1.
gTLD Update
.name
latest
.name,
the next new gTLD to be launched, is set to be available
from December 13, 2001. The London-based registry announced
this week that the first batch of domain registrations would
get processed before November 22, with early submissions
particularly useful for people with common names who want
a site with their first and last name.
People
who miss out during the first round have been told that
they will still be able to register their names, however
more 'creative' options such as middle names, nicknames
and birthdays will need to be used as well.
.info
country names reserved by Registry
As
a result of agreements reached at the ICANN meeting in Montevideo,
and at the request of ICANN, country names will be temporarily
reserved by the .info registry and will therefore be unavailable
for registration during the public registration period,
which began on 12 September 2001. ICANN's resolution comes
in response to a Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) communiqué
dated September 9 that recommended this action.
The
list of country names that will be reserved is defined by
the countries included in the ISO 3166-1 listing, and will
be given to Afilias by ICANN. The registry will reserve
these names (much like other names that have been reserved).
Several
of these names were registered during Sunrise; those registrations
will remain in effect (unless challenged as part of the
existing Challenge process).
Second
round of new TLDs “unlikely to launch before 2004”
Nearly
a year after ICANN’s selection of seven new gTLDs,
experts reckon a second round of new gTLDs is unlikely to
be launched before 2004.
The
final report on the current batch of new gTLDs is expected
to be published in March 2002. Invitations for the second
round, a public comment, review period and negotiations
of registry contracts will all need to take place before
any new gTLDs go live. This is unlikely to be less than
three years in duration.
2.
Industry
News
ICANN
posts Montevideo meeting topics
Montevideo,
Uruguay - ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers), the corporation that coordinates technical
standards and policies for the Internet's addressing systems,
this week concluded its third meeting of the year.
Among
the meeting's highlights were:
New
Top Level Domains Approval of Agreements
ICANN's
Board of Directors approved an agreement to launch a new
specialised top-level domain, .museum, for housing domain
names for the world's museums. It also gave conditional
approval for ICANN's president to enter into agreements
to launch two other top-level domains: .aero for the world's
aviation industry, and .coop for cooperative organisations.
These follow the launching early this year of three general
top-level domains: .biz, .info, and .name.
New
Internationalised Domain Name Committee (IDN Committee)
A critical
problem for future Internet use, is how to extend the system
of domain names based on the roman character sets to different
character sets such as Chinese or Arabic. ICANN's Board
of Directors agreed to launch a special coordinating committee
to give impetus to its efforts in this area, focusing on
the policy issues that arise in the IDN environment. Such
policy issues include, for example, how to inhibit abusive
use of trademarked names across different character sets;
and how to guarantee a "single Internet", so that
the same domain name expressed in different character sets
always corresponds to the same address.
At
Large Study Committee Submits Draft Report
A committee
chaired by the former prime minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt,
submitted a draft report recommending to ICANN how best
to represent the interests of Internet users in the ICANN
governance structure. The committee's final report will
be shaped by feedback from the Internet community and will
be submitted to the Board of Directors at ICANN's next meeting.
Next
Meetings
ICANN
has announced that its next meeting will be in Marina del
Rey, California, U.S.A, November 12-15, 2001. The president
announced that Accra, Ghana had been selected for the following
meeting, March 10-14, 2002.
3.
NIC News
Australian
spammer suspended by domain name registry
Australian-based
domain management company, Internet Name Group (ING) has
been suspended by the New Zealand registry after it spammed
a massive number of NZ domain name holders.
The
company last week sent thousands of mail-shots to holders
of .co.nz domain names, something Domainz said was 'a clear
breach of their agreement as a .nz service provider.' After
ING failed to contact Domainz within the given deadline,
the group was suspended as a .nz service provider.
4.
NetNames News
NetNamesNews
Web site launches
NetNames
is pleased to announce that it has launched its new NetNamesNews
(N3) web site, from where you can subscribe to the print
version of N3, a quarterly publication covering all aspects
of the domain name industry, or download a .pdf version
of the magazine.
If
you are in the UK and wish to subscribe, please go to
www.netnamesnews.co.uk,
otherwise please click on www.netnamesnews.com.
.info
names to resolve on September 19
NetNames
would like to announce this it is now accepting submissions
for .info domain names. On September 19, Afilias will
begin processing the first queue of names, and Sunrise
names will begin resolving.
Days
left in application phase of .biz
Companies
have until September 17 to apply for their .biz domain
in the period before the suffix resolves on October 1.
To
register a .info or a .biz domain, please go to www.gtld.com
5.
Fact of the week
A
typical large business owns between 200 and 500 domain
names and spends close to $100,000 per year registering,
maintaining and defending them, according to Gartner,
Inc.
Through 2006 and beyond, it will be 1,000 to 100,000 times
more costly to recover a domain name from hostile ground
than simple and proactive domain name management and registration.
(Source:
www.gartner.com)
