Competition for .africa heats up

AfTLD, an organization of African country-code top-level domain operators, has announced its intention to apply to ICANN for the .africa TLD.
The initiative appears to be different to and competitive with the best-known .africa applicant to date, Sophia Bekele’s DotConnectAfrica.
AfTLD said that it plans to seek a mandate for .africa from the Commission of the African Union. It also expects to discuss forming a company to manage the bid at a meeting in Ghana next month.
Vika Mpisane, AfTLD’s chairman and general manager of South Africa’s .za ccTLD, said in a press release:

We are not just interested in .africa only, but we want to also take on .afrique, which is the French version of .africa. It’s only natural for us to do this because at least 50% of Africa speaks French. We also intend to have an internationalised version of .africa as well because we have significant Arabic Africa population, but we will start definitely with .africa first.

AfTLD shortly intends to announce a “leading registry services provider” to run its back-end, but indicated that in future it would expect to run the registry from within Africa.
The current version of ICANN’s new TLDs Applicant Guidebook sets the bar for a .africa bid very high, in practice possibly requiring near-universal governmental support.
A bidder for this kind of protected geographic term would require letters of support from 60% of the nations concerned. For Africa, as the Guidebook defines it, that’s about 34 countries.
However, crucially, if more than one African government were to object in writing to any given .africa application, that bid could be killed off.
AfTLD has 24 ccTLD registry members. They’re not all government-run TLDs, of course, so it doesn’t necessarily follow that it already has 24 countries on board.
A key question is whether endorsement of a bid by the African Union could be interpreted as blanket approval from all of its 53 member governments. I don’t think that’s a given, under the letter of the Guidebook.
But if it is, DotConnectAfrica may already be there. It has a signed letter from AU Commission chairman Jean Ping, dated August 2009, that endorses its specific bid.

AusRegistry chalks up third Arabic domain win

AusRegistry International has announced it has been picked to provide the back-end registry for عمان., the Arabic-script internationalized domain name for Oman.
It’s the company’s third IDN ccTLD contract in the region, following on from Qatar’s forthcoming قطر. and the United Arab Emirates’ already-live امارات.
The company’s press release suggests to me that it’s a software/support deal, rather than a full-blown hosted back-end registry solution.
AusRegistry said it will “provide Domain Name Registry Software and supporting services for the establishment of a new Domain Name Registry System”.
It has previously announced back-end deals for ASCII ccTLDs including .qa and .ae, and manages Australia’s .au, which recently passed the two million domains milestone.
The deal with Oman, which AusRegistry said was competitively bid, also encompasses .om, the nation’s regular ccTLD.
While ICANN approved Oman’s chosen string under its IDN ccTLD Fast Track program back in October, it has not yet been delegated to the DNS root zone.
With the approval of Ukraine’s Cyrillic ccTLD last week, 25 territories have had their choice of local-script ccTLD given the nod under the program.

New TLDs conference calls for speakers

The newdomains.org conference on new top-level domains, scheduled for September 26 and 27 in Munich, has put out a call for speakers.
Here’s the catch: if you’re interested, you might need an audition tape. The organizers want to see a short YouTube clip of your presenting skills in action before they consider your pitch.
Ram Mohan, CTO of Afilias, and Tim Schumacher, CEO of Sedo, are both already named on the draft agenda, but there are still plenty of open spots, including the first-day keynote.
Franz Josef Pschierer, IT commissioner of the Bavarian state government, will keynote day two.
The conference is being organized by the registrar United Domains, part of the same family of domain name companies as Sedo and 1&1 Internet.
While newdomains.org will take place in Germany, possibly the biggest market for new TLDs outside of the US, all the sessions will be conducted exclusively in English.
The conference currently looks like it’s shaping up along the same lines as the .nxt conference last month, with sessions on brand protection, community building, marketing and so on.
One notable difference is the addition of coached “workshops” as well as panel discussions.
Extracurricular activities include a tram ride around the city and a visit to the Hippodrom tent at Oktoberfest, the world-famous beer-drinking festival.
Needless to say, I shall be in attendance. For the trams, obviously.

Start-up plans .bank and .secure TLDs

The first applicant for “.bank” and “.secure” top-level domains has revealed itself.
Domain Security Company, a start-up based in Wisconsin, is behind the proposals. It’s currently seeking funding for the applications, according to its web site.
The firm says it will offer security via a mix of “technical innovations, process improvements, and enhanced requirements”.
Its intention to obtain .secure and .bank seems to have first emerged when it filed for a US trademark registration on both TLDs last September.
The company’s domain name – interestingly, it’s a .co – is registered to entrepreneur Mary Iqbal of Asif LLC, a frequent participant in ICANN policy-making.
I think I’m on record as saying I think .secure is an incredibly risky proposition, the equivalent of painting a giant target on your back. Nothing on the internet is truly secure, and a TLD that says otherwise is a bold statement that invites trouble.
I think it’s also fair to say that unless Domain Security Company manages to secure the support of the world’s leading financial institutions, it will face an extremely tough fight to win .bank.
The Financial Services Roundtable’s technology arm, BITS, has taken a strong view on .bank, and is drafting security guidelines it hopes will be used by applicants.
And ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee still wants TLDs including .bank to be subject to a higher level of community support before they are approved.
It’s possible that .secure will be contested. Another site seems to have a similar idea.

