New TLDs

New Geographical Top-Level Domains and Auctions

I was surprised by ICANN's "Economic Case for Auctions in New gTLDs" paper especially with view to the latest presentation on the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) implementation process in Paris. That Paris presentation highlighted the protection of community interests such as religious organisations, geographically based communities or indigenous groups and suggested a preference of bona fide community-based applicants against pure generic applications for the same string. Contrary to this the only text passage in the current paper where ICANN considered the community-based applicants is "a 25% bidding credit could be offered to community-based bidders whose community is located primarily in least-developed countries". This reminds me of the discussion on discounts for HIV medicine... more

ICANN Sets the Schedule to Kill Domain Tasting

Domain tasting, as everyone probably knows by now, is the disreputable practice of registering lots of domains, seeing how much traffic they get, and then using the five day Add Grace Period (AGP) to refund the 99.9% of them that aren't worth paying for. A related abuse is front running, registrars speculatively grabbing domains that people inquire about to prevent them from using a different registrar. more

An Early Look at the State of Spam in 2009, Social Networking Spam on the Rise

As recently reported, spam volumes indicate spam has nearly jumped back up to its pre-McColo shutdown levels. However, Symantec's The State of Spam report has also observed that in recent days spammers are increasingly piggybacking on legitimate newsletters and using the reputation of major social networking sites to try and deliver spam messages into recipients' inboxes... In its special URL investigation the report also indicates that on average approximately 90 percent of all spam messages today contain some kind of a URL. Additionally, analysis of data from past recent days, according to Symantec, have shown that 68% of all URLs in spam messages had a '.com' Top-Level Domain (TLD), 18% had a China's '.cn' ccTLD and 5% had a '.net'. more

New Domain Conference Coming to South America - Domaining Americas

Veteran domain investor Abner Duarte from PremiumDomains.com.br is featuring a new event called Domaining Americas, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in October 2018. He is puting together a major domain conference for South America. The debut edition of Domaining Americas will be held at the five-star Grand Hyatt Rio De Janiero on Saturday and Sunday, October 6-7, 2018. more

ICANN, the New gTLD Program, and Our Responsibility for the Internet

When ICANN approved the New generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program in Singapore in June 2011, it pushed the activities in this space to a new level. I think we will all agree that everyone involved are very busy working on new gTLD applications and getting organized per the Applicant Guidebook requirements. This to be ready in time for the 12th of January 2012 ICANN new TLD Program launch date. However, good activities also brings along bad activities. more

AdDomains: A New Weapon for Traditional Advertising

ICANN's new gTLD program was designed in part to boost innovation. The thinking was: give people the canvas and let them paint in new and fascinating ways, with no set direction... and paint they will. Now that the new gTLD dream has become reality, new uses and business models are already emerging to prove this theory correct. One of the industries in which new gTLD innovation is making itself felt is traditional advertising. This is a sector that has been turned upside down by the Internet revolution of the last decade. more

Russia’s Cyrillic IDN ccTLD Blasts Off, Through the 500K Mark in Under a Week

Since last Thursday's launch of Russia's Cyrillic script IDN ccTLD, registration volumes have smashed all expectations, much like a Soyuz rocket blasting off into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. At the time of writing (14:00 17/11/2010 UTC), .??, which is Cyrillic for RF (short for ?????????? ????????? - Russian Federation) has just exceeded 500,000 registrations, having passed the 100,000 mark in the first three hours. It is already among the top 30 ccTLDs worldwide and heading towards the top 20 at high speed. more

Four Promises ICANN Must Meet with New Top-Level Domains

Just back from a week of ICANN meetings in Dakar. Is it just me, or is the new top-level domain program starting to feel like a TLD triathlon, where everyone's now jockeying for position in the final stage -- a grueling marathon? When ICANN's board approved the new gTLD plan in Singapore, it came with the promise of small but substantive changes to improve the program. I hope that wasn't empty rhetoric... more

What if France Had Applied for a .WINE New gTLD?

Would the French Government or any other French Private company -- such as a French Vineyard -- had applied to the .WINE Top-Level Domain, one could wonder what would the situation be today. Well... the situation would be the exact same -- the applicant would be in front of three other .WINE applicants with this exact same question: how do I win the auction? more

Advantages of Crowdinvesting in Financing New gTLDs

The second-round new gTLD applicants have a tool they don't even know about: "crowdinvesting." That's when a venture sidesteps banks and venture capitalists and instead raises money by selling shares directly to the public. Usually this is done over the Internet, and often enough the investors can hope for a financial return that's far better than what banks and stocks offer. more

Wrap-up: ICANN 49 Singapore

Given the "going live" of New gTLDs as well as the NTIA's announcement of its intent to transition Internet domain name functions to a multi-stakeholder environment, the 49th ICANN meeting in Singapore was sure to be a busy one. Here's a breakdown of some of the key happenings during the week. more

Neustar Losing .us Could Be Good for .com Registrants

Neustar is facing a potential loss of the Dot-US franchise as competitors bid against them. Why might this be of interest to .com registrants? ...The issue of antitrust with regards to the .com agreement has never really been properly settled, as a well-funded complainant hasn't brought forward a case to full fruition in the courts. ICANN sold out the public by agreeing to a settlement that would see its own coffers swell, at the expense of registrants, so they do not count. more

Carlton and Kende’s Narrow Understanding of Corporate Domain Registrations

Professor Denis Carlton was asked by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to submit a report on (or justify!) the impact of new top-level domains (TLDs) on industry competition. After he did so, Dr. Michael Kende posted an elaborate comment on the report on behalf of AT&T, to which Professor Carlton published a rebuttal. This essay outlines some of the errors in Professor Carlton's rebuttal and Dr. Kende's comments. more

2022 Domain Name Year In Review

I can hardly believe it's that time of year again -- time for our annual top 10 year in review. Having been at this for more than 20 years, you'd think I'd seen it all? But with the domain name industry, things are always in flux, and I could never have predicted some of these items. So without further ado -- here are the top 10 biggest stories from 2022. more

.trust Technical Policy Launch

Whenever I examine the technical elements of the various Internet security certifications and standards that organisations are clamouring to achieve compliance against, I can't help but feel that in too many cases those businesses are prioritising the wrong things and wasting valuable resources. They may as well be following a WWI field guide on how to keep cavalry horses nourished and bayonets polished in a world of stealth aircraft and dirty bombs. more