Donuts’ portfolio swells as ICANN signs 31 new gTLD contracts

ICANN signed 31 new gTLD Registry Agreements yesterday, 24 of which were with Donuts subsidiaries.
Back-end registry provider Neustar was among a handful of companies signing RAs for their dot-brands too.
Donuts signed contracts for: .haus, .properties, .maison, .productions, .parts, .cruises, .foundation, .industries, .vacations, .consulting, .report, .villas, .condos, .cards, .vision, .dating, .catering, .cleaning, .community, .rentals, .partners, .events, .flights and .exposed.
Top Level Design signed for .ink, which is expected to compete with Uniregistry’s already-delegated .tattoo.
XYZ.com signed for its uber-generic budget offering .xyz.
BusinessRalliart is now contracted for its Japanese geo .okinawa.
IRI Domain Management, affiliated with the Mormon church, got its .mormon RA, for what is expected to be a “highly restricted” religious namespace.
KRG Department of Information Technology got .krd, which it wants to use to serve the Kurdish people and Kurdistan region of Iraq.
Finally, Italian management consultancy Praxi got its dot-brand .praxi.

1 Comment Tagged: contracting, ICANN, new gTLDs

Small Kiwi registrar loses accreditation

ICANN has terminated the registrar accreditation of Pacnames, a small New Zealand registrar.
The roughly 10,000 domain names the company had under management will now be transferred to Net-Chinese, a Taiwanese registrar that is not much bigger as measured by DUM.
The termination was voluntary, according to ICANN, but it follows the suspension of Pacnames’ accreditation in October.
ICANN had held the company in breach of its Registrar Accreditation Agreement for failing to provide records about 25 domain names upon request.
The story told in the October breach notice (pdf) makes it sound like Pacnames had refused to provide the data because it was “burdensome” and too much like an “audit”.
Pacnames’ customers, if there are any, should now receive emails from Net-Chinese informing them about the transfer. Which, let’s face it, are definitely going to look dodgy.

Comment Tagged: compliance, ICANN, net-chinese, pacnames

IPO warns about premium loopholes in new gTLD trademark protection

It seems like it’s been an age since we last heard the intellectual property lobby pushing for stronger rights protection mechanisms in new gTLDs, but they’re back just in time for the first launches.
The Intellectual Property Owners Association has written to ICANN this week to warn about loopholes in the standard new gTLD Registry Agreement related to premium name reservations that the IPO said “will adversely affect trademark rights holders”.
The letter (pdf) makes reference to two specific parts of the contract.
Specification 5 enables registries to reserve up to 100 names “necessary for the operation or promotion of the TLD” in section 3.2 and an unlimited number of names in section 3.3.
Section 3.3 is vague enough that I’m aware of new gTLD applicants that still don’t know whether it allows them to reserve an unlimited number of “premium” names or not.
However, most new gTLD registries I’ve talked to appear to be convinced that it does. DotKiwi’s recently announced premium plan seems to be taking advantage of 3.3.
The IPO is worried that massive lists of premium names will wind up containing lots of strings matching trademarks, which will prevent mark holders from defensively registering during Sunrise.
Worse, the IPO said it could lead to registries milking trademark owners for huge fees to register their “premium” marks. It said:

such reservations would invite the abuse of protected marks. For instance, Registry Operators may reserve the marks of protected brands to leverage premium sales. Further, Registry Operators may use this ability to release names to market competitors of the brand owners.

The counter argument, of course, is that owners of spurious trademarks on generic terms could game Sunrise periods to get their hands of potentially valuable domain names (cf. the .eu sunrise)
The IPO wants ICANN to expand the Trademark Clearinghouse to send Trademark Claims notices to new gTLD registries when they reserve a name matching a listed trademark.
It also wants a new dispute procedure that mark owners could use to get names released from reserved status. It would be like UDRP, but modified to allow for registries to reserve dictionary words related to their gTLD strings, the IPO said.
If my sense of the mood of ICANN’s leadership during last month’s Buenos Aires meeting is anything to go by, I can’t see these last-minute requests for changes to RPMs getting much traction, but you never know.

5 Comments Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs, premium, registry agreement, sunrise, trademarks

Superstitious launch planned for Chinese gTLDs

TLD Registry plans to time its Chinese new gTLD launch dates to coincide with days considered lucky in Chinese astrology.
The Sunrise period for .在线 (“.online”) and .中文网 (“.chinesewebsite”) will start January 17 and end March 17.
According to the registry:

Both the start and end days of Sunrise fall on highly auspicious days for “starting new businesses” in the ancient Chinese almanac. The Chinese almanac was created during the Han Dynasty around 200BC, and continues to be an important guide to the lives and businesses of more than a billion Chinese people.

