ICANN Update
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN) last week held its first meeting of 2004.
Key decisions to come out of the meeting included:
- ICANN's board announced that it has begun a process through
which VeriSign's existing contract to run the .net Registry could
be handed over to another company. VeriSign's contract expires
June 30, 2005.
- In another action, ICANN approved VeriSign's request to conduct
a 12-month trial of their controversial Wait Listing Service (WLS).
The WLS service would give VeriSign control over expiring .com
and .net domain names, allowing the company to offer a service
whereby customers can reserve domains that have not yet expired.
The existing owner would always have the option to renew it first.
The proposal has now been passed to the US Department of Commerce
for final approval.
- A new supporting organization representing country code domain
names (the ccNSO) was formed. The new group, instigated after
six years of discussions, will give country code managers a forum
to discuss Internet issues that affect them, and an opportunity
to contribute to global Internet policy.
Industry leaders push for mobile Top Level Domain
Leading companies from the mobile industry have signed
a memorandum of understanding to apply for a mobile Top Level Domain
(TLD). ICANN are currently accepting proposals for new TLDs, with
applications closing on March 16th.
The participating companies are Microsoft Corp., Nokia,
Vodafone, 3, GSM Association, HP, Orange, Samsung Electronics Co.
Ltd. and Sun Microsystems. The idea of a mobile TLD is to bridge
the gap between the Internet and mobile phones and create a standard
procedure specifically for mobile users.
The venture plans to submit its application, suggesting
several new domain names, on Monday, which will be followed by a
three-to six-month review process.
Demand for resale of domain names on the rise
The sale of generic domain names is seeing increased levels of
interest, the likes of which have not been seen since the .com boom.
The most recent sale reported has been the sale of mercury.com,
which was bought by Mercury Interactive Corporation (Nasdaq: MERQ),
for $1.1 million. It was also reported last week that the domain
name smoking.com was sold for $500,000, mr.com for $350,000 and
americans.com for $150,000.
NetBenefit plc Interim results
NetBenefit plc, the parent company of NetNames, this week issued
its interim results for the six months ended December 31st 2003.
Key points:
- Strong revenue and profit growth
- Revenue up 26% to £3.5 million (2002: £2.8 million)
- Profit before tax, before amortisation for goodwill, of £230,000
(2002: Loss of £178,000)
- Strong cash generation - cash position at period end is £1.7
million (2002: £823,000)
- Platinum contracted annualised revenues up 100% to £2
million (2002: £1 million)
- Platinum now services 275 companies - includes 25% of FTSE 100
- Capital reduction now complete
- Board is confident of continued growth in core markets
Geoff Wicks, NetBenefit's CEO, commented:
"Our focus on managed services for domain names and web hosting
continues to attract significant corporate customers and is delivering
recurring revenue streams and profitable growth. Companies throughout
the UK, Europe and US are becoming increasingly aware of the importance
of protecting their online brands and this represents a great opportunity
for NetBenefit as a well established specialist provider."
For the full report, please visit http://www.netbenefit.com/interims2004.pdf
©
Copyright NetNames 2004. All rights reserved.
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