'Net Features : ICANN

Initial Evaluation Results for First Set of gTLDs Released

Allison Howen — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:15:00 GMT

New gTLDs are inching closer to becoming a reality, as ICANN has finished the Initial Evaluation for the first set of new gTLD applications and released the results to the general public.

According to ICANN, there are three possible outcomes of the Initial Evaluation process: pass, eligible for extended evaluation or ineligible for further review. It is important to note that the first batch of evaluated gTLDs were non-English, and among the first applicants to pass the evaluation are Amazon EU, Wal-mart and VeriSign Sarl.

ICANN states that it will continue to release Initial Evaluation results in priority order, in increments of 30 per week, with plans to increase to 100 per week. This process will continue until all Initial Evaluation results are completed, which ICANN anticipates will be by the end of August 2013. Furthermore, applications that pass the Initial Evaluation will be eligible to proceed to contracting, with execution of the Registry Agreement, as early as April 23, 2013.

Demand Media Prepares for New gTLDs

Allison Howen — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:03:00 GMT

Demand Media, the digital media company that powers popular sites like Livestrong.com and eHow.com, is preparing for this year's release of the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) with its recent acquisition of the Denver-based domain registrar Name.com.

Name.com was founded in 2003 and customers have since registered nearly 1.5 million domains, as well as used the company’s tools and services to grow their online presence. Furthermore, Demand Media’s eNom subsidiary has more than 13.5 million domain names on its platform registered by more than 8,800 resellers and partners.

“Name.com will provide a direct channel for us to reach consumers and small businesses as they develop and manage their online identities,” said Richard Rosenblatt, chairman and CEO, Demand Media. “This becomes even more valuable as over one thousand new domain extensions are expected to become available for registration in the years ahead.”

ICANN initiated the process for launching new gTLDs in 2011, and received more than 1,900 applications for new domain strings. Once released, the new gTLDs will increase domain name choices to include memorable or descriptive strings, such as .blog, .nyc, .ninja or .hotel, as well as help businesses better organize their Web pages.

“Our strategy is to provide an end-to-end solution for all things domains whether you are looking to consume or distribute names and services,” said Taryn Naidu, executive vice president of Registrar Services. “Name.com brings innovation, creativity and a deep commitment to their customers – factors which we believe are essential in the environment of new gTLDs.”

Saudi Arabia Trying to Ban New gTLD Extensions

Michael Garrity — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:30:00 GMT

The war against porn is still being waged in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the latest casualties are a slew of new generic top-level domains (gTLD) that have been applied for in recent months.

Claiming that they will “encourage pornography” Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 – among other complaints Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 – the Saudi government has officially objected to 163 new gTLD applications registered with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Some of the extensions that raised the ire of the Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission are .virgin (applied for by Virgin Group) and .baby, which Johnson & Johnson applied for (among others), presumably to market their baby-oriented health care products.

Other gTLD strings that made the list were .hot, .sex, .porn (obviously), .sexy and even .dating, because who knows where that may lead.

Not every complaint was sex-related, however. The Saudi government took umbrage with any extensions that are related to alcohol or gambling on apparent moral and health-related grounds. This includes .wine, .bar, .vodka, .pub, .casino, .poker and many more. Religious extensions (.bible, .catholic, .islam, etc.) also caused consternation among Saudi officials, as well as the especially grievous .wtf, .sucks and .tattoo.

ICANN, for its part, foresaw objections and complaints being a major aspect of the new gTLD expansion process, and any comments received before September 26, concerning extensions that have been applied for, will be forwarded to independent evaluators. Most of the complaints are coming from major brands who feel that some gTLD applications fail to appropriately protect their trademarks.

ICANN Completes Bulk Transfer of Domains to NamesBeyond

Michael Garrity — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 17:30:00 GMT

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has ordered a bulk transfer of domains from two de-accredited registrars to the still accredited NamesBeyond.

The two registrars that were de-accredited were Planet Online and Name For Name. The first was the result of a compliance action taken by ICANN, while the latter happened following the termination of Name For Name’s registry-registrar agreement with Verisign.

ICANN selected NamesBeyond to gain the domain names after a competitive selection process based on its own De-Accredited Registrar Transition Procedure; after it was decided that NamesBeyond would be given Planet Online’s domains, it was also selected to take Name for Name’s, as the company only had five of them.

NamesBeyond will be able to deny transfers for the first 60 days at its discretion.

Registrants will not have to face any fees for the bulk transfer, but their terms will not by extended by a year. They also must contact NamesBeyond if their registration is set to expire soon and they’d like to maintain it.

Unfortunately, since neither Planet Online nor Name For Name participated in the bulk transfer, they also didn’t forward billing information to NamesBeyond, so all registrants must provide their new registrar with updated billing information, unless they’d like to just transfer their names to a different registrar altogether.

More Domain Drama with 4As and .XXX

Michael Garrity — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 21:00:00 GMT

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (ICANN) decision to approve the creation of generic top-level domain (TLD) names has been rife with controversy, but recent opposition from the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As) and the adult entertainment industry has reignited the debate.

The first statement came from the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), a trade association of the adult entertainment industry, advocating adult trademark holders to attempt to protect their brands from being sold on .XXX domains to third parties. The concern of the group is that the expansion of the .XXX domain extension is going to blackball all sites using it on the Internet, and could ultimately hurt the image of the industry in the long-run.

These fears have been somewhat validated by the release of information that only about 20 percent of businesses registering for the .XXX domains are adult content-related, meaning most businesses are registering to keep their brands from becoming associated with a .XXX domain.