A landrush period will follow starting March 20, “an auspicious day for ‘breaking ground'”, and ending April 24.
TLD Registry will also run a live/online auction for “the most valuable and sought-after” names in Macau on March 21.
General availability is slated for April 28, “a highly auspicious date for ‘starting new businesses’ and ‘grand openings'”
It’s cute marketing, and no mistake.
The Chinese almanac, like all astrology, is of course utter nonsense.

2 Comments Tagged: .中文网, .在线, landrush, sunrise, tld registry

.eu names to be sold outside the EU

EURid is to expand sales of .eu domains to three countries outside the European Union from January 8.
Companies and individuals from Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway will get to register .eu names, due to a rule change at the registry.
The three countries are members of the European Economic Area, which enjoys many of the trade benefits of the Union but without full EU membership.
EURid said that the 2002 European Parliament regulation that created .eu always envisaged the eventual expansion of the ccTLD to the EEA.
The change expands the registry’s addressable market by fewer than 5.4 million people, five million of whom are Norwegian.

Comment Tagged: .eu, eurid

DotKiwi puts $7 million of premium names on sale

DotKiwi has put NZD 8.5 milion ($7 million) of “premium” domain names on the market in advance of the delegation of .kiwi, which it expects to happen this week.
There are 4,668 names on sale right now, ranging in price from NZD 501.50 ($410) to NZD 124,626.71 ($102,000).
The highest price belongs to hotels.kiwi.
The average asking price is NZD 1,832.39 ($1,500).
The registry said:

All premium names have been valued in collaboration with third parties that specialise in valuing domain names around the globe. The value of a .kiwi premium name is determined using historical sales data, search engine popularity and traffic.

There are 32 domains priced at over $10,000. These are the top 10 highest-priced names:
[table id=23 /]
Unlike other new gTLD registries that have introduced tiered renewal pricing for premium names, DotKiwi plans to charge a standard NZD 40 ($33) annual fee for premiums.
DotKiwi tells us that the names have all been reserved, so they’re ineligible for the mandatory Sunrise period (expected to start later this month).
But the names won’t actually be activated until after Sunrise is over. Then, they’ll still be subject to the Trademark Claims service, which alerts trademark owners when their mark has been registered.

14 Comments Tagged: .kiwi, dotkiwi, new gTLDs, premium names, sunrise

Let’s Learn IDNs — .中文网 (Chinese Website)

Today, the belated first in an irregular series of articles devoted to making new IDN gTLDs more recognizable to the majority of DI readers who use the Latin alphabet in their native tongue.
Let’s Learn IDNs, as I said in my introduction to the series, won’t teach you Greek, but it will hopefully make it easier to instinctively know what a Greek IDN means when you see it.
I’m hoping this will prove very useful for everyone with an interest in the new gTLD program, bringing meaning to what otherwise would be an incomprehensible string of gibberish.
For the first lesson, we’re looking at TLD Registry‘s .中文网, which I guarantee after today you’ll never forget.
U-Label
.中文网
A-Label
.xn--fiq228c5hs
Translation
“.chinesewebsite”
Script
Chinese (Simplified)
Language(s)
Chinese. According to the registry, this includes “Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka and over 250 other Chinese dialects.”
Transliteration
Zhōng Wén Wǎng
Pronunciation
Jong (rhymes with long)
When (as in “when are you arriving”)
Wong (rhymes with long)
How to Learn this IDN
In Chinese, each character generally represents a syllable and will often also have meaning as a word in its own right, which is the case with the three characters of .中文网.
Helpfully, these characters are also pictograms that pretty much explain themselves.
中 (Zhōng) is a line going through the middle of a box. It means “middle”. It’s also the first character of the Chinese word for “China” — 中国, which literally means “Middle Kingdom”.
文 (Wén) looks like a little writing desk with a quill on top. It means “language”. Combine it with 中 to get 中文, which means “Chinese Language”.
网 (Wǎng) looks like a net (or maybe a cobweb). It’s the Simplified Chinese word for “net”, which the Chinese also use to refer to the internet or web.
“Altogether, 中文网 as a gTLD string, is two words that make one common Chinese language expression: Chinese-language (中文) website (网),” said TLD Registry’s head of comms Simon Cousins.
Dead easy, right?
Certainly, since Cousins first explained this to me a few months ago, I’ve never failed to recognize .中文网 whenever I’ve seen it.