ICANN takes firm stance on new TLD delays

ICANN wants to draw a line under its talks with its Governmental Advisory Committee on new top-level domains at the San Francisco meeting next week.
In a letter to his GAC counterpart (pdf), ICANN chair Peter Dengate Thrush said that he thinks the San Francisco talks should be “final”.
He said that ICANN has agreed to compromise with the GAC wholly or partially on all but 23 of its 80 recommendations for the program.
He also said that these remaining issues should be the focus of the two days the board has set aside to consult with the GAC in San Francisco.

a narrowed focus in San Francisco on the issues that are still in contention would be a best use of the Board and GAC’s time during the two days of consultations, and should represent the final stages in our required consultation.

That appears to contrast with the GAC’s position, expressed in Brussels last week, that the SF talks should not be given the final “bylaws consultation” designation.
Nobody, possibly not even ICANN and the GAC, knows what a “bylaws consultation” consists of, but everybody knows that it is the last thing that needs to happen before the ICANN board can adopt a policy that overrules the formal advice of governments.
ICANN has already officially resolved that the consultation should happen March 17, but GAC chair Heather Dryden objected to that date in an email sent during Brussels.
According to Kieren McCarthy, who has apparently seen the email or parts of it, Dryden wrote:

We believe there is now insufficient time to receive a final written response to our advice from the Board – as well as then analyse and prepare an adequate consensus response from GAC members – to reach resolution of enough outstanding issues such that we could reasonably enter any meaningful bylaws consultation on 17 March in San Francisco.

To delay the consultation would very likely delay the next draft of the Applicant Guidebook, currently set for April 14, and thus the launch of the program itself.
It was not clear from Brussels, but ICANN’s position that March 17 is the date now appears to be firm. The just-published agenda for the March 18 board meeting carries this line item:

Outcome of Bylaw Consultation with the GAC on the new gTLD Program

Things that have not happened generally do not have an “outcome”.
Cybersquatting is the major issue still unresolved. Fifteen of the the 23 areas where the board still disagrees with the GAC deal with trademark protection in new TLDs.
ICANN has agreed to balance the Uniform Rapid Suspension policy – which comes into play following clear-cut cases of cybersquatting – somewhat more in favor of trademark holders.
The amount of money, time and effort required to make a URS case will be reduced, and it’s likely that registrants will have their domains locked by default if they do not respond to the complaint.
Complainants will also get first right of refusal to take over a domain whose registration has been suspended due to a URS proceeding.
But ICANN plans to deny the GAC’s requests for a “loser pays” model and a number of other URS-related tweaks.
The GAC had also advised that the Trademark Clearinghouse database should be expanded to include trademark+keyword registrations. This would allow Kodak, to use the GAC’s example, to prevent cybersquatters from registering not only kodak.tld but also kodakcameras.tld.
Dengate Thrush’s letter says that this “remains an area for discussion”, but ICANN still currently plans to diverge from GAC advice.

ICM picks new sunrise partner for .xxx launch

ICM Registry has hired IP Rota, a new London-based company, to handle trademark validation in the sunrise periods of the forthcoming .xxx top-level domain.
IP Rota is the work of NetBenefit co-founder Jonathan Robinson, who also currently sits on the boards of Nominet and Afilias, .xxx’s back-end partner.
The company replaces Valideus, which was originally recruited to design and implement ICM’s sunrise policies, apparently due to grumblings from rival registrars. ICM said:

Valideus was originally retained by ICM to assist with the design of the .XXX launch but graciously withdrew from implementation of the initial rights protection mechanism because of the potential for perceived conflict of interest with a related domain name registrar, Com Laude.

Com Laude is a registrar specialising in corporate brand protection. It shares ownership with Valideus.
ICM is planning three sunrise periods for .xxx, including one that would let trademark holders not in the porn business to pay a one-time fee to have their brand.xxx placed on a reserved list.
The .xxx TLD contract still has not been approved by ICANN, of course. Barring last-minute surprises, that could happen as soon as the ICANN board meeting, March 18.
The registry is IP Rota‘s first client.

