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I am often asked how to get a ccTLD by folks just coming in to the domain industry. There is RFC1591 as a start for reading material on the subject matter, and then there is ICP-1. I defer them to IANA, who defers to ICANN, who in turn defers to ISO and the ISO3166-1 list being the definitive list, and then you have to factor in some of the "reserved code elements" from their decoding table to normalize 3166 against the list of IANA Country Codes for ccTLD delegations like .EU. How does one get their ccTLD into the ISO list? The ISO in turn (likely due to the masses that contact them hoping to list their country) defer the criteria for what it is to be a 'country' for being on the 3166-1 list, and partially defer to the United Nations. more
Is contextual advertising helping or hurting the web? It basically started with Google Adsense even though the concept wasn't new. It had never been done on the scale that Google did it. Now we have Yahoo Publisher. MSN is building their version. We have Konterra and a whole lot of other companies scrambling to cash in on the contextual ad craze. Initially contextual advertising seems like a good idea. Ads based on the content of your website that might benefit your readers or visitors. Ads that are related to the content you produce that will also help you make a little money for your efforts. However greed ruins all good things. Now there are probably millions of webpages online that are built for the sole purpose of cashing in on contextual advertising. ...To make money with contextual advertising you want your content to be bad. Yes, you want it to be bad. more
The DNSSEC is a security protocol for providing cryptographic assurance (i.e. using the public key cryptography digital signature technology) to the data retrieved from the DNS distributed database (RFC4033). DNSSEC deployment at the root is said to be subject to politics, but there is seldom detailed discussion about this "DNS root signing" politics. Actually, DNSSEC deployment requires more than signing the DNS root zone data; it also involves secure delegations from the root to the TLDs, and DNSSEC deployment by TLD administrations (I omit other participants involvement as my focus is policy around the DNS root). There is a dose of naivety in the idea of detailing the political aspects of the DNS root, but I volunteer! My perspective is an interested observer. more
Message to ICANN: Let those who want to create a TLD, simply register it with ICANN. If the TLD is not already taken, if they have the technical capability to mange the TLD, and they have the desire to market domain names on that TLD, then let them do so. ...Do you present a businesss plan to the city you live in before they allow you a business license? Does the city ask you to prove you are financially stable before issuing you a business license? If you apply for a business license to open a clothing store, does the city ask how you will run your clothing store or if you have the necessary expertise to run a clothing store? Does the city think you will hurt them economically if your clothing store goes out of business? No, it's none of their business... more
By now, you should have read elsewhere that the ICANN board has rejected the ICM application to create a .XXX TLD. It still comes as a surprise to some. Frankly, this was the prognosis I made to Stuart Lawley two years ago, for the very reasons mentioned by the European Commission. I mentioned in a previous blog entry that 6000 complaints from US citizens would have more weight on the conservative US administration than any other consideration... more
One of the best sources of information about sites on the web is the Whois database. A trio of patent applications from Go Daddy, published last week at the US Patent and Trademark Office, explores whether adding additional information to the Whois database might help reduce spam, phishing, and other fraudulent practices and improve search engine results. The patent filings from Go Daddy would add reputation information to the published Whois data to let others use it for a number of reasons, including enabling search engines incorporate it into their ranking mechanisms. ...The patent application from Google focuses upon fighting web spam using a wide range of data, including that associated with domain names. ...We can't really be certain that Google is presently using this information, but there are some indications that they may be... more
Yesterday, ICANN took a decision to not approve the .xxx in the top-level domain zone. The application was proposed by the ICM Registry. ...My explanation for my vote is as follows: "I think there should be more new TLDs. Many more. I believe my vote was not on the controversial issue about content (and ICANN should not deal with content), but on the simple issue if the agreement is good to be accepted. I also wrote on April 22nd in my blog that ICM at least are trying to prevent harmful content reaching our children. I prefer that, than just saying, ".xxx is bad, abolish it". OK, we did that. Now what?" more
A few weeks ago ICANN's domain name policy making organ (the GNSO) decided that the purpose of Whois was domain name coordination and not compulsory surveillance of domain name registrants. The US and Australian governments expressed their opposition. The US government's lack of concern for privacy is well known. But what about Australia? The Australian ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) representative, Ashley Cross, tried to use his authority as "a government" to intimidate the GNSO, sending it a message announcing that "Australia" supports a broader definition of Whois purpose that gives ICANN a blank check... What does "Australia" really support, however? more
So-called domain tasting is one of the more unpleasant developments in the domain business in the past year. Domain speculators are registering millions of domains without paying for them, in a business model not unlike running a condiment business by visiting every fast food restaurant in town and scooping up all of the ketchup packets. Since 2003, the contract between ICANN and each unsponsored TLD registry (.biz, .com, .info, .net, .org, and .pro) has added an Add Grace Period (AGP) of five days during which a registrant can delete a newly registered domain and get a full refund. Although this provision was clearly intended to allow registrars to correct the occasional typo and spelling error in registrations, speculators realized that this allows them to try out any domain for five days for free... more
Cities are among the largest regional authorities and natural human communities we know. Of course there are countries like China, India or the USA which count some hundred million or even a billion inhabitants. But there are also countries with far less than 100,000 inhabitants, like Tuvalu, Andorra or Barbados. If city communities are ranked by the number of inhabitants as independent entities among country communities, cities like Tokyo, New York, Shanghai or London head the ranking because they have more citizens than many countries. London for instance has more inhabitants than the Netherlands, and Tokyo outpaces Canada in that respect. Interestingly, there are only around 400 cities worldwide with more than 1 million inhabitants... The following post will give an overview of how cities are being identified on the Internet via Top-Level Domains and the opportunities that lay ahead. more
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