7 Comments Tagged: .中文网, let's learn idns, tld registry

Two more new gTLDs delegated

The new gTLDs .menu and .uno have gone live on the internet.
Both appear to have been delegated to the DNS root zone at some point over the last few days — nic.menu and nic.uno are both resolving right now, though nic.uno takes you to an Apache status page.
The Latino-focused .uno is the first gTLD of the 10 applications linked to Kanasas-based DotRegistry to become active; .menu is the first for What Box?, which now has three remaining applications.
What Box has already partnered with Go Daddy to offer .menu domains, priced at $49.99 a year or $199.99 a year if you buy a “priority pre-registration”.
I believe the current total of new gTLDs in the root is 34, 26 of which belong to Donuts.

Comment Tagged: .menu, .uno, delegation, dotregistry, ICANN, new gTLDs, what box

Nominet drops libel lawsuit against domain blogger

UK registry Nominet has withdrawn its lawsuit against a domainer who had allegedly published “defamatory” remarks about CEO Lesley Cowley on his blog.
The defamation complaint was filed against Graeme Wingate over his blog Avoid.co.uk in January.
Nominet said yesterday that it “continues to refute entirely the untrue allegations made” on the site, which focuses on Cowley’s “dishonest” behavior surrounding Direct.uk and the ongoing controversy related to the 2008 board-level scandal and subsequent employment tribunal of former policy chief Emily Taylor.
Cowley said in a statement:

With a major programme of work underway to transform the .uk namespace, this action is now an unwelcome distraction. I refute the allegations entirely, but recognise that a far better use of the team’s time and energy is to focus on steering Nominet safely through a period of unprecedented change.

Nominet will pay Wingate’s costs.
It’s difficult to see this as anything other than a win for Wingate, who has continued to blog throughout the legal proceedings.
Wingate stood unsuccessfully for a seat on Nominet’s board of directors this year, alongside fellow Nominet critic Lucien Taylor, husband to Emily.

Comment Tagged: avoid.co.uk, direct.uk, nominet

DNS Namespace Collisions: Detection and Response [Guest Post]

Those tracking the namespace collision issue in Buenos Aries heard a lot regarding the potential response scenarios and capabilities. Because this is an important, deep, and potentially controversial topic, we wanted to get some ideas out early on potential solutions to start the conversation.
Since risk can almost never be driven to zero, a comprehensive approach to risk management contains some level of a priori risk mitigation combined with investment in detection and response capabilities.
In my city of Chicago, we tend to be particularly sensitive about fires. In Chicago, like in most cities, we have a priori protection in the form of building codes, detection in the form of smoke/fire alarms, and response in the form of 9-1-1, sprinklers, and the very capable Chicago Fire Department.
Let’s think a little about what the detection and response capabilities might look like for DNS namespace collisions.
Detection: How do we know there is a problem?
Rapid detection and diagnosis of problems helps to both reduce damage and reduce the time to recovery. Physical security practitioners invest considerably in detection, typically in the form of guards and sensors.
Most meteorological events are detected (with some advance warning) through the use of radars and predictive modeling. Information security practitioners are notoriously light with respect to systematic detection, but we’re getting better!
If there are problematic DNS namespace collisions, the initial symptoms will almost certainly appear through various IT support mechanisms, namely corporate IT departments and the support channels offered by hardware/software/service vendors and Internet Service Providers.
When presented with a new and non-obvious problem, professional and non-professional IT practitioners alike will turn to Internet search engines for answers. This suggests that a good detection/response investment would be to “seed” support vendors/fora with information/documentation about this issue in advance and in a way that will surface when IT folks begin troubleshooting.
We collectively refer to such documentation as “self-help” information. ICANN has already begun developing documentation designed to assist IT support professionals with namespace-related issues.
In the same way that radar gives us some idea where a meteorological storm might hit, we can make reasonable predictions about where issues related to DNS namespace collisions are most likely to first appear.
While problems could appear anywhere, we believe it is most likely that scenarios involving remote (“road warrior”) use cases, branch offices/locations, and Virtual Private Networks are the best places to focus advance preparation.
This educated guess is based on the observation that DNS configurations in these use cases are often brittle due to complexities associated with dynamic and/or location-dependent parameters. Issues may also appear in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) with limited IT sophistication.
This suggests that proactively reaching out to vendors and support mechanisms with a footprint in those areas would also be a wise investment.
Response: Options, Roles, and Responsibilities
In the vast majority of expected cases, the IT professional “detectors” will also be the “responders” and the issue will be resolved without involving other parties. However, let’s consider the situations where other parties may be expected to have a role in response.
For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume that an Internet user is experiencing a problem related to a DNS namespace collision. I use the term “Internet user” broadly as any “consumer” of the global Internet DNS.
At this point in the thought experiment, let’s disregard the severity of the problem. The affected party (or parties) will likely exercise the full range of typical IT support options available to them – vendors, professional support, IT savvy friends and family, and Internet search.
If any of these support vectors are aware of ICANN, they may choose to contact ICANN at any point. Let’s further assume the affected party is unable and/or unwilling to correct the technical problem themselves and ICANN is contacted – directly or indirectly.
There is a critical fork in the road here: Is the expectation that ICANN provide technical “self-help” information or that ICANN will go further and “do something” to technically remedy the issue for the user? The scope of both paths needs substantial consideration.
For the rest of this blog, I want to focus on the various “do something” options. I see a few options; they aren’t mutually exclusive (one could imagine an escalation through these and potentially other options). The options are enumerated for discussion only and order is not meaningful.

