New TLDs

ICANN To Publish New gTLD Applicants On April 30th

In a recent press release ICANN has stated that they will publish the list of applicants for new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) on April 30th. Previously many had spoken of a "big reveal" on May 1st, though that would have coincided with a public holiday in many countries and might have been "missed". However ICANN CEO, Rod Beckstrom, claims that the organisation had always planned to publish the list two weeks after the application window closed. more

Security Firm Predicts Unprecedented Series of New gTLD Failures by 2017

The cybersecurity firm, IID, is anticipating an unprecedented series of domain registry failures due to lack of gTLD popularity by 2017 in the form of bankruptcies and abandonment, leading to demise of websites relying on them. more

An Update on the Closed Generics Debate

ICANN is currently seeking public comment on the subject of "closed generic" Top Level Domain (TLD) applications. A "Closed Generic" is a TLD that is a generic term, but domains within that TLD will not be sold to the public. There are those who object to generic terms such as .book being operated as closed registries, which means that domain names within the .book Top Level Domain as proposed by Amazon would not be sold to the public, but instead, Amazon.com would own and operate all domain names within the .Book Top Level Domain. more

Atallah, ICANN’s Global Domains Division Joins Donuts as CEO

Akram Atallah, head of ICANN's Global Domains Division, has left the organization to join leading gTLD registry Donuts Inc. as its new CEO. more

.Paris Takes Over the Eiffel Tower

Last night there was apparently a big event in Paris at the Eiffel Tower (Champs de Mars) and there were plenty of photos shared by the brands, companies and people in attendance.
But what's really impressive is that they were able to get the message up on the side of one of Paris' best known monuments -- the Eiffel Tower. How? The City of Paris is behind the domain extension - so that's "how". more

Antony Van Couvering Interviews Alexa Raad, CEO of Architelos (Video)

Antony Van Couvering, CEO of Minds + Machines, continues his series of in-depth talks with leading figures from the domain name industry with this video interview of Alexa Raad, CEO of Architelos, filmed recently at ICANN 49 in Singapore. Alexa and Antony discuss how brands are dealing with new gTLD, registry strategies for success and how to market a new gTLD. more

Deploying DNSSEC: Lessons from Domain Registrar Implementation

As a registrar at the front end of the DNSSEC deployment effort, our technical team has made a sustained investment in DNSSEC deployment so that our customers don't get overwhelmed by this wave of changes to the core infrastructure of the Domain Name System. Along the way, we've learnt a lot about how to implement DNSSEC which might hold useful lessons for other organizations that plan to deploy DNSSEC in their networks. more

WIPO’s Misleading Release

The World Intellectual Property Organization put out a release yesterday trumpeting an eight percent increase in domain name disputes handled by WIPO. In 2008 there were 2329 complaints filed with WIPO, the most ever. WIPO uses the increase to raise questions about the possible increase in the number of available generic top-level domains... more

Getting gTLDs Into the Marketing Mix

For those of us in the domain space, the hype and fanfare in the years leading up to new gTLDs was loud and pervasive. As early as 2010 or 2011, we saw news of their impending launch propagating through marketing and advertising publications, and even popping up on occasion in mainstream press. Yet somewhere along the way (perhaps in the confusion over procedure, dates and deadlines that seemed to plague the process), we seem to have lost the attention of a group vital to the implementation of the new extensions -- marketers. more

Expansion of Top-Level Domain Names: Why Current Brand Protection Procedures Will Be Impractical

As ICANN introduces new generic top level domains (gTLDs) and separates itself from US oversight, it has the opportunity to distance itself from the taint of cybersquatting, brand abuse, and criminal activity involving domains... To underscore the scope of the issue, consider this research on just 30 top Interbrand-ranked global brands. The most recent MarkMonitor Brandjacking Index found cybersquatting incidents increased over 40% in the last year for the brands that were studied; these leading brands suffered as many as 15,000 incidents per brand... more

When It Comes to gTLDs, Follow the Money (Part 1)

Introducing new generic Top-Level Domains represents, as ICANN says, "the biggest change in the Internet since its inception 40 years ago." Among the least understood aspects of this change is its potential to alter the economic power of ICANN as an institution. To see how that might happen, let's follow the money as it is expected to flow from the gTLD application process. ICANN expects to get a lot of money from gTLD applications: $92,500,000, to be exact. more

DOTZON Study: Digital City Brands 2025

We have just released the 2025 edition of the DOTZON study "Digital City Brands." Since first presenting the study in early 2017, DOTZON has now analyzed for the ninth consecutive year how cities successfully use their Digital City Brands. The Digital City Brand represents the digital aspect of a city's brand and reflects how digitally advanced a city is. The emergence of the Internet was the reason Digital City Brands were created in the first place.  more

Time to Redelegate IE Namespace?

I've written extensively about Ireland's country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) '.ie' and its current registry operator IE Domain Registry (IEDR) in the past. While I've always tried to be fair and balanced in my coverage of the issues facing the IE namespace, I'm afraid my patience with the current registry operator has worn thin. While things may have improved over the course of the last few years, it is becoming abundantly clear that the current registry operator is probably not the best organisation to manage the ccTLD in the future. more

Studying .BRAND New gTLDs

Many participants in the latest ICANN meeting in Copenhagen asked that same question: "when is the next round of the ICANN new gTLD program?". If the question came from new gTLD service providers, I also noticed that it was different from "the first round": now the question focuses more on .BRANDs rather than Generic TLDs dedicated to selling domain names. The question also comes more from representatives of certain Trademarks who want to acquire a .BRAND domain name extension. more

ICANN Clarifying Questions - Question 50 Focus (Part 3 of 3)

If the timeline for turn-around of clarifying questions (CQs) remains two-weeks, the long pole in your CQ tent is likely to be revising your Q50 letter of credit or escrow agreement to meet the ICANN requirements. Based upon ICANN comments, it appears that many applicants are having trouble meeting the specific letter of credit (LOC) or escrow agreement language. To remedy this ICANN should consider publishing what it considers acceptable language for an LOC or escrow agreement. more