New TLDs

Domain Name Registrations Reaching 200 Million World Wide

The global base of domain names grew by more than 3 million in the second quarter of 2010, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief, published by VeriSign, Inc. According to the report, the domain name industry ended the second quarter of 2010 with a base of more than 196.3 million domain name registrations across all of the Top-Level Domain Names (TLDs). The combined base of .com and .net domain names surpassed 100 million, finishing the quarter with an adjusted zone size of 101.5 million. New .com and .net registrations totaled 7.9 million during the second quarter, an increase of 13 percent from a year ago. more

International Environmental Leaders Call for Community Protection of Dot Eco Domain

More than 50 major environmental groups have called on ICANN to protect the .ECO domain, representing a ground swell of public interest and support. Their letters are included with Big Room's community-priority .ECO application to ICANN... "This is one of the highest-level global mobilizations of the environmental community in history. Over 190 countries, more than 1,000 entities and over 10 million individual members are represented." more

Security Experts Urge Shifting from Defense to Offense in Cybersecurity

A report, released today by McAfee, Inc., titled "Security Takes the Offensive," says that traditionally, security technology companies and computer users have taken a defensive posture, putting the cyber equivalent of body armor on computers, networks and in the cloud. The report's authors say it is now time to avoid enemy strikes altogether by taking a more aggressive stance, aligning forces and involving law enforcement. more

Domain Name Registrations Reach 215 Million, 5 Million Added in Q2

The latest Domain Name Industry Brief published by Verisign reports more than 5 million domain names were added to the Internet in the second quarter of 2011, bringing the total number of registered domain names to more than 215 million worldwide across all domains. The increase of 5.2 million domain names marks a growth rate of 2.5 percent over the first quarter. Registrations have grown by more than 16.9 million, or 8.6 percent, since the second quarter of 2010. more

The Internet Tribe & New gTLDs

Much has already been written about the prospects and challenges associated with the introduction of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). This post were originally written for my personal blog but a good industry friend has persuaded me to post it (and more) on CircleID. During this series I will attempt to show how the introduction of new gTLDs is ultimately a "win win win" scenario. A win for innovation, a win for commerce and most importantly a win for internet users. So where to begin? more

15% Decline in Domain Name Registrations, Weak Economic Conditions a Factor Says Report

VeriSign today released its second quarter 2009 Domain Name Industry Brief where it reports that the total base of domain name registrations across all of the Top-Level Domains [TLDs] has now reached 184 million. However the report also indicates that there has been a 15% decline compared to the same quarter last year. The largest TLDs in terms of base size are reported to be: .com, .cn, .de, .net, .org, .uk, .info, .nl (Netherlands), .eu (European Union), and .biz.
 more

Registration Operations Workshop at ICANN57 Hyderabad

Following a very successful series of workshops held during IETF meetings, the next Registration Operations Workshop (ROW) is now being held during the upcoming ICANN meeting in Hyderabad, India. While the previous workshops were of advanced topics attended by industry experts, the current one will be more of a tutorial and is open to all interested parties. more

How to Place Top-Level Domain Trust Anchors in the Root

The project to sign the DNS root zone with DNSSEC took an additional step toward completion yesterday with the last of the "root server" hosts switching to serving signed DNSSEC data. Now every DNS query to a root server can return DNSSEC-signed data, albeit the "deliberately unvalidatable" data prior to the final launch. Another key piece for a working signed root is the acceptance of trust anchors in the form of DS records from top-level domain operators. These trust anchors are used to form the chain of trust from the root zone to the TLD. more

DotGreen Debrief: How the Applicant Auction Helps Mission-Driven Applicants

DotGreen announced on Friday that it has withdrawn its application for .green from ICANN's new gTLD program. We were surprised to hear the news, particularly after all of the effort that DotGreen has put into building a community and a movement around its application. While we at Innovative Auctions agree with Annalisa that the ICANN Last Resort auction would have been a poor choice for the DotGreen Community, we believe that the Applicant Auction is a great tool for single-string applicants who want to see their TLD used for a community purpose. more

Many .COM Domain Names with Same Keywords as Premium New gTLDs are Available for Registration

Earlier this month, Andrew Allemann wrote a post on notable NameJet sales in which he discusses the sale of PropertyRehab.com for $2,400 as "a perfect example of how wrong some domain registries are on their premium pricing." He mentions that the registry operator for the .rehab new generic top-level domain (new gTLD), has marked property.rehab as a platinum domain name and asks: "Why would someone pay thousands (or tens of thousands) a year for Property.rehab when they could buy PropertyRehab.com for just $2,400?" more

3 Steps for Managing ICANN Registry Compliance

If you are like the majority of Registry Operators we have spoken to, you may now be thinking that compliance with your new gTLD Registry Agreement is much more difficult than first envisaged -- especially if you are one of the lucky operators which have been chosen for ICANN's latest round of registry audits! You may also be surprised at the number of questions and requests that you need to respond to. more

European ccTLDs Have Reached 66.5 Million Registrations, CENTR Reports

According to the latest DomainWire, CENTR's quarterly report, european ccTLDs closed August 2014 with 66.5 million registrations -- a net growth of 0.3% over the past 3 months. Chart below shows growth rates (3m averages) for both European ccTLDs and legacy gTLDs over the past 12 months. It suggests a continued trend downward of both TLD types with a stabilization observed since July. more

Dot App, Dot Art Among Most Applied-for TLDs According to List Revealed by ICANN

ICANN announced today that it has received 1,930 applications for its new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program. 884 from US based organizations, 40 are from the UK, 303 from the Asia-Pacific region and 17 from Africa. Rod Beckstrom, ICANN's CEO, during the "Reval Day" event that took place in London today said: "The internet is about to change forever -- now a powerful change is coming." more

ccTLD Market Share Catching Up to gTLDs, CENTR Reports

Council of European National Top level Domain Registries (CENTR) has released its latest quarterly Domain Name Stat Report stating that ccTLDs have continued increasing their market share against gTLDs -- this quarter rising from 44% to 45%. ccTLD IDNs continue to grow although at a slightly lower rate. more

ICANN Clarifying Questions - How to Respond (Part 2 of 3)

In the first part of this series on ICANN's impending Clarifying Questions period, I outlined what you can expect in terms of question structure. Here I would like to outline how the points work and provide some advice on how to answer questions for best success. more