Nic News ..

Grace period ends for re-registration of Canadian domain names

Approximately 41,000 dot-ca domain names, originally registered through the UBC (University of British Columbia) Registry, will become available to the Canadian public as of February 1, 2001. The registry for dot-ca domain names was transferred from UBC to CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority) last November. At the same time a request was sent out to all existing domain name holders, who had previously registered through UBC, to re-register their name with CIRA.

The new registry decided to reserve all 98,000 domain names until January 31, 2001, after which time the remaining names would become available to anyone meeting the basic Canadian residency requirements.

If you own a dot-ca domain name and want to ensure the name is safely re-registered, please contact your registrar as soon as possible. If you wish to view the list of potential domain names to become available this week please contact n3lite@netnames.com.

Industry Update ..

BBC in domain name buying frenzy

The BBC has registered up to 3,000 domain names in the last few years, a figure which experts reckon must have cost the corporation more than half a million pounds. Most names are registered with .com and country-code suffixes in all countries where the BBC has trademarks. Many BBC TV and radio shows are also registered as domain names. Some have had to be recovered, including BBC.com, which was bought from Boston Business Computing last year for £200,000, and BBCNews.com which was recovered in court from a cybersquatter. The corporation has also recently secured BBC.tv, at a cost of £3,000 a year. Staff at the BBC are actively encouraged to put forward ideas for new domain names for new programmes, products and services that have yet to be registered.

ICANN chief to be a Brit

ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the organisation which manages the Domain Name System (DNS), this week appointed Professor M. Stuart Lynn, a British-born academic and former chief information officer for the University of California.

ICANN made the appointment after 15 months of searching and interviews with over 300 candidates worldwide. Experts believe that he got the job because he has a neutral view on most issues which currently divide the organisation and its critics. Professor Lynn says that his main goal will be building consensus for policy decisions by involving Internet users worldwide. Since it was formed in 1998, ICANN has been critisised for pandering to business interests and of being too US-centric.

Fact of the Week ..

11.5 million now online at home in the UK

More than 11.5 million people in the UK now have access to the Internet from their home PC, according to research company, NetValue. Women now make up 40% of all surfers, while so-called 'silver surfers', those over the age of 55, make up 19% of the total. However, children under the age of 14 account for just 0.6 million, or 5%.

Tip of the Week ..

New gTLDs

You can now register your interest in the new gTLDs by clicking onto www.gtld.com. Enter your details and let us know the prefix(es) and new suffix(es) you are interested in registering.

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