4As also recently announced that they are cooperating with other marketing and advertising groups to "strongly" oppose the proposed changes in Internet domain names. They are asking ICANN to reconsider its decision for fear that the new registration will disrupt the ideal of the online global marketplace by diminishing the trust of the consumers that the quality and history of a product or service will continue to be accurately reflected on the Internet, making it harder to make important marketplace choices and decisions.

The recent statements illustrate some of the major concerns that various industries have about the proposed changes to TLD registrations. There are many questions about the impact that these changes will have on brands, especially smaller ones that don't necessarily have the capital to procure secure and relevant domain name registrations.

Domain Name Expansion Arrives – From .COM to .BRAND

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:45:00 GMT

The ICANN board has formally approved the new gTLD program. First announced nearly three years ago, applications for new gTLD will be accepted from January 12th, 2012 to April 12th, 2012. According to the current roadmap, the first extensions should be operational by late 2013.

As we’ve been saying for quite some time, the new gTLD’s will change the way consumers find information on the Web and how businesses organize their online presence.

“Internet address names will be able to end with almost any word in any language, offering organizations around the world the opportunity to market their brand, products, community or cause in new and innovative ways,” ICANN said in a statement.

As you might imagine, a great deal of news is surrounding the announcement. Here’s just a sampling:

- Domain name registry and managed DNS service Afilias entered into a formal agreement with Chinese Internet services provider HiChina (subsidiary of Alibaba) to help Chinese brands take advantage of the new TLD program.

- Hostway, parent company of RegistryPro, (operators of the .PRO the top-level domain for professionals), announced today the launch of Registry Services Corporation, the retail version of its registry back-end service.

- An interesting infographic from Melbourne IT which indicates brand interest in the new gTLD’s is below:

How Will New Top-level Domains Affect Your Business?

Mike Phillips — Sat, 21 May 2011 12:35:00 GMT

New top-level domains (TLDs) are on the way. Soon, you might see .bank, .hotel and many others. What effect will this have on your business? Are these TLDs something you should even be concerned with?

To get some answers, we spoke with Armando Dacal, senior vice president with Melbourne IT; one of the original domain registrars on the 'Net. These new TLDs could present huge opportunities but they are also already causing some to have big concerns.

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Domain Name Brief - February 18, 2009

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:40:00 GMT

Apparently, ICANN's plan to launch new generic top-level domains is running a bit behind schedule thanks to the complexity of the issue, but it should be available before the end of the year. That withstanding, the state of the domain industry seems strong.

The Internet added 24 million new domain names in 2008, according to the fourth quarter 2008 Domain Name Industry Brief published by VeriSign, Inc.

The year 2008 ended with a total base of 177 million domain name registrations across all of the Top Level Domains (TLDs)- a 16 percent growth over the previous year. In the fourth quarter alone, more than 10.1 million new domain names were registered across all TLDs. The total base of .com and .net domain names grew to 90.4 million at the end of 2008 - a 12 percent increase over the previous year and a 1 percent increase over the third quarter of 2008.

Domain News; GoDaddy, Dot TK, ICANN

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:13:00 GMT

The domain name industry is certainly heating up; here are a few announcements from yesterday and today:

The GoDaddy Group, which operates GoDaddy.com, Wild West Domains, and Blue Razor have crossed a major milestone - 30 million domains registered. According to RegistrarStats.com, GoDaddy.com has around 26 million domains registered and Wild West Domains, its reseller program, counts over 3 million domains.

Dot TK, the registry for .TK domain names, today announced the launch of its free .TK domain name registration system during the 32nd ICANN meeting in Paris (more on that below). Those interested in registering a .tk extension for their own domain receive URL and email forwarding (and a few other perks) but do not actually have legal ownership of the domain or DNS control - that priviledge is reserved for those paying 6.95 per year.

And finally, the ICANN board will vote on two important proposals today. The first would allow domains that do not use Latin characters and the second would allow domains to use other letter or number combinations in their extensions, sans trademarked terms..

Domain Registrars: Worst Spam Offenders Notified

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:41:00 GMT

KnujOn, a project developed to respond to Internet threats (specifically email-based threats) recently announced the results of a cluster analysis of the top 10 worst domain registrars in terms of spam and junk content hosting domains. ICANN, the authoritative body which manages domain registrars announced that it has sent compliance notices and notices of concern to those registrars reported for the majority of websites advertised in spam emails.

More than half of those registrars named had already been contacted by ICANN prior to publication of KnujOn’s report, and the remainder have since been notified following an analysis of other sources of data, including ICANN’s internal database. Many of the 10 worst registrars are based outside of the US and Canada (two Chinese registrars took the top spots - Xinnet Bei Gong Da Software and BEIJINGNN) but there are several companies that are quite noteworthy if only in name alone (e.g. eNom and Moniker).

ICANN relies upon the Internet community to report and review what it believes to be inaccurate registration data for individual domains. A dedicated online system called the Whois Data Problem Report System (“WDPRS”) was developed in 2002 to receive and track such complaints. "ICANN sends, on average, over 75 enforcement notices per month following complaints from the community. We also conduct compliance audits to determine whether accredited registrars and registries are adhering to their contractual obligations," explained Stacy Burnette, Director of Compliance at ICANN. "Infringing domain names are locked and websites removed every week through this system."

If those registrars, including those publicly cited, do not investigate and correct alleged inaccuracies reported to ICANN, ICANN's escalation procedure may ultimately result in the termination of accreditation, preventing them from registering domain names in the future.