VeriSign to deploy DNSSEC in .com next March

VeriSign is to start rolling out the DNSSEC security protocol in .net today, and will sign .com next March, the company said today.
In an email to the dns-ops mailing list, VeriSign vice president Matt Larson said that .net will get a “deliberately unvalidatable zone”, which uses unusable dummy keys for testing purposes, today.
That test is set to end on December 9, when .net will become fully DNSSEC-compatible.
The .com TLD will get its own unvalidatable zone in March, but registrars will be able to start submitting cryptographic keys for the domains they manage from February.
The .com zone will be validatable later in March.
The DNSSEC standard allows resolvers to confirm that DNS traffic has not been tampered with, reducing the risk of attacks such as cache poisoning.
Signing .com is viewed as the last major registry-level hurdle to jump before adoption kicks off more widely. The root zone was signed in July and a few dozen other TLDs, such as .org, are already signed.

2 Comments Tagged: .com, .net, DNSSEC, verisign

Budapest joins the city TLD bandwagon

A Hungarian consortium is set to apply for .bud, a top-level domain to represent Budapest.
The Dotbud campaign joins a long and growing list of city TLDs intended to represent European capitals, which currently includes the likes of .london, .berlin, .paris and .riga.
Judging from a machine translation of the organization’s web site, the registry plans to offer a 50% discount to registrants who follow it on Facebook which strikes me as a novel marketing technique.

Comment Tagged: .bud, budapest, city tlds, dotbud, new TLDs

Will .xxx be approved today?

Will the adults-only .xxx top-level domain be approved today, or will the hot potato be tossed to governments for a decision?
That’s the question facing ICANN’s board of directors, which is set to discuss the controversial TLD for the umpteenth time today.
The last resolution it passed on .xxx called for a public comment period, followed by a decision on whether the registry contract is compatible with old Governmental Advisory Committee advice.
With the comment period closed, it appears that all that remains is to decide whether a new GAC consultation is required before the contract can be approved or rejected.
Some opponents of .xxx are demanding a GAC consultation.
Diane Duke, director of porn trade group the Free Speech Coalition, wrote to ICANN this week, urging it to refer the application back to the GAC.
As Duke knows, many international governments are opposed to .xxx.
A week ago, Australia’s socially conservative, pro-censorship broadband minister, Stephen Conroy, also asked ICANN for another GAC consultation, expressing his “strong opposition” to the TLD due to its “lack of identified public benefit”.
And Conroy is surely not alone. There can be few governments that would be happy to be seen to endorse pornography, regardless of its legal status in their jurisdictions.
The GAC is firmly of the view that “controversial” TLDs present a risk to the global interoperability of the internet. The fear is that strings such as .xxx could lead to blocking at national borders and ultimately fragmentation of the DNS root.
Whichever decision ICANN makes today, it is sure to cause controversy one way or another.

1 Comment Tagged: diane duke, free speech coalition, gac, governmental advisory committee, ICANN, icm registry, stephen conroy, xxx

ICANN “intervention” needed on TLD ownership rules

ICANN’s board of directors is today likely to step in to create rules on which kinds of companies should be able to apply for new top-level domains.
Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush now says “intervention appears to be required” on the issue of registry-registrar cross-ownership, after a GNSO working group failed to create a consensus policy.
In an email to the vertical integration working group yesterday, Dengate Thrush thanked particpants for their efforts and added:

The board is faced, in the face of absence of a GNSO position, to examine what should be done. This is a matter we are actively considering.
My sense is that, while reluctant to appear to be making policy, the Board is unwilling to allow stalemate in the GNSO policy development process to act as an impediment to implementing other major policy work of the GNSO, which calls for the introduction of new gTLDS. Some kind of Board intervention appears to be required, and we are considering that.

Currently, placeholder text in the new TLD Draft Applicant Guidebook calls for a 2% cross-ownership cap and effectively bans registrars from applying to become registries.
Such a scenario would very likely make single-registrant “.brand” TLDs unworkable. Canon, for example, would be forced to pay a registrar every time it wanted to create a new domain in .canon.
It would also put a serious question mark next to the viability of geographical and cultural TLDs that may be of limited appeal to mass-market registrars.
Many in the VI working group are in favor of more liberal ownership rules, with larger ownership caps and carve-outs for .brands and “orphan” TLDs that are unable to find registrars to partner with.
But others, notably including Go Daddy and Afilias, which arguably stand to gain more economically from the status quo, favor a stricter separation of powers.
This latter bloc believes that allowing the integration of registry and registrar functions would enable abusive practices.
Dengate Thrush’s email has already raised eyebrows. ICANN is, after all, supposed to create policies using a bottom-up process.
Go Daddy’s policy point man, Tim Ruiz, wrote:

I am hopeful that you did not intend to imply that if the bottom up process does not produce the reults that some of the Board and Staff wanted then the Board will just create its own policy top down.
I hope that the Board keeps its word regarding VI as it was given to the GNSO. To not do so would make it difficult to have any confidence in the Board whatsoever.

It’s a tightrope, and no mistake.

