Direct .au regs closer to reality

Australians could soon get the ability to register domain names directly under .au for the first time.
Following in the footsteps of the UK and New Zealand, a panel of .au policy body auDA has recommended that the second level should be opened up for registrations, pending further consultation.
In a consultation paper (pdf), the panel wrote:

direct registrations would create names which are shorter, more appealing and more memorable. They would make the domain name system simpler and easier to use. Moreover, the proposed change would open a wide range of new choices for registrants, and would provide a better option, especially for some groups; in particular, the Panel thinks that the biggest benefit will be for individuals, who would be able to obtain an Australian domain name in a simple and straightforward way.

Trademark owners need to pay attention, because the panel has recommended that the release does not include a sunrise period, due to .au’s “no hierarchy of rights” principle.
But the panel is recommending that existing .au registrants should get first dibs on matching second-level names.
Unlike the UK, where .co.uk registrants had preference over registrants in other SLDs, the auDA panel says .com.au owners would not be treated any differently to, for example, .org.au owners.
The panel has also raised the idea of implementing ICANN’s Uniform Rapid Suspension policy.
Registry providers might want to take note that the panel says that .au back-end AusRegistry, now part of Neustar, will not automatically get the contract to run the direct .au registry; an RFP may be in auDA’s future.
The recommendations are now open for comment until September 30.

Comment Tagged: .au, auda, ausregistry, neustar, second-level

ZACR hits a million .za names

South Africa’s .za ccTLD has crossed the one million domain mark, according to the registry.
ZA Central Registry is currently reporting on its web site that 1,000,666 names have been registered.
The millionth name was reportedly vulindlela-hpt.co.za, registered to a consulting firm and inexplicably redirecting to the typo vulindlela-htp.co.za.
CEO Lucky Masilela reportedly said: “ZACR has now joined a small group of registry operators worldwide who administer a six-figure domain space.”
So perhaps the numbers the company are reporting are not entirely reliable. [/snark]

2 Comments Tagged: .za, zacr

Registrants guilty until proven innocent, say UK cops

UK police have stated an eyebrow-raising “guilty until proven innocent” point of view when it comes to domain name registrations, in comments filed recently with ICANN.
In a Governmental Advisory Committee submission (pdf) to a review of the Whois accuracy rules in the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, unspecified “UK law enforcement” wrote:

Internet governance efforts by Industry, most notably the ICANN 2013 RAA agreement have seen a paradigm shift in Industry in the way a domain name is viewed as “suspicious” before being validated as “good” within the 15 day period of review.
UK law enforcement’s view is that a 45 day period would revert Industry back to a culture of viewing domains “good” until they are proven “bad” therefore allowing crime to propagate and increase harm online.

The GAC submission was made August 13 to a public comment period that closed July 3.
The Whois Accuracy Program Specification Review had proposed a number of measures to bring more clarity to registrars under the 2013 RAA.
One such measure, proposed by the registrars, was to change the rules so that registrars have an extra 30 days — 45 instead of 15 — to validate registrants’ contact information before suspending the domain.
That’s what the UK cops — and the GAC as a whole — don’t like.
They have a point, of course. Criminals often register domains with bogus contact information with the expectation that the domains will not have a long shelf life. Fifteen days is actually quite generous if you want to stop phishing attacks, say.
The Anti-Phishing Working Group says phishing attacks have an average up-time of 29 hours.
Clearly, ICANN’s Whois accuracy program is doing little to prevent phishing as it is; a switch to 45 days would presumably have little impact.
But the number of domains suspended for lack of accuracy at any given time is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands, and registrars say it’s mostly innocent registrants who are affected.
Verisign said this March that .com domains “on hold” grew from roughly 394,000 names at the end of 2013 to about 870,000 at the end of 2014.
In June 2014, registrars claimed that over 800,000 domains had been suspended for want of Whois accuracy in the first six months the policy was in place.

