Apple, Google and Microsoft still don’t understand new TLDs

The world’s most-popular web browsers are still failing to recognize new top-level domains, many months after they go live on the internet.

The version of the Safari browser that ships with the Mountain Lion iteration of Apple’s OS X appears to have even gone backwards, removing support for at least one TLD.

The most recent versions of Google’s Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer also both fail to recognize at least two of the internet’s most recently added TLDs.

According to informal tests on multiple computers this week, Safari 6 on Mountain Lion and the Windows 7 versions of Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome v24 all don’t understand .post and .cw addresses.

Remarkably, it appears that Safari 6 also no longer supports .sx domains, despite the fact that version 5 does.

Typing affected domain names into the address bars of these browsers will result in surfers being taken to a search page (usually Google) instead of their intended destination.

If you want to test your own browser, registry.sx, una.cw and ems.post are all valid, resolving domain names you can try.

The gTLD .post was entered into the DNS root last August and the first second-level domain names went live in October.

The ccTLDs .sx and .cw are for Sint Maarten (Dutch part) and Curacao respectively, two of three countries formed by the breakup of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010.

ICANN approved the delegation of .cw in October 2011 and second-level domains there have been live since at least July 2012 (that’s when the registry’s site, una.cw, went live).

SX Registry’s .sx was delegated in December 2011 and sites there have been live since early 2012. It went into general availability in November.

Safari v5 on Windows and OS X recognizes .sx as a TLD, but v6 on Mountain Lion does not.

The problems faced by .post and .cw on Chrome appear to be mostly due to the fact that neither TLD is included on the Public Suffix List, which Google uses to figure out what a TLD looks like.

A few days after we reported last May that .sx didn’t work on Chrome, SX Registry submitted its details to the PSL, which appears to have solved its problems with that browser.

It’s not at all clear to me why .sx is borked on newer versions of Safari but not the older ones.

If the problem sounds trivial, believe me: it’s not.

The blurring of the lines between search and direct navigation is one of the biggest threats to the long-term relevance of domain names, so it’s vital to the industry’s interests that the problem of universal acceptance is sorted out sooner rather than later.

“Sexy” .sx hits general availability today

The newest ccTLD to go live, .sx for Sint Maarten, starts its general availability phase today at 1500 UTC.

The registry’s web site currently lists 47 registrars that are carrying the TLD, though none of the top five registrars in the gTLD space appear to be participating.

And .sx domains will not be cheap, judging by registrar list prices, averaging out at about $50 per year.

SX Registry, which won the right to run .sx from last year, has been marketing the TLD with sex, as you may be able to tell from the lovely lady in DI’s sidebar, and some registrars are following suit.

GA is of course the final phase of the launch. The usual sunrise and landrush periods were also preceded by special priority periods for companies and individuals based in Sint Maarten.

But the ccTLD will be open to registrants from anywhere in the world.

Sint Maarten was created in 2010 by the break-up of the Netherlands Antilles. The old .an ccTLD is expected to be gracefully decommissioned over the next few years.

.sx denies .sex gTLD objection rumor

The CEO of SX Registry has denied rumors that the company already plans to object to the two .sex new gTLD applications, but has not yet ruled out such a move.

The company runs Sint Maarten’s new ccTLD, .sx, and gossip at the ICANN meeting in Prague last month suggested that an objection or two against .sex might be made on confusing similarity grounds.

The rumors were fueled in part by SX Registry’s sexy launch marketing.

But in a recent email to DI, Normand Fortier wrote:

At this time SX Registry is still reviewing the impact of various gTLD applications and contrary to some published rumors, has not taken any official position or decision regarding a future course of action.

Existing ccTLD operators are allowed to file String Confusion Objections against gTLD applications, if they feel there’s a risk of confusion if the gTLD is approved.

And .sx/.sex is far from a unique case.

In fact, of the 375 applications for three-letter gTLDs in the first round, 304 have only one character variance with one or more existing ccTLDs, according to DI PRO’s string similarity analysis.

ICANN’s Sword algorithm, which compares the visual similarity of strings, gives .sex a score of 57% against .sx.

I’ve checked every three-character gTLD application against every existing ccTLD and found dozens of proposed gTLDs with much higher similarity scores when compared to ccTLD strings.

The full results are available to DI PRO subscribers over here.

Does this sexy .sx ad portend a clash with .sex?

In the occasional DI tradition of linkbaiting Domaining.com with promises of scantily clad eye candy, I humbly invite male readers to get their goggles around this beauty:

Phwoar! Eh?

Apologies.

Anyway, there’s a serious point here.

SX Registry, which is in the process of launching the new .sx ccTLD for the recently formed territory of Sint Maarten, distributed this flyer in the goody bags at ICANN 44 in Prague last week.

The marketing was aimed at registrars, presumably, but the company’s web site has similar imagery as well.

It’s pretty clear what angle SX Registry is going for, and it could portend a clash with .sex and .sexy, which have both been proposed by applicants under ICANN’s new gTLD program.

ICM Registry (.sex), Uniregistry (.sexy) and Internet Marketing Solutions Limited (.sex) may have a potential objector on their hands.

The world’s newest TLD – ICANN approves .sx

ICANN’s board of directors has finally approved .sx, the new country-code top-level domain for newly autonomous Dutch territory Sint Maarten.

In an unexpected non-meeting earlier this week, the board voted to delegate .sx to SX Registry, a joint venture of Luxembourg registry startup OpenRegistry and Canadian registrar MediaFusion.

The vote had been delayed from the board’s meeting in October as SX Registry went through the required pre-delegation motions with ICANN’s IANA department.

Sint Maarten was created in October 2010 when the Netherlands Antilles (.an) split into three separate territories.

The ccTLD .cw for Curacao was assigned to the University of the Netherlands Antilles in October this year, but .bq for Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba, has yet to be delegated.

The legacy .an domain is scheduled to be decommissioned before October 2014.