4 Comments Tagged: .brand, afilias, go daddy, ICANN, new TLDs, peter dengate thrush, vertical integration

Employ Media answers .jobs critics

The .jobs registry has responded to insinuations from its critics that it set out to break its own sponsorship rules with a plan to open up the TLD to generic and geographic domain names.
In a filing with ICANN (pdf), Employ Media denies that its liberalization program would permit people from outside the human resources sector to register domains, in violation of its Charter.

Employ Media categorically rejects such allegations as unfounded speculation, and made solely to delay the launch of the .JOBS Phased Allocation Program.

The program, which would see non-companyname .jobs registrations allowed for the first time, has already been approved, but a Reconsideration Request was filed by the .JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition in an effort to get the decision reversed.
The Coalition is an ad-hoc group of jobs boards that believe Employ Media’s plans could harm their businesses by attracting users of nursingjobs.com (for example) to nursing.jobs.
Employ Media plans to allocate thousands of premium domains such as these to the DirectEmployers Association, in order to feed traffic to a huge free jobs board at universe.jobs.
The Coalition sent ICANN a list of questions for Employ Media, and ICANN followed up last week with 13 of its own questions, all of which seem to dance around the issue of whether this was kosher.
The registry’s responses, published by ICANN a couple of days ago (and subsequently disappeared), basically deny that it has done anything that would allow non-Charter registrants into its TLD.
It also seeks to put distance between itself and DirectEmployers:

At the time of the 5 August 2010 Board action [approving the program], Employ Media did NOT have any intention of registering names under the Phased Allocation Plan to any entity other than Employ Media.

That appears to be a roundabout way of describing its original plan to register all the premium names to itself, but to allow DirectEmployers to use them, basically hacking its own registry contract.
Universe.jobs, for example, is registered in Employ Media’s own name, but appears to be primarily operated by DirectEmployers (blog posts from Employ Media executives notwithstanding).

Comment Tagged: .jobs charter compliance coalition, directemployers association, employ media, ICANN, reconsideration

Businesses to object to Arab UDRP provider

ICANN’s business constituency is to object to a new Jordan-based UDRP provider, saying that no new providers should be approved until rules governing their behavior are put in place.
The BC reckons that UDRP decisions need to be more consistent and predictable, and that a good way to achieve this would be with standard accountability mechanisms.
In a draft position statement, expected to be finalized and filed with ICANN tomorrow, the BC says that it:

strongly advocates that ICANN must first implement a standard mechanism with any and all UDRP arbitration providers that defines and constrains their authority and powers, and establishes regular and standardized review by ICANN with flexible and effective means of enforcement.

Its comment is expected to be filed in response to the Arab Center for Domain Name Dispute Resolution’s request for official recognition as a UDRP provider last month.
The BC does not appear to object to the ACDR on its own merits or on the basis of its location.
The statement notes that registrars are bound by contracts setting the rules for domain registrations, but that UDRP providers can force transfers unconstrained by any ICANN guidelines or oversight.
It’s well-known that UDRP decisions from the various existing providers are currently about as predictable as flipping a coin, with panelists frequently interpreting the rules along quite different lines.
The BC seems concerned that this could be exacerbated as more UDRP providers are approved and as new TLD registries start popping up in different countries.
The draft statement notes that currently about 99% of UDRP cases are heard by WIPO and NAF, and that most gTLDs are “based in a limited number of national jurisdictions”.

2 Comments Tagged: acdr, arab center for domain name dispute resolution, business constituency, ICANN, naf, udrp, wipo

SnapNames settles shill-bidder class action

Domain name auctioneer SnapNames said that it has settled the class action lawsuit filed against it by disgruntled domainers after one of its employees was found to be a shill bidder.
It seems to have had a bit of a result, too. Class members will receive exactly the same amount they would have had they accepted its rebate offer, according to a statement released by the company today.
The case was filed almost a year ago, after it emerged that Nelson Brady, a SnapNames employee, had been posing as a bidder in domain name auctions in order to bump up the final sale price.
Posing as “Hank Alvarez” or “halverez”, Brady stood to gain bonuses based on performance targets as a result of SnapNames’ acquisition by Oversee.net, its current owner.
After the abuse was discovered, SnapNames offered affected customers a rebate equivalent to the money they would have saved on a winning bid had “halvarez” not outbid them.
SnapNames said today:

Class members (which are United States residents who were extended the rebate offer but have not yet accepted) have been or shortly will be notified of the settlement terms and amounts (which are identical to the amounts affected bidders were offered in the rebate offer we extended last November).

This seems to mean that anybody who was holding out for a bigger settlement is out of luck.
The deadline for accepting the rebate expires November 4, but the deadline to become part of the class action is not until December 17.
SnapNames will have paid out $2 million to customers in total.
(I wonder how much the class action attorneys are to receive).
More info can be found at snapsettlement.com.
SnapNames has also settled its lawsuit against Brady for an undisclosed amount. The company sued him for $33 million in May.
Oversee said it “believes the financial penalty is appropriate considering the seriousness of the improper activity”.