2 Comments Tagged: accuracy, ICANN, law enforcement, whois

Web.com hacked, 93,000 cards stolen

The credit card details of 93,000 Web.com customers have been stolen by hackers.
The name, address and credit card number of the affected customers were accessed. The verification numbers (from the back of the cards) were not stolen.
Web.com said the attack was discovered August 13 and has been reported to the proper authorities.
Network Solutions and Register.com, its leading registrar businesses, were not affected, the company said.
It has 3.3 million customers. Those whose details were stolen have been emailed and will receive a letter in the mail.
The company said it will provide affected customers with a year of free credit monitoring.

3 Comments Tagged: hacking, security, web.com

Radix targets 25,000 names for .online’s first day

Radix Registry reckons .online will move at least 15,000 domains in its first day of general availability, but it’s aiming higher.
“We are confident .online will be amongst the biggest new gTLDs that have launched,” Radix business head Sandeep Ramchandani said in a press release today.
“The same sentiment across several Registrar Partners has reinforced our beliefs. We expect to start off with at least 15,000 registrations at launch and would love to break .club’s launch record,” he said.
When .CLUB Domains launched .club in 2014, its zone file showed over 25,000 domains after the first 10 hours.
Radix is basing its projections not only on its registrar conversations, but also on .online’s sunrise period, which ended yesterday with 775 sales.
That number is of course low by pre-2012 standards, but it’s in the top tier of sunrise periods for non-controversial new gTLDs.
The only strings to top 1,000 names to date have been ICM Registry’s .porn and .adult and Vox Populi’s .sucks.
.CLUB’s sunrise weighed in at 454 domains.
Radix had better hope .online is successful — the gTLD sold for seven or eight figures at private auction.
The gTLD will go to its Early Access Period tomorrow before settling down to regular pricing August 26.

3 Comments Tagged: .online, general availability, new gTLDs, radix, sunrise

US gives ICANN an extra year to complete transition

US government oversight of ICANN and the domain name system will end a year later than originally expected.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration said last night that it has extended ICANN’s IANA contract until September 30, 2016, giving the community and others more time to complete and review the transition proposals.
NTIA assistant secretary Larry Strickling wrote that “it has become increasingly apparent over the last few months that the community needs time to complete its work, have the plan reviewed by the U.S. Government and then implement it if it is approved.”
Simultaneously, NTIA has finally published a proposal — written by ICANN and Verisign — for how management of the DNS root will move away from hands-on US involvement.
The extension of the IANA contract from its September 30, 2015 end date was not unexpected. The current contract allows for such extensions.
As we recently reported, outgoing ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade had guessed a mid-2016 finalization of the transition.
Regardless, expect op-eds in the coming days to claim this as some kind of political victory against the Obama administration.
Part of the reason for the extension, beyond the fact that the ICANN community hasn’t finished its work yet, is legislation proposed in the US.
The inappropriately named DOTCOM Act, passed by the House but frozen for political reasons in the Senate by Tea Party presidential hopeful Sen Ted Cruz, would give Congress 30 legislative days (which could equal months of real time) to review the IANA transition proposals.
There are basically three prongs to the transition, each with very long names.
The “Proposal to Transition the Stewardship of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Functions from the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to the Global Multistakeholder Community” is the first.
That was created by the multistakeholder IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) and deals with how the IANA contract will be managed after the US government goes away.
The second prong comes from the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability, which deals with how ICANN itself can improve its accountability to the internet community without the Damoclean sword of US intervention hanging over it.
The CCWG’s latest draft report would strengthen the ICANN board against capture by, for example, making certain bylaws harder to amend and giving the community the right to fire directors.
Both of these proposals are currently open for public comment here.
The third prong, which only appears to have been published this week, deals with the nuts and bolts of how changes to the DNS root zone are made.
The current system is a tripartite arrangement between IANA, NTIA and Verisign.
When a TLD operator needs a change to the DNS root — for example adding a name server for its TLD — the request is submitted to and processed by IANA, sent to NTIA for authorization, then actually implemented on the primary root server by Verisign.
Under the new proposal (pdf) to phase the NTIA out of this arrangement, the NTIA’s “authorization” role would be temporarily complemented by a parallel “authentication” role.
The proposal is not written in the clearest English, even by ICANN standards, but it seems that the current Root Zone Management System would be duplicated in its entirety and every change request would have to be processed by both systems.
The output of both would be compared for discrepancies before Verisign actually made the changes to the root.
It seems that this model is only being proposed as a temporary measure, almost like a proof of concept to demonstrate that the NTIA’s current authorization role isn’t actually required and won’t be replaced in this brave new world.

