Issue 211 - 12 July 2006

.mobi - extension of trademark sunrise

The end of the trademark sunrise period for .mobi has been extended until 22 September. This means that general registration is now scheduled to begin 26 September.

Trademark holders that wish to register .mobi should visit our specialist domain site, gtld.com. Platinum Service customers should contact their account manager.

.im (Isle of Man) second level launch

.im is now available at the second level. It is available on a first-come, first-served basis - without a sunrise period. The domain is currently in a 'grandfathering period', until 1 August, allowing existing registrants of third level domains (e.g. .co.im) to secure their exact-match at the second level. Note that there are only approximately 1,000 registered .im domains at the third level.

NetNames expects this suffix to attract cybersquatters, and encourages brand owners to secure their intellectual property at the first opportunity.

The registry is also making one and two character .im domains available at the same time, at a premium price.

In order to register .im, please visit www.netnames.com now, or contact your Platinum Account Manager.

Denic, the German domain registry operator, recently announced that it had processed the ten millionth registration of a .de domain name. .de is second in the world, in terms of numbers of registrations. The only other domain to have ever passed the ten million milestone is .com, which stands at over 50 million registrations.

40,000 .eu registrations being investigated

EURid, the .eu registry, has created a team to investigate registrations where there is some doubt as to whether the registrant is actually based in the European Union and therefore eligible. So far, the team has received complaints about approximately 40,000 registrations made by some 50 registrants.

EURid states that a large number of the registrations have, upon investigation, turned out to be valid. At the last count, six names had been suspended, awaiting revocation.

Incidentally, the number of registrations of .eu has recently passed two million. The growth of the new domain for members of the European Community continues at an unprecedented rate.

.vn (Vietnam) - additional sunrise period for third level registrants

The official launch of .vn at the second level is scheduled for 1 August. Existing registrants of .vn at the third level have priority to register their exact-match second level domain name, as long as the third level version was registered prior to 13 June 2006. This additional sunrise period will end 13 July and domains successfully registered during this period will go live 1 August.

Pre-registrations that do not qualify for the third level sunrise period will also go live 1 August and will still have priority over the general public.

In order to apply for a second level .vn domain during sunrise, or to pre-register for general launch, visit www.netnames.com now.

ICANN formalises relationships with ccTLD registry operators

Over the last ten weeks, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has exchanged letters and signed agreements under its Accountability Framework program with seven registry operators for country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs), namely:

.uk (United Kingdom)
.lv (Latvia)
.cx (Christmas Island)
.nf (Norfolk Island)
.na (Namibia)
.cl (Chile) 
.de (Germany)

The following text, taken from ICANN’s site (www.icann.org), explains a little about the Accountability Framework program: 

"The Accountability Framework program provides two mechanisms by which ccTLD managers can formalise their relationship with ICANN. The first is an Accountability Framework document that sets out the obligations of a ccTLD manager and ICANN. It also covers dispute resolution and termination and is designed for ccTLD managers requiring a formal document with ICANN."

Nominet, the .uk registry, is the most recent addition to the list. It was also announced that Nominet will join ICANN's country-code Names Supporting Organisation (ccNSO), which is responsible for developing global policies relating to ccTLDs. Nominet will be the largest registry to join the ccNSO since its inception in 2003.

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