2003
a record year for domain registrations
Total domain name registrations grew 16% in
2003 to reach an all-time high of over 60 million.
.com and .net are still the
most popular domains, representing 52% of all registrations. However
country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) now account for a growing
percentage of overall domain names with 40% of all registrations.
The majority of ccTLDs were registered in Europe, with the top 10
ccTLDs accounting for 71% of all ccTLD registrations.
The growth of ccTLD
registrations is partly due to a recent trend of countries relaxing
their registration requirements and removing many of the
restrictions that previously existed. If this trend continues, the
number of ccTLDs registered worldwide is likely to grow further.
Proposed
law to penalise domain name fraud
U.S. lawmakers have proposed a new
law that will increase penalties for people providing fake contact
information when registering domain names. The bill, known as ‘The
Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act’, would help increase the
accuracy of the WHOIS database, a searchable database of all domain
name records held by the various Registries and Registrars.
The Increased jail terms and
fines are intended to discourage identity thieves, cybersquatters
and other online fraudsters who register domain names under false
identities. Publishers
of objectionable material are also motivated to provide false
contact information when registering domain names.
Hostway Corporation has this
week announced its wholly owned subsidiary, Registry Services
Corporation, will become the registry operator for the new .pro top
level domain, after it acquires the core assets of RegistryPro, a
subsidiary of Register.com, Inc.
The launch of the .pro
domain name has already been delayed after initially being set to go
live in late January. A sunrise period for trademark owners took
place late last year and is currently closed. The new operators,
Registry Services Corporation, are now saying they intend to launch
the .pro registry in the second quarter of 2004.
Registry Services
Corporation will honour all existing .pro sunrise registrations. The
.pro extension is available exclusively for professionals and is
initially being launched under the following industry specific
third-level domains: law.pro, med.pro and cpa.pro.
N3
lite will keep you up to date on future developments with .pro
domains.
The domain
name whitehouse.com, which is often confused with the government
site whitehouse.gov, is now up for sale.
Dan Parisi,
the founder of whitehouse.com created the site in 1997 to be a
place for uncensored discussion on governmental policies. He then
added adult content to make it profitable. Although the site
reportedly attracts over two million visitors a month and
generates seven figures in annual revenue, Parisi claims that
since launching the site he has become a father and no longer
cares to be involved in the adult content world.
He is
offering the whitehouse.com domain for sale along with stringent
limitations that specify the domain name will not be sold to
anyone in the adult industry space and only responsible inquiries
will be entertained.
Parisi,
a first-amendment advocate, is also the owner of sucks.com and
hundreds of sucks.com domain names. These sucks sites are
typically used as forums for unhappy clients to publish their
complaints and gripes about well known companies and brands.
©
Copyright NetNames 2004. All rights reserved.
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