounding sex.com took a new twist in the last couple of days, with the current owners going dotbomb, the .xxx story also took an interesting turn... For several years ICM and ICANN tangoed. more

Registry/Registrar Separation: Clarifying the Mess!

Do you keep hearing about this Registry/Registrar Separation (or Vertical Integration) issue but really aren't sure what it's all about? This post should help you to get a better understanding of the details of this saga which is one of the most controversial, yet still unresolved issues within the new gTLD program. more

ICANN and Its Responsibilities to the Global Public Interest

In 1998, the United States government might have taken a different path in asserting its control over the technical administration of the DNS. It might have asserted full U.S. governmental control, or it might have turned over the functions to an international body such as the International Telecommunications Union. Instead, it created a "private-public partnership", incorporated as a California "nonprofit public benefit corporation", with a charter giving the company a dual mission of quasi-governmental functions combined with responsibility for operational stability of the Internet. more

Tips to Protect Your Brand in the New Domain Name Marketplace

Over time, people have grown accustomed to most Web site addresses ending in .com, .edu or .gov. Yet a proposed expansion of the generic top-level domain (gTLD) space by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will change the way we look at domain names forever... For businesses, this change means that protecting their trademarks and searching for and watching gTLDs will become increasingly complex. more

Swiss Among World Leaders in Enabling DNSSEC

SWITCH, the registry for .CH and .LI domain names, enabled DNSSEC on day two of the annual Domain Pulse conference in Luzern yesterday. SWITCH became the third ccTLD registry to enable DNSSEC giving registrants of .CH domain names added security following .SE (Sweden) and .CZ (Czech Republic). more

Why is ICANN Traveling Without Moving and Thwarting Innovation in the Domain Space?

While I was giving my .music presentation at ICANN Studenkreis in Barcelona, Spain last week, it dawned upon me. There was not one single ICANN staff member sitting in the room taking notes on any of the presentations given by TLD applicants. I was convinced that it would be beneficial to ICANN staff to observe our presentations and perhaps receive useful feedback from TLD applicants that could be used to better draft the Expressions of Interest recommendation. more

Big Brands Shooting Themselves In The Foot?

One of the topics that keeps coming up in ICANN policy discussions and as part of the new TLD application process is "transparency". ICANN, and the internet community in general, has had plenty of issues in the past with "bad actors" who have caused a lot of issues for everyone (think of many of the registrars who have lost accreditation in the last couple of years for example). On more than one conference call or policy discussion the issue of a company or a person's track record has come up. more

Who is Ready to Leap on the “Localized Internet”

Four pioneers are ready to Leap on the "Localized Internet". ICANN has approved four character strings of IDN ccTLD (Internationalized Top-Level Domain Names) after evaluation. The Lucky-Ones are Russian Federation, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. more