1 Comment Tagged: auctions, class action, halvarez, hank alvarez, oversee.net, snapnames

Survey reveals demand for .brand TLDs

Almost half of trademark-conscious companies are considering a “.brand” top-level domain, according to a survey carried out by World Trademark Review magazine.
The survey also found that there is much more interest in new TLDs among marketing folk than lawyers, which is perhaps not surprising.
So far, only a few potential .brand applicants have been revealed. Canon has been the most brazen about its plans, but others including IBM and Nokia have also dropped hints.
The WTR reported:

WTR’s survey of in-house trademark counsel, attorneys in law firms and marketing professionals found that an average of 54% responded “Yes”, “It’s likely” or “Maybe” when asked whether their company/client would apply for a new gTLD. Of these, 81% confirmed, like Canon, that the string would be their master brand.

A break-down of these numbers kindly provided by WTR show that “Yes” was easily the least common response, but that marketing professionals expressed more interest than lawyers.
Asked whether their company would apply to run a new TLD, only 6.8% and 9.5% of in-house counsel responded “Yes” or “It’s likely”, compared to 19.6% and 15.2% for marketers.
About 54% and 33% responded “No” to the same question, respectively. The remainder were on the fence with a “Maybe” response.
Lawyers in private practice, when asked the same question, were more confident than their in-house counterparts, with 18.9% saying it was “likely” at least one client would want a gTLD
Whichever way you cut it, this adds up to a pretty decent chunk of .brand applicants. ICANN has previously said it expects between 100 and 200 such applications in the first round.
About 350 people responded to the survey in total. The full results and analysis are published in the latest edition of WTR.

8 Comments Tagged: .brand, canon, ICANN, newTLDs, world trademark review

Former ICANN chief speaks out against new TLD morality veto

Former ICANN president and CEO Paul Twomey has expressed his support for rules curbing the ability of international governments to object to new top-level domains.
Twomey’s suggestions could be seen as going even further to limit government powers in the new TLD process than previous recommendations from the community.
The advice came during the ICANN comment period on the so-called “Rec6” recommendations, which previously sought to create an objection process based on “morality and public order” or “MOPO” concerns.
There had been a worry from some elements of the ICANN community that backwards governments could use Rec6 to arbitrarily block controversial new TLDs on national interest grounds.
But a cross-constituency working group, which included a few members of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee, instead developed recommendations that would create a much narrower objections process with a greater emphasis on free speech.
Twomey, who quit ICANN in June 2009, has now expressed broad support for the working group’s recommendations, and suggests a few tweaks to make the process less open to abuse.
He said ICANN “should be careful not to view one government alone as having veto power over any particular gTLD string which is designed to serve a global or at least international user group”.
Notably, Twomey has urged ICANN to steer clear of the phrase “national interest”, which appears in the current Rec6 recommendations, and instead use “national law”.
He reasons that giving weight to “national interests” could enable fairly junior civil servants to object to new TLDs without the full backing of their governments or legislation.

phrases such as “perceived national interest” reflect a degree of political consideration which can be more fleeting, be expressed by very junior officials without Ministerial or Parliamentary approval, and often is a matter of debate between different groups within the country and government. In some respects it is similar to the phrase “public policy”. I remember a GAC member many years ago stating that “public policy is anything I decide it is”.

Twomey then recommends that even when a government has an objection based on an actual national law, that law “should only derive from a national law which is in accordance with the principle of international law.”
A law which violated human rights treaties, for example, or which was hurriedly passed specifically in order to scupper a TLD bid, would therefore not be valid grounds for objection.
Twomey’s reasoning here is fascinating and a little bit shocking:

without such a linkage, a unique, one-off power to a government would be open to gaming by well-funded commercial interests with political influence.
…
I am aware of some commercial entities involved in the ICANN space in years past that quietly boasted of their ability to get laws passed in certain small jurisdictions which would suit their commercial interests in competing with other players. This is not behaviour the ICANN Board should inadvertently incent.

I’ll leave it for you to speculate about which companies Twomey is referring to here. I don’t think there are many firms in the domain name space that well-funded.
Prior to becoming ICANN’s president, Twomey chaired the GAC as the Australian representative. He’s currently president of Leagle and managing director of Argo Pacific, his own consulting firm.
His full commentary, which delves into more areas than I can get into here, can be found here. The Rec6 working group’s recommendations can be found here (pdf). My previous coverage of the Rec6/MOPO issue can be found here.

Comment Tagged: gac, governmental advisory committee, ICANN, mopo, new TLDs, paul twomey, rec6

NameJet to auction three-letter .pro domains

NameJet has inked a deal with RegistryPro to auction off eleven “premium” three-letter .pro domain names next month.
The domains themselves have not yet been revealed, but the auction is scheduled to kick off November 19, according to a press release today.
RegistryPro, a subsidiary of HostWay, received the the right to start selling previously-restricted one-, two- and three-character .pro domains from ICANN in May 2009.
This June, it allocated nine such domains, including top.pro and 411.pro, via an RFP process.
After it has finished auctioning off its selected short domains, the company plans to put the remainder back into the pool for first-come, first-served registrations.

3 Comments Tagged: auctions, hostway, namejet, registrypro