Thursday, May 28. 2009
Noticed this snippet from the Wall Street Journal: it seems Hecta Media, a company specializing in Internet investments, has put some money in both .NYC and .ECO.
Both gTLD initiatives are supported by Anthony Van Couvering's Minds&Machines, while .ECO has the backing of former US vice president Al Gore.
The fact that these gTLD projects are attracting outside investors may seem promising, but that's just it, AIM listed Hecta Media isn't an outside investor. The company's CEO Fred Krueger, is also .ECO's CEO. I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with that, just pointing out the fact that under these circumstances, these two gTLDs are an obvious investment choice for Hecta Media.
Thursday, May 21. 2009
A company running an ingenious pre-order system for new gTLDs which it expects will be launched once ICANN's program gets underway claims to have received over 300,000 pre-orders since it started the service a month ago.
Registrations are free on this system run by domain pre-order specialist Pool.com, which possible helps explain such huge levels of interest for a service which may be seen as rather theoretical at best. After all, putting down a pre-order on a TLD that doesn't even exist yet seems a bit odd.
But a list of potential TLDs is displayed to users of this service and gives a fascinating insight into the kind of suffixes that could be in the works by this time next year. These include geo TLDs like .africa, .gal, .pdx, .bayern, .ker, .quebec, .bcn, .lat, .sco, .bzh, .lli, .vla, .cym, .med, .yks, .eng, .arab, .eus, .indigi; City TLDs like .berlin, .NYC, .vancouver, .munich, .paris, .boston, .london, .ottawa, .miami, .hamburg, .montreal, .chicago, .köln, .toronto, .dallas; or general interest TLDs like .eco, .fam, .family, .green, .health, .xxx, .golf, .movie, .web, .resort, .music, .sex, .blog, .sport, .news, .radio, .futbol, .sucks, .vin, .football.
The success of this pre-order system is bound to encourage more new gTLD initiatives. It's the first clear and factual indication that new gTLDs are likely to generate important registration volumes once they are launched.
Tuesday, May 19. 2009
Tralliance, the .TRAVEL registry, submitted a registry service request to ICANN yesterday (May 18). It wants to offer 1 and 2 character domain names before the year is out..
This request is similar to others recently been submitted on such gTLDs as .PRO, .MOBI, .BIZ, .JOBS, .NAME or even .COOP. Each time, the registry's aim is to generate extra revenue and boost interest.
Tralliance is proposing a pattern similar to that used by other registries. It plans to auction the best names, then to call for RFPs, before releasing the names not yet snapped up on a first come, first served basis.
The registry's plan has a provision to allow it to keep up to 10 of these valuable names for itself before putting the rest on the market. These names "are likely to benefit the promotion of the Registry and its use and expansion in the Internet, by offering the Registry highly-visible and unique domain name vehicles for its own promotion," says Tralliance.
Tralliance expects ICANN to approve its request by the end of June (ICANN would be hard pressed to turn it down after having approved so many other requests of this kind) and therefore sees the .TRAVEL 1 and 2 character name allocation process launching in Q3 or Q4 of 2009.
Thursday, May 14. 2009
At the Internet Governance Forum consultations currently going on in Geneva, the Chinese delegation has voiced its opposition to a 5 year extension of the IGF.
"When it comes to Internet governance, developing country points of view are not sufficiently reflected in the discussions," China's representative is quoted as saying by Milton Mueller on the IGP website. "This is why we don't agree that the IGF should continue its mandate after the 5 years are up. So we repeat that the delegation of China does not agree with extending the mission of the IGF beyond the 5 years. We feel that after the 5 years are up, we would need to look at the results that have been achieved. And we need, then, to launch into an intergovernmental discussion."
I have to admit to being in full agreement with the Chinese on this. Their approach seems both pragmatic and logical. The UN tends to have a natural tendency to produce entities that have no clear endgame in sight and where no-one really questions the fact that no goals are being reached (or have even been set for that matter).
But the flip side of this coin is China's insistence that an "intergovernmental discussion" replace the IGF. Is that a way of throwing the UN wrench back into the ICANN slash Internet governance works?
Tuesday, May 12. 2009
According to Chinese media, a nationwide campaign has been launched to promote the use of a .CHINA extension in local characters (.??). Chinese registry officials are quoted as saying that developing this TLD would boost Internet use and popularity in China.
But it's unclear whether the campaign is focusing on an IDN .CHINA TLD, as part of ICANN's current fast track towards the prompt release of local character set TLDs, or if this is a home grown initiative.
One news story says that "so far, 90 percent of national provincial or ministerial-level government organizations, 95 percent of traditional media websites, over 90 percent of the 211-engineering universities, over 50 percent of China's top 100 enterprises and over 40 percent of China's top 500 enterprises have already registered to use the .?? domain name."
