How NCC plans to revolutionize domain name security with .secure gTLD

The proposed .secure generic top-level domain is now officially contested, after NCC Group, best known in the domain industry for its data escrow services, announced a bid.
Newly formed NCC subsidiary Artemis Internet Inc, based in San Francisco, is the official applicant.
According to Artemis chief technology officer Alex Stamos, who co-founded security testing firm iSEC Partners and sold it to NCC for $22.8 million two years ago, this is a hard security play.
The .secure gTLD would be all about enforcing strict security policies on registrants, he said.
“Right now there are a lot of interesting security technologies out there, but they’re generally not very effective because they’re optional,” he said.
As well as premium pricing and a manual registrant verification process expected to take about two weeks – complete with mailing address confirmation and two-factor authentication tokens – Artemis plans to force registrants to adhere to certain baseline security policies.
For example, all .secure web sites would have to be completely HTTPS, Stamos said. The only permissible use of a standard port 80 URL would be to redirect to the encrypted site.
The same would go for mail servers – they’d all have to use TLS to encrypt email as standard.
“When you go to bank.secure you’ll know that the software and servers at the other end are going to make the most secure decisions possible,” Stamos said.
Artemis would scan its registrants’ sites for compliance with these baseline rules, looking out for things such as botched SSL implementations.
But Artmeis wants to take it a step further. It is also proposing a new protocol, Domain Policy Framework, which would let registrants publish their security policies in the DNS.
Stamos said the company has set up a Domain Policy Working Group to develop the spec, which it plans to submit to the IETF for standardization before the end of the year.
The other members of the working group, which promise to include some “influential” names in financial services, software and social media, will be announced in July.
DPF would work alongside the existing DNSSEC and DANE protocols to enable registrants to specify, for example, which Certificate Authorities browsers should trust when accessing their .secure domain, preventing certain types of attacks, Stamos said.
Obviously, this system is not going to work without support from browser software, but Stamos said he’s hopeful that the big vendors will embrace the DPF spec.
“The most innovative and forward-leaning browsers will support it first,” he said.
Domains in .secure would still be accessible by non-compliant browsers, he said.
ARI Registry Services has been hired to manage the back-end registry, but Artemis is also building a secondary registry system for storing the DPF records, which it plans to offer to other TLD registries.
NCC plans to invest up to £6 million ($9.7 million) in Artmeis over the next 15 months, according to a press release.
Another firm, Domain Security Company, also plans to apply for .secure.

Comment Tagged: .secure, ari registry services, artemis, dane, DNSSEC, domain policy framework, domain policy working group, ICANN, new gTLDs

Go Daddy applying for three new gTLDs

Go Daddy reportedly plans to apply for three new generic top-level domains, including the dot-brand .godaddy.
CEO Warren Adelman confirmed the bids to CNet’s Paul Sloan today.
The other two strings were not revealed, presumably because they could still be contested.
Yesterday, Demand Media, owner of Go Daddy’s primary registrar competitor eNom, revealed an $18 million investment in the new gTLD program, suggesting it has more ambitious plans.
Like Demand, Go Daddy subsidiaries have a history of adverse UDRP decisions, which could complicate the background checks ICANN plans to conduct on all applicants.

2 Comments Tagged: demand media, enom, go daddy, godaddy, new gTLDs

ICANN not done with TAS bug analysis

Despite sending out hundreds of notifications to new gTLD applicants today, it looks rather like ICANN’s analysis of the TLD Application System bug is not yet complete.
(MAY 10 UPDATE — in a statement today, ICANN provided significantly more information about the notification process, rendering much of the speculation originally in this post moot. Read it here.)

Comment Tagged: bug, data leakage, ICANN, new gTLDs, tas

TAS to reopen May 22. Big Reveal on for Prague?

ICANN’s bug-plagued TLD Application System will reopen on May 22 and close on May 30, according to a statement just issued by chief operating officer Akram Atallah.
The dates, which are only “targets”, strongly suggest that that the Big Reveal of all new gTLD applications is going to happen during the public meeting in Prague in late June.
If ICANN still needs two weeks to collate its application data before the reveal, we’re looking at June 14, or thereabouts, as the earliest possible reveal date.
But that’s just ten days before ICANN 44 officially kicks off, and I think it’s pretty unlikely ICANN will want to be distracted by a special one-off event while it’s busy preparing for Prague.
For the Big Reveal, my money is on June 25.
Atallah also said this morning that all new gTLD applicants have now been notified whether they were affected by the TAS bug, meaning ICANN has “met our commitment to provide notice to all users on or before 8 May”.
That said, some applicants I spoke to this morning, hours after it was already May 9 in California, said they had not received the promised notifications. But who’s counting?
The results of ICANN’s analysis of the bug appear to show that no nefarious activity was going on.
“We have seen no evidence that any TAS user intentionally did anything wrong in order to be able to see other users’ information,” Atallah said.
ICANN has also discovered another affected TAS user, in addition to the 50 already disclosed, according to Atallah’s statement.