• Option 1: ICANN provides technical support above and beyond “self-help” information to the impacted parties directly, including the provision of services/experts. Stated differently, ICANN becomes an extension of the impacted party’s IT support structure and provides customized/specific troubleshooting and assistance.
• Option 2: The Registry provides technical support above and beyond “self-help” information to the impacted parties directly, including the provision of services/experts. Stated differently, the Registry becomes an extension of the impacted party’s IT support structure and provides customized/specific troubleshooting and assistance.
• Option 3: ICANN forwards the issue to the Registry with a specific request to remedy. In this option, assuming all attempts to provide “self-help” are not successful, ICANN would request that the Registry make changes to their zone to technically remedy the issue. This could include temporary or permanent removal of second level names and/or other technical measures that constitute a “registry-level rollback” to a “last known good” configuration.
• Option 4: ICANN initiates a “root-level rollback” procedure to revert the state of the root zone to a “last known good” configuration, thus (presumably) de-delegating the impacted TLD. In this case, ICANN would attempt – on an emergency basis – to revert the root zone to a state that is not causing harm to the impacted party/parties. Root-level rollback is an impactful and potentially controversial topic and will be the subject of a follow-up blog.

One could imagine all sorts of variations on these options, but I think these are the basic high-level degrees of freedom. We note that ICANN’s New gTLD Collision Occurrence Management Plan and SAC062 contemplate some of these options in a broad sense.
Some key considerations:

• In the broader sense, what are the appropriate roles and responsibilities for all parties?
• What are the likely sources to receive complaints when a collision has a deleterious effect?
• What might the Service Level Agreements look like in the above options? How are they monitored and enforced?
• How do we avoid the “cure is worse than the disease” problem – limiting the harm without increasing risk of creating new harms and unintended consequences?
• How do we craft the triggering criteria for each of the above options?
• How are the “last known good” configurations determined quickly, deterministically, and with low risk?
• Do we give equal consideration to actors that are following the technical standards vs. those depending on technical happenstance for proper functionality?
• Are there other options we’re missing?

On Severity of the Harm
Obviously, the severity of the harm can’t be ignored. Short of situations where there is a clear and present danger of bodily harm, severity will almost certainly be measured economically and from multiple points of view. Any party expected to “do something” will be forced to choose between two or more economically motivated actors: users, Registrants, Registrars, and/or Registries experiencing harm.
We must also consider that just as there may be users negatively impacted by new DNS behavior, there may also be users that are depending on the new DNS behavior. A fair and deterministic way to factor severity into the response equation is needed, and the mechanism must be compatible with emergency invocation and the need for rapid action.
Request for Feedback
There is a lot here, which is why we’ve published this early in the process. We eagerly await your ideas, feedback, pushback, corrections, and augmentations.
This is a guest post written by Jeff Schmidt, CEO of JAS Global Advisors LLC. JAS is currently authoring a “Name Collision Occurrence Management Framework” for the new gTLD program under contract with ICANN.

1 Comment Tagged: collisions, ICANN, jas, name collisions, new gTLDs, security