Hitachi to apply for .hitachi

Japanese electronics giant Hitachi has emerged as the second big consumer brand to officially announce it will apply for a “.brand” top-level domain.
GMO Registry, also based in Japan, is the company’s back-end provider of choice, according to this news release (pdf).
GMO is also working with Canon, which was the first company to announce its .brand TLD bid, .canon.
As I noted yesterday, IBM is also a likely candidate for a .brand domain, but it has not officially announced its intentions yet.
Nokia, Deloitte and Unicef are also known to be considering their options.
(via UrbanBrain)

ICANN director has .xxx job offer

Sebastien Bachollet, recently installed on the ICANN board as its first elected “At Large” director, has been offered a job working for the .xxx top-level domain, it has emerged.
According to a board “statement of interests” (pdf) released yesterday, independent technology consultant Bachollet:

has been invited to be a member of the Board of the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR), which is set up to be the sponsoring organization for the .XXX sTLD, should ICM be awarded a contract for the .XXX sTLD.

He’s only the second person to be named as a potential member of the IFFOR board, after Canadian entrepreneur Clyde Beattie.
It goes without saying that Bachollet will be recusing himself from the (final?) ICANN board vote on ICM Registry’s .xxx contract, set for the San Francisco ICANN meeting March 18.
If .xxx is approved, IFFOR will create policies governing the .xxx TLD. It will be made up of a mixture of the adult industry, security, child protection and free speech advocates.
The SOI also revealed, in an ambiguously plural statement, that: “IBM may apply for new gTLD”.

Registry objects to .jobs shutdown threat

Employ Media will appeal ICANN’s threatened termination of its .jobs registry contract.
The company released a statement (pdf) late yesterday, following ICANN’s unprecedented threat, in which it said ICANN’s claims are “utterly without merit”.
“We view the substance of this notice to be a surprising reversal of position and contradictory to prior decisions issued by its Board of Directors,” the company said.
ICANN yesterday gave Employ Media until the end of the month to cancel its agreement to provide 40,000 .jobs domains to the DirectEmployers Association for its Universe.jobs employment board.
The organization said the allocation of the domains for non-human-resources purposes went against the letter, spirit and intent of the registry’s contract and Charter.
It essentially boils down to a claim that Employ Media hacked its contract to allow it to start making money on names beyond the limited scope of its original “sponsored” community TLD.
The .jobs TLD was originally pitched as a space for corporate HR pages, not independent jobs sites. With Universe.jobs, half of the namespace is an independent jobs site. Employ Media is believed to have a revenue-sharing arrangement with DirectEmployers.
The ICANN breach notice was welcomed by the .JOBS Charter Compliance Coalition, the ad hoc trade group formed by major commercial jobs sites to fight Universe.jobs.
Peter Weddle, executive director of the International Association of Employment Web Sites, said in a press release:

the Dot Jobs Universe was not an innovation but rather an unprecedented attempt by a registry operator to misappropriate an entire TLD for itself and its alliance partner in blatant disregard of ICANN’s rules.

Employ Media disagrees, of course, saying that Universe.jobs came about as a result of its “Phased Allocation” liberalization plan, which was approved by ICANN’s Registry Services Evaluation Process and then survived a Reconsideration Request filed by the Coalition.
The company said: “it is imperative for registry operators to have predictability in the performance of duties and that ICANN has a responsibility to honor its commitments with contracted parties.”
Its registry contract contains a dispute resolution procedure that first calls for bilateral talks and, failing agreement, arbitration via the International Chamber of Commerce.

Is Ireland’s .ie to change hands?

The Irish country-code domain, .ie, may be up for redelegation, according to Ireland’s largest domain name registrar.
Michele Neylon, managing director of Blacknight Solutions, has written to ICANN (pdf) to demand answers, after his inquiries about the potential changes were rebuffed.
The .ie ccTLD is currently delegated to University College Dublin, but since 2000 its operation has been contracted to IE Domain Registry, a spin-off company. Since 2007, it’s essentially been controlled by the Irish government.
According to Neylon, IEDR is “aggressively” pursuing a redelegation. If successful, this would put its own name in the IANA database, rather than the University’s. He wrote:

The management and development of the IE namespace should be with an entity that has made a strong commitment to holding the .ie domain in trust for the public good, and a strong commitment to a policy process that is driven by the Internet community and by the explicit consideration of the public good. This is not the case with IEDR, a private company that has practically no transparency and has zero representation of the internet community in its board or ongoing development.

It has been longstanding ICANN/IANA policy not to publicly discuss redelegation requests, which it apparently chose to exercise when Neylon inquired about the IEDR situation.
Neylon believes that any redelegation should be subject to public consultation in Ireland, which would be difficult if the talks all happen behind closed doors.
Blacknight is the registrar of record for 20% of .ie names. It’s also the only Irish registrar with an ICANN accreditation.