2 Comments Tagged: big reveal, bug, data leakage, ICANN, icann 44, new gTLDs, prague, tas

Demand Media mum on $18m new gTLDs investment

Demand Media has invested $18 million in new generic top-level domains, but it won’t disclose whether it has spent all of the money on application fees.
The company, which owns number two domain name registrar eNom, held its first-quarter earnings conference call this evening, during which it revealed the investment.
A roughly $18 million investment could mean as many as 100 new gTLD applications, but Demand executives refused to elaborate on its plans.
CFO Charles Hilliard said that new gTLDs are seen as a “significant strategic growth opportunity” and that Demand would provide more details upon the closure of ICANN’s application window.
As Mike Berkens has already suggested tonight on TheDomains, a massive investment in application fees seems to be the most plausible use for the money.
The fact that the whole of the investment appears to have been made in April would support this view.
But CEO Richard Rosenblatt also confirmed during the call that the company has now also entered into the registry services provider business, providing the back-end for other applicants.
It does not appear to have been particularly successful attracting clients. Rosenblatt said that Demand has created a back-end platform and “signed our first two strategic customers”.
Just two clients would put Demand at the low end of the registry service provider rankings in this first new gTLD round.
I’m aware of at least one applicant that changed its mind about partnering with the company for its application.
ICANN’s background checks on new gTLD applicants include probes into, among other things, adverse cybersquatting decisions under the UDRP.
Demand Media, as a massive domain registrant, gets hit by UDRP complaints fairly regularly, and some have said it’s lost enough to be disqualified from running a registry under ICANN’s rules.
As far as I’m aware, it’s currently an open question whether hiding UDRP losses and applications behind subsidiaries will be enough to evade these background checks.
But if Demand is prepared to pump $18 million into applications, it must have a pretty good inkling that it won’t tumble at the first hurdle.

1 Comment Tagged: demand media, enom, ICANN, new gTLDs

Amsterdam accepts pre-registrations for city gTLD

The City of Amsterdam has confirmed that it has joined the ranks of major international cities applying to ICANN for a new generic top-level domain.
It has commissioned local publishing company HUB Uitgevers to manage .amsterdam, along with its technical partner SIDN, the .nl ccTLD registry.
Unusually, the project has also already started accepting pre-registrations at its official site.
The ICANN application fees are being covered by the local government, but a City of Amsterdam spokesperson said it expects to make the money back from annual royalty payments from HUB.
The famously liberal tourist destination has about 1.2 million inhabitants, according to Wikipedia.

7 Comments Tagged: .amsterdam, .nl, hub uitgevers, sidn

ICANN affirms full refunds for pissed-off gTLD applicants, silent on new CEO

ICANN’s board of directors has approved full refunds for any new gTLD applicant that asks for one – something that the organization has already been offering for over a month.
At its two-day retreat in Amsterdam this weekend, the board’s New gTLD Program Committee resolved:

to offer to applicants a full refund of the New gTLD Application fee actually paid to ICANN if the applicant wishes to withdraw its application prior to the date that ICANN publicly posts the identification of all TLD applications.

The date of the Big Reveal, when the names of every applicant and every applied-for gTLD will be publicly posted and the refunds will no longer be available, has not yet been set.
While the resolution refers to the TLD Application System data leakage bug, the refund does not appear to be restricted to directly affected applicants. Anyone can claim it.
However, as regular DI readers know, ICANN had been offering full refunds to applicants that withdraw before the Big Reveal for weeks before the TAS bug emerged.
ICANN customer services reps told DI and at least one gTLD applicant in March that: “Applications withdrawn prior to the posting of the applied-for strings are qualified for a $180000 refund”.
ICANN said in a statement today:

We recognize that this represents an increase of only US $5000 over the refund that withdrawing applicants would otherwise receive, but we believe it is an important part of fulfilling our commitment to treat applicants fairly.