Either we're talking a petition of some kind in support of a .?? or there's some local scheme to develop a Chinese character domain under the country's ccTLD .CN. The story goes on to say that "it is expected that within the next two years, China's mainstream websites will all be using the .?? domain name."
Tuesday, May 12. 2009
The .TK registry claims to have notched up its 15th million domain name yesterday! Now that's quite an achievement. If true, it means .TK is second only to .COM but ahead of .CN (China) our .DE (Germany).
To be honest, I find that very hard to believe. This despite the fact that .TK offers its domains in a way which could see it register large quantities. The registry works two services. There's the standard "buy your domain name from accredited registrars" such as INDOM. If you do, you simply get a .TK domain and do what you want with it.
But there's also an innovative free domain name service which is used as a "URL shortener" along the same principle as something like TinyURL. How does it work? Say I have a long URL which I'd like shortened to email to a friend or colleague. I go to the .TK registry's site and enter my URL. The registry responds with a suggested .TK domain. That domain is then pointed to my URL. It's all free as long as I put up with the registry's ads on my web page or my domain gets at least 25 hits every 90 days.
So a very different way for a registry to market its domain names and one which could in theory generate large volumes. But 15 million? As Ali G would say… "for real?"
Sunday, May 10. 2009
As I explained after last week's GNSO Council meeting, ICANN is planning to publish a 3rd version of its Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG) and then the final version before the year is out.
The timing is as I outlined: 3rd DAG in September, final version before the end of the year. ICANN has just confirmed this in an announcement in which it also gives a planned date for the start of the first round of applications for new gTLDs.
This is the date everyone has been waiting for. Unfortunately, no precise date has been given yet, but ICANN says it expects to be able to open the first round in the first quarter of 2010.
This timetable has been hinted at several times in the past few weeks but it is the first time ICANN has officially confirmed it.
Sunday, May 10. 2009
ICANN's Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) was set up following the Mexico meeting in March to address potential issues for trademark holders in the implementation of new gTLDs.
The IRT has already come up with several proposals:
- IP Clearinghouse, Globally Protected Marks List and other top and second rights protection mechanisms;
- Draft Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) Procedure;
- Post delegation dispute resolution mechanisms at the top level;
- Thick Whois model requirements for new TLDs; and
- Use of algorithm in string confusion review during initial evaluation.
Working to an extremely tight schedule so that it can provide a final report in time for ICANN's next meeting (Sydney at the end of June), the IRT is set to publish that report on May 24. A comment period is currently underway, with a first deadline set for May 6. Anyone wishing for their comments to be considered by the IRT in its final report had to meet this deadline.
As the leading corporate registrar in France, INDOM is extremely mindful of trademark and IP issues. Our team of IP professionals prepared a comment which was submitted on May 5 and which can be read here.
We hope the IRT will find our comments useful as they continue their excellent work in the run-up to their final report.
Thursday, May 7. 2009
During today's GNSO Council teleconference, ICANN Senior VP Kurt Pritz outlined the timetable he and the rest of the ICANN's new gTLD team are working on. In short, there is to be a 3rd version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook (DAG) in September and a final version before the end of the year.
There won't therefore be a 3rd DAG published before ICANN's next meeting in Sydney at the end of June, as had been previously expected. The reason is that work currently being done on the overarching issues identified by the Board in March at the Mexico meeting won't be completed in time to ready a new version of the DAG for Sydney. In particular, work on the trademark protection, root zone scaling and malicious conduct issues should be finishing around the Sydney meeting time.
However, ICANN is planning to publish a full analysis of the comments it received on the 2nd DAG in time for the Sydney meeting. A similar document was put out after the 1st DAG comment period in which ICANN gave detailed answers to the vast majority of points raised. For this second comment analysis, ICANN is planning to go a step further and include excerpts of the DAG with redline edits where appropriate.
ICANN is also planning a series of consultations, the first one in Sydney, then at least one in the USA and one in Europe, to discuss the next model of the guidebook. That's expected to be published in early September and followed by a comment period which would close after the Seoul meeting in October.
A final version of the Applicant Guidebook would then be okayed by the ICANN Board and published before the end of 2009.
Monday, May 4. 2009
In a video message posted on her website this morning, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding asks the US government to cut ICANN loose at the end of the current JPA.
This Joint Project Agreement between ICANN to the US Department of Commerce is set to expire on September 30th. "This opens the door for the full privatisation of ICANN," said Reding, "and it also raises the question of to whom ICANN should be accountable, as from 1 October."
Answering her own question, Commissioner Reding suggested that ICANN become fully privatised and completely independent from the US government. She also suggested a "G12 for Internet Governance" as a novel body allowing governments to submit recommendations to ICANN.
ICANN itself, through its Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush, has been pushing for an end to direct US oversight once the current JPA is over and will undoubtedly be happy to see the EU come out in favour of an independent ICANN. A hearing will be held by the European Commission in Brussels on May 6th to further discuss the future of Internet Governance.
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