Comment Tagged: iana, ICANN, ntia, root, transition, verisign

Did Chehade really quit ICANN for this?

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade will become a senior adviser with a private equity firm after he leaves ICANN next March.
He blogged today that he will take the role with Boston-based ABRY Partners and “provide guidance to ABRY’s partners and their companies’ leaders on digital strategy”.
Chehade, back in June, had described the ICANN CEO role as a “better job that I’ve ever had, or will ever have”.
He had years left on his contract.
My first thought is: really? This is the gig you quit ICANN for?
I’m drawn down the path of thinking that rather than finding the job of his dreams elsewhere, the dude is just suffering from ICANN burnout.
Chehade suggests in his post that ABRY is not a full-time job, writing: “I expect to add other roles to my portfolio and will update you all as appropriate.”
ABRY, at first glance, does not appear to have any significant connection to the domain name industry or to ICANN itself.

8 Comments Tagged: abry, ICANN

No, CentralNic isn’t the biggest new gTLD back-end

CentralNic’s registry back-end business may have got a big boost by last week’s news that Google has adopted a .xyz domain for its new parent, but it is not yet the biggest back-end provider.
That honor still belongs to Rightside, which currently leads CentralNic by a few hundred thousand names, according to zone files.
When Google started using abc.xyz as the primary domain for its new company last Monday, it caused a sharp spike in .xyz’s daily zone file growth.
The volume-leading new gTLD’s zone had been netting about 3,000 domains per day over the previous week, but that number has risen to almost 8,000 on average since the Google announcement.
While undoubtedly good news for XYZ.com and CentralNic, the growth has not been enough to propel CentralNic into the top-spot just yet.
CentralNic said in a press release today that it currently has 1,444,210 domains, making it the “number one registry backend”.
But according to DI’s numbers, Rightside has at least 1,701,316 domains in new gTLDs running on its back-end.
The CentralNic press release, as well as an earlier piece on The Domains, both cite ntldstats.com as their source.
That site had been listing Donuts as the top new gTLD back-end provider for over a year, with CentralNic in second place.
The problem is that Donuts is not a back-end provider. Never has been.
The portfolio registry disclosed right from the start that it was using Rightside (then Demand Media).
A Donuts spokesperson confirmed to DI today that it still uses Rightside.
The company runs its 190 delegated new gTLDs on Rightside’s back-end. Rightside manages another 39 of its own on the same infrastructure.
Combined, these gTLDs make up 1,701,316 second-level domains, making it the largest back-end registry provider.

