After ten hectic days, the young Clemson civil engineer turned MBA entrepreneur -- who turned a passion for helping equestrians care for their horses into a website enterprise -- had the HorseDVM.com domain, and its IPR returned to HorseDVM LLC. Ultimately, however, it was the registrant who realized the registrar had wrongfully sold him the domain and the unfairness of what had occurred, who facilitated the return. The culpable registrar ultimately did nothing but unfailingly support its auction subsidiary's sale... more
The new Top-Level Domain (TLD) process is occupying a lot of people in the domain name industry at present. While some people are obviously very much against the entire concept of new TLDs, there are plenty of people and organisations who support the project. But what happens when you have more than one organisation vying for the same namespace? ...Seemingly the competition between two rival bids for .eco (doteco) has been getting more than a little dirty in the past few weeks. more
Advertisers have given Verisign a free gift worth billions of dollars over the past 10 years. Sports Stadiums provide a great analogy... What do office supplies have to do with basketball? What does oil have to do with football? Yet, Staples will pay the Lakers $116 million dollars and Lucas Oil will pay the Indianapolis Colts about the same (over 20 years) to associate their company names with these stadiums. more
When .org prices rise, who suffers – nonprofits or speculators? Will Ethos Capital raise prices more aggressively than ISOC would? Vint Cerf attributed concerns about higher prices to speculators: "Of course, companies that hold domain names in the tens of thousands for speculative purposes might find such increases more troubling, but I don't have much sympathy for that business model in the context of the organizations the .org brand is intended to serve." more
Anyone who has been part of the community during its soon-to-be 12-years of existence will be the first to tell you that while ICANN's intentions are good, its execution, time and again, has been lacking. Unfortunately, the global business world does not and cannot accept only good intentions. Businesses require surety, consistency and clear evidence of stability before they can establish the foundation for their enterprises. more
A notice released by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has disclosed that the Office of the Attorney General of the State of California has requested extensive information from the agency regarding the proposed sale and transfer of Public Interest Registry (PIR) from the Internet Society (ISOC) to Ethos Capital. more
Reading the policy proposal of Nominet, I get the feeling that something is overseen here. Putting all the jurisdictional hassle aside for a moment, cyber crime is international, cross-border. So what happens if a UK domain is used for criminal activity outside the UK only? more
Public Interest Registry (PIR), a domain registration and management service for the .org top-level domain, has partnered with the American Red Cross, aiming to combat online fraud, especially in the context of fundraising in emergencies. The collaboration seeks to increase internet safety and enhance public trust in online donations to charitable causes. more
Brian Krebs has a post up the other day on his blog indicating that the amount of spam ending in .cn has declined dramatically due to steps taken by the Chinese government making it more difficult to get a domain ending in .cn... A cursory glance seems to confirm that the amount of spam from .cn as opposed to .ru has switched places. Indeed, if the CNNIC requires people to start writing in application forms, with a business license and identity card, that is seriously going to slow down the rate at which spammers can sign up and register new domains. more
I outline two possible drawbacks with the idea of first revealing rules for the new proposed Top-Level Domains (TLDs) and then for second-level registrations. I propose a lottery process to initially allocate second-level domain names. A number of people have voiced concerns about the idea of automatically granting the winner of the TLD a monopoly power over second-level domain registrations. We should also be worried about the financial interest ICANN has in not providing the rules for the two-level registrations simultaneously. more
The manager for .nz announced today that they have launched a registry replacement process and are calling for expressions of interest from potential service providers by November 29th. more
European TLD registry, EURid has announced that it is the first TLD Registry in Europe to be registered by the EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). "EURid has taken an environmentally responsible approach to operating .eu for many years. Our environmental policy is based on the principle of 'reduce, reuse and recycle' and provides a framework for making sustainable choices." more
The latest Domain Name Industry Brief published by Verisign reports 4.5 million domain names were added to the Internet in the first three months of 2011. According to the report, the first quarter of 2011 closed with a base of more than 209.8 million domain name registrations across all Top Level Domains (TLDs), or a 2.2 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 2010. Registrations grew by 15.3 million, or 7.9 percent year over year. more
Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit organization in charge of operating the 34-year-old legacy top-level domain .ORG on Tuesday revealed a new global brand, including a new visual identity and a new website named TheNew.org. more
Are you interested in helping guide the future of the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit operator of the .ORG, .NGO and .ONG domains? (and more) Or do you know of someone who would be a good candidate? If so, the Internet Society is seeking nominations for two positions on the PIR Board of Directors. The nomination deadline is 31 January 2024. more