Issue 160 - 23rd July 2004

ICANN meeting in Kuala Lumpur

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) tri-annual meeting is currently underway in Malaysia. Topics under discussion include:

· The possibility of control over Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) being determined by auction
· The progress of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs)
· The next-generation version of Internet Protocol. (IPv6)

ICANN announced on Tuesday that an IPv6 nameserver address has been added to the Internet's root DNS zone. This provides trillions more addresses than the IPv4 system that is in use by most networks today and allegedly makes it possible for every human being to have an IP address.

It was also announced during the meeting that ICANN is moving closer to self-government, away from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Vint Cerf, ICANN chairman, said that 7 of the 24 tasks required to move ICANN's operations out of the hands of the US government are complete.

ICANN committee releases report further condemning VeriSign's Site Finder

After nine months of investigation, an advisory committee commissioned by ICANN recently concluded that the Site Finder domain registry service released by VeriSign last October should remain offline. The system would allow users who entered nonexistent or inactive Internet addresses into their Web browsers to be automatically redirected to the Site Finder page, featuring an Internet search tool supported by advertising. The report now goes to the ICANN Board of Directors. VeriSign's retaliatory litigation against ICANN, initiated in February, is still pending.

Creditcard.com sells for $2.75 million

As reported in the press, a small marketing company based in the US has paid $2.75 million for creditcard.com. Some suggest this may herald the start of a new explosion in domain name speculation. During the dot-com boom of the nineties, one of the highest prices paid for a domain was $7.5 million for business.com. The new owner of creditcards.com has likened the acquisition to "prime real estate".

.pro 2nd-level launch

From Aug 2nd, qualified professionals will be able to apply for 2nd-level .pro domains at www.netnames.com. For more details and to find out if you qualify, please see www.gtld.com.