New TLDs

CircleID’s Top 10 Posts of 2008

Here is a list of the most viewed news and blog postings that were featured on CircleID in 2008... Best wishes for 2009 and Happy New Year from all of us here at CircleID. more

Amazon Web Services Targets Startups and Creators With .aws

It will come as no surprise to those who've read my blogs that I get pretty excited about seeing .brand domains launch. At Neustar we're all in on promoting .brand usage in any industry, from all around the world and as such, we're always watching closely for any signs of new domains on the horizon, trawling for case studies or any hint of new activity. So imagine my surprise when a brilliant .brand example jumped out in front of me at JFK airport. more

Dutch Geographic TLDs Refuse Public Access to Whois Data

Organizations behind two of the new geographic top-level domains, .amsterdam and .frl, have refused to provide public access to information about the registrants of domain names, otherwise known as Whois records. more

National Academy of Science and the Domain Name System Controversy

The National Academy of Science (NAS) has been brought into the controversy over the future development of the Internet and its domain name system, a controversy recently fueled by the creation of ICANN. The US Congress under Public Law 105-305 mandated that the NAS undertake a study of the domain name system, which is to include options for its development, and the potential impact of the various alternatives. The $800,000 expenses for the study are to be funded by the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Commerce. more

ICANN’s Allocation Method for New TLDs

ICANN recently commissioned a report from Power Auctions LLC to investigate the merits of auctioning new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). Below I outline some of the issues related to stakeholder interests and mechanism design... Successfully managing the design of an allocation mechanism for new TLDs will entail coordinating functions across various competencies. To rely on a standard auction mechanism for the allocations would be a historic setback for the domain name industry, as successful allocation design is all in the details. more

Technical Viability of Dotless Domain Names

It was never obvious at the outset of this grand Internet experiment that the one aspect of the network's infrastructure that would truly prove to be the most fascinating, intriguing, painful, lucrative and just plain confusing, would be the Internet's Domain Name System. After all, it all seemed so simple to start with: network applications rendezvous with their counterparts using protocol-level addresses, but we users prefer to use "natural" identifiers that act as aliases for these addresses. more

Clarivate Domain Survey Reveals a 10% Increase in Cyberattacks

Clarivate has once again surveyed global business leaders about the importance of domain names to their organizations, including the role of domains as intellectual property (IP) assets. The 2020 survey followed up on our 2019 survey, revealing key year-over-year trends in how organizations manage, secure and budget for domain names. In this blog, we review key trends from the new report. more

ICANN’s New gTLD Timetable: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

ICANN staff recently posted on its website an updated timeline on the new gTLD process. Attempting to be "fair and balanced," I see some good, some bad, and some potential ugly in this timeline. I know there are a lot of good people at ICANN working very hard to conclude the Herculean task of implementing the new gTLD process. However, ICANN just can't help shooting itself in the foot with poorly worded and ambiguous statements... more

The Rest of the World Is Still Waiting…

Good news. In now my 15th ICANN meeting or so it's clear that the internet governance community is finally taking some real note of the rest of the world -- including the over 50% of humankind that doesn't use Latin script characters to communicate. In fact, talk of emerging markets is everywhere at the San Francisco ICANN meeting this week. The ICANN Board and Government Advisory Committee (or GAC, a group of government representatives that advise the Board) are talking about the needs of developing countries. more

The Three Lessons We Can Learn from gTLDs’ Past

History is a great teacher, we are told. So, on the cusp of an explosion in new top-level domains, what can we learn from the two previous expansions of the Internet's naming space? And what are the pitfalls to avoid? Let's just assume the fundamental and obvious lessons of realistic expectations, a solid business plan and prudent resource management, and instead focus on the little talked about but still critical lessons that will separate the winners and the losers in this race. But first - a caveat! more

Industry Insights: RDAP Becomes Internet Standard

Earlier this year, the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF’s) Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) announced that several Proposed Standards related to the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP), including three that I co-authored, were being promoted to the prestigious designation of Internet Standard. Initially accepted as proposed standards six years ago, RFC 7480, RFC 7481, RFC 9082 and RFC 9083 now comprise the new Standard 95. RDAP allows users to access domain registration data and could one day replace its predecessor the WHOIS protocol. more

Will Launch of New gTLD Program Be Delayed as a Result of Recent Hearings?

Yesterday evening, the ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) held its last teleconference of the year. We had invited ICANN's new gTLD supremo Kurt Pritz to give an update on the recent US Congress hearings. Kurt was ICANN's spokesperson in both hearings, and felt that the first was more favourable to ICANN than the second. more

A Case for Dot-Outlet TLD

This post outlines the correct use of an outlet strategy, points out the value of such a strategy, and the advantages of executing the strategy through a new ICANN top-level domain (TLD) instead of a second-level domain name. Some companies need to signal a brand name with low prices and quality/utility, whether the strategy is for a primary or secondary corporate brand. A successful strategy has to explicitly include lower price and quality. Otherwise, with only a lower price, a brand owner would cannibalize the main brand and cause damage to brand equity. more

Strong Support for IDNs, GEOs and/or Communities to Go First

ICANN's public comment period on how to resolve the contention scenario for probably 1,409 new gTLDs entering the root has closed on 19 August 2012. Alltogether 98 comments from parties around the globe have been received, representing language communities, cities, corporations, entrepreneurs and Internet users. In contrast to many comment periods we have participated in during the 7-year long policy development process for new gTLDs it seems that a clear opinion emerges from the applicants' community and other parties. more

Another Big Step Forward for New TLDs

So after the initial reaction and "over-reaction" by some folks in the audience, I have been thinking about the implications of the ICANN resolution on new gTLDs at its Board meeting in Cartagena, Colombia. In short, the resolution and subsequent comments by the chair, Peter Dengate-Thrush have shown that there is positive momentum with respect to the program overall. "We have reached a turning point in the new gTLD program" he said. more