Category — ICANN

In a story just published by the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Race To Nab Web Addresses” chats about how this week ICANN will start accepting applications for new gTLD’s

“‘This week will bring the long-awaited opening up of a new realm of Web addresses in which just about any word—such as dot-furniture or dot-arcticvacations—can serve as a domain name. And to some, that spells opportunity.”

“It will be the first time in more than a decade that anyone can apply for the rights to control a slice of the broader Web marketplace, as opposed to just domains for specific types of Internet users.”

The article quotes a  Jeffrey Smith saying that:

“He and domain-name speculators like him have been building entire businesses around ideas for new right-of-the-dot names, and in many cases they have lined up backers to help them cover application and other costs.”

“Mr. Smith and his eight partners started their business in 2000 for the sole purpose of having it become a dot-shop registry holder that could sell dot-shop Web addresses, such as jeans.shop and coats.shop. “I’ve dedicated the last 10 years to this,” says the 46-year-old Mr. Smith.”

“Mr. Smith says he has already put more than $2 million of his own money into his speculative dot-shop registry business. He and his partners have also lined up four angel investors to raise capital.”

I hate to tell Mr. Smith but GMO Interest the largest ISP in Japan and the 13th largest domain name registrar according to RegistrarStats.com, has been quite public in their interest in applying for .Shop and has maybe spent more money just on ICANN parties to promote their .Shop application than Mr. Smith and his partners have spent.

The article also quotes Jacob Malthouse who plans to apply for .Eco and attorney and fellow domain blogger Enrico Schaefer, who is quoted as saying:

“Mr. Schaefer thinks his undisclosed dot-something could become a leading rival to the ubiquitous dot-com registry. “Dot-com is not immune to real competition,” he says. “This will be the very first opportunity for competition to come to dot-com in a real, meaningful way.”

This is just one of many articles we should see this week about the new gTLD program in the mainstream press.

You can check out the whole article here.

The National Press Club just announced it is going to hold a session entitled:

“Beyond .com, .gov, .net and .edu… Expansion of Internet Addressing”

On Wednesday, Jan. 11 at 2pm EST at the Zenger Room, National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, Washington, DC

ICANN President and Chief Executive Officer Rod Beckstrom and Board Chair Dr. Stephen Crocker will discuss the launch of hundreds of new generic top-level Internet domains (gTLDs) such as .hotel, and .paris scheduled to begin taking applications on Jan. 12.

National Press Club members outside Washington and out-of-town journalists may watch the news conference via a live webcast at www.icann.org

In a letter tonight sent by Larry Strickling of the US Department of Commerce to the ICANN chairman Steve Crocker,  the Commerce Department says its going to examine the new gTLD program after the application period closes and ICANN discloses the list of applicants on May 1st.

Speaking about the new gTLD program Mr. Strickling writes:

“We have learned that there is tremendous concern about the specifics of the program that may lead to a number of unintended and unforeseen consequences that might jeopardize its success”

“Once the list of strings is made public, NTIA, soliciting input from stakeholders and working with colleagues in the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), will evaluate whether additional protections are warranted at the second level.”

“Having the ability to evaluate the actual situations or conflicts presented by the applied for strings, rather than merely theoretical ones, will certainly assist and focus everyone’s efforts to respond to problems should they arise.”

“Accordingly as ICANN moves forward I urge you to consider implementing measures including to  minimize the perceived need for defensive registrations”

“We think, and I am sure ICANN and its stakeholders would agree, that it would not be healthy for the expansion program if a large number of companies file defensive top-level applications when they have no interest in operating a registry.”

“I suggest that ICANN consider taking some measures well before the application window closes to mitigate against this possibility.”

“After the application window closes, and ICANN publishes details about the pool, fact will be available to determine the potential scope of this gTLD expansion.”

“At that time it would be useful for ICANN to assess whether there is a need to phase in the introduction of new gTLD’s”

The implication in the letter is clear.

The US Department of Commerce is going to allow the new gTLD program application period to open on time and close as planned, but is not waiving its rights to object to the program once its determined who has applied and who has not applied for a new gTLD.

This is only going to confuse the issue even further and put another big question mark on anyone who is thinking about shelling out the $185K application fee.

Of course if you don’t apply you risk that your competitor applies for a gTLD string that is the category defining string for your product or profession and the program is allowed to move forward with you missing it.

Told you 2012 was going to be an interesting year.

You can read Mr. Strickling letter here (pdf).

The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA), issued a press release today of its “recommendations” for ICANN, the US Congress and the NTIA for the new gTLD program,  and its a pretty long wish list.

Here it is in full:

“”””For ICANN:

The ICANN Board should determine and announce when the next round of new gTLD applications will occur. A major source of anxiety that businesses feel around the New gTLD Program stems from fear that if they do not acquire their own new gTLD in this first round, they will be put at a disadvantage relative to their competitors, in the event those competitors apply and gain a theoretical advantage from owning gTLDs, for an unknown period of time. Announcing the date of a second round would go far towards alleviating this anxiety.

To lessen the financial burden on trademark owners and improve consumer protection, ICANN should consider including a requirement in the Applicant Guidebook that all new gTLD registries that choose to sell second-level domains to registrants adopt a low-cost, one-time block for trademark owners to protect their trademarks in perpetuity.

ICANN should consider adopting a pricing structure where a single applicant applying for multiple gTLDs pays a reduced rate for the subsequent gTLD applications, provided that the applicant has trademarks for those applied-for strings predating 2008, and that those strings are exact matches of their registered marks. Many businesses that choose to apply for their own gTLD will likely also feel they need to apply for other gTLDs, either in other languages or scripts, or for other vital business units.

