The Royal Bank of Scotland acts to protect its online assets
with NetNames Platinum Service
As reported in the press, The Royal Bank of Scotland has enlisted
the help of NetNames to manage its entire portfolio of domain names.
NetNames Platinum Service, available to any organisation with more
than 50 domain names, allows RBS Group to outsource the management
of domain names to improve the registration, renewal and payment
process, and safeguard its online intellectual property.
RBS Group has a portfolio of over 1000 domain names, including
online brands NatWest, Direct Line Finance, Lombard Direct, Tesco
Finance and Virgin Direct Personal Finance. The agreement with
NetNames covers all suffixes and variations of domain names that the
RBS Group and its companies own.
For the full story, go to http://www.netnames.com
VeriSign speeds up DNS updates for .com and .net
VeriSign Inc. now performs 'rapid updates' on its 13 distributed
Domain Name System (DNS) servers, which serve .com and .net domains.
The updates occur every few seconds rather than twice a day.
VeriSign's DNS servers, which are sometimes referred to as 'root'
nameservers, determine which local nameservers to route a query to.
Rapid updates should mean that new .com and .net registrations
become active on the internet much more quickly than before. Also,
changes to nameserver delegation (DNS transfers) could speed up
significantly, but this will depend somewhat on local DNS
administrators updating local configurations. Up till now, such processes have generally taken approximately 24 hours to complete.
VeriSign manages .com and .net domains through an agreement with
the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). As
recently reported in N3 Lite, the two bodies are currently involved
in a legal battle over the extent of ICANN's authority. VeriSign's
contract for managing .net is due to expire next year, and ICANN is
developing a bidding system to determine who will next manage it.
Domain registrations reach record levels,
according to VeriSign
VeriSign Inc. have released their quarterly domain name report,
which found that the rate of registration is at an all-time high.
According to the report, 64.5 million domain names are currently
registered and 4.6 million new domains were registered during the
second quarter of 2004, this being an increase of 2.5 percent over
the first quarter of the year.
The report states that 70 percent of total new .com and .net
registrations in 2004 were for domains never previously registered.
Renewal rates for .com and .net, according to VeriSign,
increased to 71 percent in May 2004. And VeriSign states that
country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) now represent 39 percent of all
registrations.
These findings indicate a buoyant market and suggest that there
is steady supply and demand for new online branding.
To read the report, go to http://www.verisign.com/static/015909.pdf
ccTLD news
.dm launched
The Dominican TLD is now available from NetNames, who is one of
only three registrars authorised to sell it at the moment. At some
(as yet unknown) point, the Dominican Registry will accept
registrations directly through their website, but the cost will be
significantly higher than through NetNames.
Registration of a .dm domain will automatically include .com.dm,
.net.dm and .org.dm versions. To register .dm, go to http://www.netnames.com
.mp Mobile Phone TLD in sunrise
.mp, the country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), is now becoming
available for registration and is being marketed as the TLD for
mobile phones. .mp domains are being sold only as part of a package
which includes website and DNS hosting.
The current sunrise period is open to trademark holders. Platinum
Clients can contact their account manager if they would like to
apply. The registry will open up to the public on a first-come
first-served basis from October 1.
.pro developments
.pro domains will be available to UK qualified professionals from
October 4th. It is also likely that availability will be extended to
Canada and Germany.
In addition, RegistryPro have announced that they will extend the
eligibility of .pro to the following professions, although no dates
have yet been announced:
Architects (arc.pro), Certified Financial Analysts (cfa.pro),
Certified Financial Planners (cfp.pro), Dentists (dds.pro),
Engineers (eng.pro), Nutritionists (ntr.pro), Optometrists (opt.pro),
Pharmacists (pha.pro), Physician Assistants (pa.pro), Podiatrists (pod.pro),
Psychologists (psy.pro), Educators (ed.pro), Veterinarians (vet.pro),
Physical Therapists (pt.pro), Public Relations (pr.pro)
To register .pro, go to http://www.netnames.com
©
Copyright NetNames 2004. All rights reserved.
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