4 Comments Tagged: centralnic, donuts, new gTLDs, rightside

OpenTLD says suspension would “devastate” its business

OpenTLD has fired off its newest salvo in its ongoing cybersquatting dispute with ICANN, saying the ICANN-imposed suspension would “devastate” its business.
The company has also addressed many of ICANN’s cybersquatting allegations, while failing to deny it squatted on two competitors’ trademarks.
In its latest arbitration filing (pdf), OpenTLD said: “Quite simply, the suspension of OpenTLD’s ability to offer gTLD registrations and inbound transfers would decimate its unique business model.”
ICANN had argued that the suspension of its registrar accreditation was no big deal because its gTLD domain base is measured in the low thousands, whereas the total domains under management of parent Freenom, which offers free domains in .tk and other ccTLDS, is in excess of 25 million.
But OpenTLD said the two businesses as “deeply intertwined” and separating the two would impair its ability to do business.
ICANN is pushing for the suspension because OpenTLD lost two UDRP cases earlier this year. Both were filed by competitors — Key-Systems and NetEarth — who accused the registrar of attempting to lure resellers to its platform by infringing rivals’ trademarks.
ICANN has since followed up by accusing OpenTLD of continuing to cybersquat famous brands, including Google and Facebook, even after the suspension notice was issued. These claims, as I noted last week, are very dubious, however.
In its latest filing, OpenTLD denies that any of those domains — all of which use its privacy service — were registered by itself. It goes so far as to name the actual registrants.
But it fails to deny that it was the true registrant of the Key-Systems and NetEarth domains lost in the UDRP cases.
Rather, it focuses on ICANN’s claims that it committed “cyberflight” by deleting the UDRP’d domains rather than allowing them to be transferred to the trademark owners.
It admits that the domains were deleted but said this was “inadvertent” and that it attempted to transfer them to its competitors later.
OpenTLD wants the threatened suspension stayed.
The case continues. A decision by the arbitration panel is expected August 24.

Comment Tagged: arbitration, compliance, cybersquatting, freenom, ICANN, opentld

After abc.xyz, will Google now switch to .google?

Google provided the new gTLD industry with one of its most prominent endorsements to date when it revealed this week that its new parent company, Alphabet, will use a .xyz domain name.
But it could just be the first move away from traditional TLDs such as .com — its new gTLD .google entered its “general availability” phase today.
Alphabet will be the holding company for Google the search engine provider, as well as many other subsidiaries focused on non-core areas of its business, and will replace Google as the publicly traded entity.
The new company will use abc.xyz as its primary domain.
XYZ.com CEO Daniel Negari told Wired that the move is “the ultimate validation”, and it’s hard to disagree.
Despite this, almost all the coverage in the tech and mainstream media over the last 24 hours has been about the fact that it does not own alphabet.com.
A Google News search for “alphabet.com” today returns over 67,000 results. Refine the search to include “abc.xyz” and you’re left with fewer than 2,700.
This is perhaps to be expected; BMW owns alphabet.com and has told the New York Times it does not intend to sell it. Journalists naturally gravitate towards conflict, or potential conflict.
Some reporters even suggested, with mind-boggling naivety, that Google hadn’t even done the most cursory research into its new brand before embarking on the biggest restructuring in its history as a public company.
But perhaps the reality is a little simpler: owning a .com that exactly matches your brand just isn’t that important any more.
If any company has insight into the truth of that hypothesis, it’s Google.
It should hardly be surprising that Google digs the possibilities offered by new gTLDs — remember, it applied for 101 strings and has 42 of them already delegated.
Its senior engineers have also blogged repeatedly that all gTLDs, including .com, are treated equally by its search algorithms.
Now that it has made the decision to brand its holding company on a new gTLD domain, could we expect it be similarly nonchalant about a switch to .google?
The dot-brand today came out of its pre-launch phase and entered “general availability”, meaning that the gTLD is now free for it to use.
The .google zone file only has a few domains in it at present, so we’re probably not going to see anything deployed there overnight, but I’d be surprised if we have to wait a long time before .google is put to use in one way or another.
The company set up a fleeting April Fool’s Day website at com.google earlier this year.
Google’s application for .google states:

The mission of the proposed gTLD, .google is to make the worldʹs information universally accessible and useful through the streamlined provision of Google services. The purpose of the proposed gTLD is to provide a dedicated Internet space in which Google can continue to innovate on its Internet offerings. The proposed gTLD will augment Googleʹs online presence in other registries, provide Google with greater ability to categorize its present online locations around the world, and in turn, deliver a more recognizable, branded, trusted web space to both the general Internet population and Google employees. It will also generate efficiencies and increase security by reducing Google’s current dependence on third-party infrastructure.

The company has also stated on its Google Registry web site that it intends to use .google, .youtube and .plus “for Google products”.

5 Comments Tagged: .xyz, alphabet, bmw, google, new gTLDs, xyz.com