Under the terms of the Applicant Guidebook, the maximum refund available after the Reveal is $148,000.
In other news from Amsterdam…
The ICANN board has decided to let director Thomas Narten join the New gTLD Program Committee, which comprises all of the board members without new gTLD conflicts of interest.
Narten had been barred from the recently formed committee because he worked for IBM, which planned to apply for one or more new gTLDs.
But the board said he has now “mitigated the previously-identified conflict of interest with respect to the New gTLD Program”, so he gets to join the committee as a non-voting liaison.
It’s not clear from the weekend’s resolution why Narten is no longer conflicted. Two obvious possibilities spring to mind.
There was no news from Amsterdam on ICANN’s CEO hunt.
Incumbent Rod Beckstrom intends to “hand the baton” to his successor at the Prague meeting in late June, and the board already has a favored candidate lined up to replace him.
I understand that this candidate did attend the Amsterdam board retreat, albeit under a veil of secrecy lest his or her identity leak out before official confirmation.
But I also understand that the board has decided to move super-cautiously on the CEO decision, in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

Comment Tagged: ceo, conflicts of interest, ICANN, new gTLDs, refunds, tas

How to make $10,000 from .xxx domains

The policy body overseeing .xxx domain names plans to dish out grants of up to $10,000 to worthy causes.
The International Foundation For Online Responsibility expects to launch a new IFFOR Grants Program on June 1, according to a March announcement I only just noticed.
According to IFFOR, the grants will be capped at $10,000 per individual or organization and will be given to those who contribute to IFFOR’s four official policy goals:

Fostering communication between the Sponsored Community and other Internet stakeholders
Protecting free expression rights as defined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
Promoting the development and adoption of responsible business practices designed to combat online child abuse images and to support user choice and parental control regarding access to online adult entertainment, and
Protecting the privacy, security, and consumer rights of consenting adult consumers of online adult entertainment goods and services

It seems like a pretty good opportunity for free speech advocacy groups to top up their funding.
ICM Registry, the .xxx manager, gives IFFOR $10 per year for every resolving .xxx domain name registered.
Its funding is therefore very likely approaching the $1.5 million mark in the hundreds of thousands of dollars right about now.

3 Comments Tagged: grants, icm registry, iffor, xxx

ICANN expects up to 2,305 new gTLD applications

After months of speculation, ICANN has finally revealed how many new generic top-level domain applications it expects to receive.
The lowest amount appears to be 2,091.
That’s the number of applications in the TLD Application System when it was taken offline due to the data leakage bug on April 12, ICANN said.
Another 214 applications had been registered but not yet paid for.
That’s a potential total of 2,305 applications.
ICANN has $350 million in application fees in the bank as a result.
How many of the unpaid bids convert to full applications will be key in deciding how many evaluation batches the first gTLD round will have.
Closer to 2,091, and it’s likely to be four batches. Closer to 2,305, and we may see a fifth batch.
With Initial Evaluation expected to take five months per batch, with a possible 11 months after that for the final Extended Evaluations and string contention resolution, it could be June 2015 before the first new gTLD round is completely processed.
It remains to be seen how many unique strings have been applied for, and how many applications will be successful, but with ICANN only planning to delegate 200 to 300 new gTLDs per year, the first round is likely going to last a loooong time.

9 Comments Tagged: ICANN, new gTLDs, tas

Is .xxx really that crappy?

It’s not a huge secret that the new .xxx gTLD isn’t doing as well, five months after launch, as ICM Registry would have hoped, but how does it shape up against other top-level domains?
Domain Name News earlier this week published an analysis of the top one million most-trafficked web sites, according to Alexa rankings, and found that .xxx had just 61 entries.
Per DNN reporter Mike Cohen:

We would not have thought that only 61 domains in total would be ranking inside the top 1,000,000 most visited sites in the world. That number was suppose to be exponentially higher by all accounts even a few month’s in, which we now are well into 2012, however reality says otherwise.

I’m not sure what “all accounts” DNN is referring to — possibly ICM’s marketing hype — but I thought the analysis was interesting so I thought I’d try to replicate it.
This morning I parsed today’s Alexa top million sites list and came up with the following (sortable) table.
[table id=7 /]
These are quick and dirty numbers, based on Alexa data, and my code might be wonky, so please don’t place too much faith in them.
I only looked at the “new” gTLDs introduced since 2001, as well as two mass-market ccTLDs (.co and .me) introduced over the same period.
The .co numbers do not include third-level domains under .com.co and the ccTLD’s other legacy extensions.
The “Months Active” column is the number of months since the TLD was delegated into the DNS root, measured by the date of the first registry report it filed with ICANN or the IANA (re)delegation date, not the date of general availability.
The fourth column is the number of domains divided by the number of months. It’s a fairly arbitrary measure, presented merely to give you an idea of the “success” of the TLD over time.
You could possibly, loosely, think of it as “how many domains a TLD can expect to get into the Alexa 1 Million per month”.
By that measure, .xxx isn’t doing too badly.
It’s even beating .jobs and .tel in absolute terms.

8 Comments Tagged: alexa, icm registry, new gTLDs, xxx