ICANN should allow non-profit organizations that want to apply for their organizations’ names as gTLDs to qualify to participate in the Applicant Support Program, as described by the Joint Applicant Support Working Group (JAS WG) to lessen the financial burden on non-profits.

For the U.S. Congress:

The U.S. Congress should take much-needed action to improve the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) in order to provide stronger deterrents against cybersquatting, both in existing gTLDs and any new ones that are created.

For the NTIA:

If ICANN is awarded the new IANA contract following its expiration in March 2012, its structure and policy development process should also be subject to an audit. To ensure that this is done, the contract should be renewed for a short period of time, perhaps only two years. During this time, there should be an evaluation of whether ICANN followed through on its commitments with regard to the gTLD process, and extension of the contract should be contingent on conducting internal reforms to improve governance and transparency.

In addition to presenting these suggestions at the meeting with Assistant Secretary Strickling, CADNA delivered the same suggestions in a letter to ICANN, which includes further details on each of these recommendations.”””

CADNA hopes that its recommendations are as well received by ICANN as they were during the meeting with the NTIA, and looks forward to working with ICANN to implement the suggested changes.

Despite last-minute push backs from the FTC and Senator Rockerfeller it looks like ICANN is pushing ahead with the opening of the application period for new gTLD’s on January 12th.

ICANN announced on its Facebook page today:

“In just 13 days, the application window for new generic top-level domains opens! ”

“Check out the new gTLDs tab on our Facebook page for more details on the benefits, risks and application process.”

“Click share to help spread the word!”

If if you think everyone is against the new gTLD program, well there are over 1,900 likes for this story from today, a pretty good showing for any Facebook story.

By the time everyone is back from the new years weekend it will be January 2nd and there will only be 9 more days until the application window opens.

Stay tuned.

General Availability opens tomorrow for .XXX domains. If you did not get the .XXX domains you wanted during the Sunrise or Landrush period(s), now is the time to register them.

What you need to know.

• General Availability is open to all businesses and individuals on a first come, first served basis.
• Any member of the adult Sponsored Community can apply without pre-existing rights or qualifications unlike in the previous launch periods.
• Members of the adult Sponsored Community—verification is done at the ICM Registry before sites will resolve.
• Non-members of the adult Sponsored Community—there is no verification and/or requirements, but these .XXX domain names will not resolve.

If you would like to register a .XXX domain(s) log in to the Safenames IDP today. If you have any questions about .XXX, please contact Safenames customer support at +44-1-908-200022 or +1-703-574-5313.

Related posts:

1. General Availability for Country Code .CO Begins
2. General Availability for Hebrew (IDN) domains in CO.IL and NET.IL to Launch on the 26th of December 2010
3. General Availability for .SO (Somalia) begins on 1 April 2011

AFNIC (the French Network Information Centre, a non-profit association that manages the .fr and .re registries) is changing the registration rules for AFNIC operated extensions as of tomorrow (Dec 6, 2011). This is good news because the local contact requirements for some AFNIC operated extensions (listed below) will be less restrictive and thus, will simplify the registration process. The extensions are:

• .fr (France)
• .wf (Wallis and Futuna)
• .tf (French Southern and Antarctic territories)
• .re(Réunion)
• .pm (St. Pierre and Miquelon)
• .yt (Mayotte)

What does this mean? AFNIC will now allow domains to be registered to registrants who are individuals or entities in any European Union countries, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. If you are unable to meet the local contact requirements, Safenames Local Contact Service enables you to register domains in these (and many other) extensions.

Additionally, the following sub-extensions will no longer be open for new registrations after December 6, 2011. But all currently registered domains in the sub-extensions listed below under the previous AFNIC registration policy will be grandfathered and will continue to be maintained in the .fr zone file:

• com.fr
• .tm.fr
• .asso.fr

Finally, AFNIC has also changed the registration rules on .fr domains names for companies and individual owners of a registered trademarks that are valid in France, but whose country of residence/incorporation is not within one of the regions listed above. These specific entities will no longer be eligible to register new domains, but will be able to keep their domain names.

If you have any questions about these changes or would like to register domains with these extensions, please contact Safenames Customer Support at +44.1908.200.022 or +1.703.574.5313.

Related posts:

1. .yu top level domain soon to be changing to .rs; registration now available
2. Frequently Asked Questions for .ES multilingual domain names pre-registration
3. Argentinean Registry Announces New Registration Limitations for .AR Domain Names

From ICANN News

2 December 2011

In Dakar, ICANN announced the commencement of negotiations with representatives of the Registrar Stakeholder Group to amend the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). These negotiations are actively underway, and aim to produce amendment topics to enhance registrant protection and DNS stability for consideration at the Costa Rica Meeting.

To promote transparency and timely communications, ICANN has created a dedicated Wiki to describe the communications plan, publish regular status updates on the amendment topics under consideration, and provide comment opportunities to the broader ICANN community.

For the latest developments on these important negotiations, click on the link below:

https://community.icann.org/display/RAA

As posted to CircleId.com by Ram Mohan: “While the global rollout of Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) continues at the domain name registry level — with more than 25% of top-level domains now signed — the industry continues to focus on the problem of registrar, ISP and ultimately end-user adoption. At the ICANN meeting in Dakar in late October, engineers from some of the early-adopting registries gathered for their regular face-to-face discussion about how to break the “chicken or egg” problems of secure domain name deployment.”

Click HERE to read the full article.

As posted to ICANN.org: “Following the ICANN Board’s acceptance at the October 2011 meeting in Dakar, Senegal, ICANN is today providing notice of implementation for version 3.0 of the Guidelines for Implementation of Internationalized Domain Names. The IDN Guidelines are a list of general standards that many top-level domain registries deploying IDNs are required to follow based on the Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA) protocol standard from the IETF.”

Click HERE to read more.