New TLDs

Of Canaries and Coal Mines: Verisign’s Proposal and Sudden Withdrawal of Domain Anti-Abuse Policy

Too many techies still don't understand the concept of due process, and opportunistic law enforcement agencies, who tend to view due process constraints as an inconvenience, are very happy to take advantage of that. That's the lesson to draw from Verisign's proposal and sudden withdrawal of a new "domain name anti-abuse policy" yesterday. The proposal, which seems to have been intended as a new service to registrars, would have allowed Verisign to perform malware scans on all .com, .net, and .name domain names quarterly when registrars agreed to let them do it. more

Bringing Order to The World’s Cybrary: New TLDs Make Sense to Organize the Chaos of the Internet

There has been considerable debate on whether the Internet needs new Top Level Domains. Advertising advocacy groups have objected to the expense of re-investment in online branding. There's a lot of work involved in telling the world .BEYONCE is where you will now find all official Beyonce related information. I'm wondering, why would anyone object to some order being applied to the internet? more

India - The Internet’s Next Billion

Everyone seems to be talking about how the big boom is set to happen in India for domain names, and there are significant factors to ensure that this growth happens. The internet spends and E-commerce usage is fast becoming the face of modern India, a part of everyday lifestyle. Although awareness is still the biggest barrier domain name Registrars face with consumers, there are signs of significant improvement in trust, usability and the adoption of web services. more

Inconsistencies in ICANN New TLD Application Fees

In preparation for Monday's Joint Applicant Support (JAS) Working Group call, I spent some time reviewing various documents in connection with what are ICANN's actual costs in reviewing top-level domain name applications. One thing that caught my attention was the following metric in Rod Beckstrom's most recent CEO Monthly One Page Metric Report. more

A Made Up Fantasy and the ICANN gTLD Reality

Gary Elliot, chairman of the Association of National Advertisers and vice president of global marketing at Hewlett-Packard, wrote a column in Advertising Age titled "ICANN's Promises Aren't Simply Speculation, They're Outright Fantasy." His arguments opposing ICANN gTLDs are similar to the other heads of various advertising associations around the world. While the main powerbrokers of the global advertising sector are mum, their association heads are using the same circulated message of cyber-squatting fears without any solid proof. Here is my analysis and an open challenge to the trade. more

ICANN’s “Unelected” Crisis

The leaked release of the European Commission's working papers on the future of Top Level Domains highlights the impending collision between adherents of the present "multistakeholder" ICANN governance model, and an ever longer list of national governments who challenge that model. At the core of the controversy is the question of how ICANN can claim legitimacy in the DNS world when none of its Directors or Officers are elected. Even worse, its only answer, when challenged legally, is that it is responsive to its contract with an agency of the U.S. Government... more

DNSSEC Takes Off in Wake of Root Zone Signing

The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) is a suite of IETF-developed specifications designed to validate information provided by the Domain Name System (DNS). ... When the root zone was signed in June 2010, this acted as a catalyst for TLD operators to deploy DNSSEC on their side. We have seen a gradual but significant increase in signed TLDs since then. The map in this post shows the level of DNSSEC deployment in Europe. more

Underneath the Hood: Ownership vs. Stewardship of the Internet

As is well known to most CircleID readers - but importantly, not to most other Internet users - in March 2011, ICANN knowingly and purposefully embraced an unprecedented policy that will encourage filtering, blocking, and/or redirecting entire virtual neighborhoods, i.e., "top-level domains" (TLDs). Specifically, ICANN approved the creation of the ".XXX" suffix, intended for pornography websites. Although the owner of the new .XXX TLD deems a designated virtual enclave for morally controversial material to be socially beneficial for the Internet, this claim obfuscates the dangers such a policy creates under the hood. more

War of Words - the gTLD Weaponry

Why would the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), representing 400 member organizations and their 10,000 brands that spend $250 billion annually, be so wrong about ICANN's generic top-level domain (gTLD) program? They're complaining as if new gTLDs are being sold overnight in dark alleys with a no questions asked policy in exchange of a large suitcase filled with newly printed currency. This is definitely not the case, so what did they miss? more

A New Quality gTLD Can Compete with .COM

If you choose a new generic top-level domain (gTLD), will it be able to compete with .com? A recent academic paper indicates that the answer is yes if your new gTLD is of outstanding quality. "How Quality Drives the Rise and Fall of High-Tech Products" by professors Tellus, Yin, and Niraj in the Sloan Management Review provides evidence that new products can beat out established rivals... more

Who Will Give Birth to the gTLD’s First Billion-Dollar Domain Baby?

When all you have is a hammer, everything appears to be a nail. The generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) are not just about trademark filing and battle posturing or cyber-squatting. They are about the potential to create unusual global intellectual properties offering multiple opportunities for rapid image expansion and - most importantly - the achievement of market domination via name identity. more

Kudos to ccTLD Registries for Taking Measures to Improve Security

When I first wrote about Domain Registry Locking over a year and a half ago, Verisign was the only Registry offering a true Registry Lock Service. Of course, not long after, Neustar announced their Registry Lock Service too. Recently however, a number of ccTLD Registries have also adopted Registry Locking programs... more

ICANN Finds Its Voice

I think we are finally getting somewhere: ICANN is no longer fluttering flusteredly whenever a lobbying group sends a nastygram over the transom. Case in point: a Association of National Advertisers (ANA) that arrived a few days ago, full of bombast and muscle-flexing, demanding that ICANN immediately stop the new gTLD program until a long list of demands from the ANA were met, or else the ANA would be forced to take some Very Scary Actions... more

iBreakfast New gTLD Conference in NYC Wed Aug 3rd

Joly MacFie writes to report: "iBreakfast is presenting About the 'Domain' Conference: The Era of New TLDs, this Wednesday Aug 3 2011 at Herrick, Feinstein LLC in NYC. Wendy Seltzer, Esther Dyson, and Annalisa Roger, representatives of dotgay, .berlin, .xxx, plus major registries are among the participants who will discuss how the Internet will be impacted by the coming new TLD rollout." 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