Recent Posts
- ICANN drops the “man” from Ombudsman
- Have your say on police domain takedown powers
- Most registrars are shunning ICANN’s new Whois system
- Nominet to take over .gov.uk
- ICANN picks Istanbul for 2024 meeting
- ICANN’s private Whois data request service goes live
- .au regs slide on 2LD anniversary
- ICANN accused of power grab over $271 million auction fund
- A registrar is getting blamed for an Israeli war propaganda site
- Two more dot-brands bite the dust
- Google sells five-figure AI domain and six-figure .ing hack
- .blackfriday is still a bit rubbish
- Internet Naming Co acquires five more gTLDs
- Domain universe grows despite .com drag
- Did somebody spend a million bucks on a Google domain hack?
- ICANN cans Freenom
- Call for ICANN to dump anti-Semitic partner
- GoDaddy domains revenue crosses half a billion
- Bosnian government to sue US domain firm that cut it off
- Freenom is “essentially finished as a company”
- Gap drops some dot-brands
- Group to seek .io TLD takeover after OECD human rights ruling
- Meta given 30 days to stop using Threads trademark
- Modest pay rises for ICANN top brass
- Nominet wins Microsoft’s dot-brand business from Verisign
- Looks like the fight for .hotel gTLD is over
- China has .com’s growth by the balls
- .web fight back in “court”
- Nominet takes over failed .desi
- Wright elected to Nominet board
- Identity Digital keeps .org back-end deal
- Freenom spanked for holding Olympics domain hostage
- Belgian MP registers Hamas domain, redirects to IDF
- Seven domain hacks already registered in Google’s .ing
- The first four new gTLDs have been unmitigated disasters
- Team Internet hires Nominet alum as domains CEO
- XYZ adds 35th gTLD to its stable
- Wood company scraps its dot-brand
- Freenom gets yet another ICANN breach notice
- Did Andrew Tate buy university.com for a “record-breaking” sum?
- After Verisign’s sluggish year, ICANN misses funding goal by $2 million
- Russia cuts off ICANN funding after pro-Ukraine stance
- Epik drops another 50,000 domains after scandal
- Palage’s epic rant as he asks ICANN to cancel Verisign’s .net contract
- Papac named interim ICANN Ombudsman
- Nominet takes over Bounty mutineers’ ccTLD
- .tube registry claims victory in linkification fight
- Ancient registrar gets ICANN breach notice over UDRP
- ICANN is starting to auto-renew new gTLD contracts
- Freenom hit by FIFTH ICANN action after litany of screw-ups
- Second DNSSEC screw-up takes down Aussie web sites
- Nominet adds handcuffs clause to proposed new Articles
- Single/plural gTLD combos to be UNBANNED
- ICANN rejects a whole bunch of new gTLD policy stuff
- Volkswagen ditches its dot-brand
- Radix looking for a back-end
- Is this why WhatsApp hates some TLDs but not others?
- Blockchain domain firm raises $2.5 million
- Verisign: 1.7 million domain industry growth in Q2
- Namecheap has given away 500,000 free .me domains
- Epik had another terrible month in May
- Blockchain startup gets $5 million to apply for gTLDs
- Buckridge to replace Shears on ICANN board
- CentralNic rebrands as Team Internet
- .ai sells 100,000 domains in a year
- Google to launch two fun new gTLDs next month
- Domainers not welcome as .music readies September launch
- Another six dot-brands self-terminate (two are very strange)
- Four more years for Identity Digital in Oz
- ICANN might be a director light after election stalemate
- ICANN turns down money from blockchain alt-root
- CentralNic chief calls on industry to tackle climate change
- London Domain Summit starts tomorrow
- Closed generics ban likely to remain after another policy group failure
- Ukrainian domains slide as war becomes the new normal
- Epik had worst month ever in April
- Go.Compare now redirecting to the .com
- Huge telco dumps gTLDs after rebrand
- Rejected former director threatens to sue Nominet
- April 2026 is the date for the next new gTLD round
- Doria leaving ICANN board a loss for new gTLD program
- A second new gTLD has FAILED and will be sold off
- .web hit by second ICANN complaint
- Registrar linked to defunct social network terminated
- Three candidates stand for Nominet board
- Next round of gTLDs could come much sooner than expected
- Registering .cv domains might become easier
- Musk prematurely announces Twitter is now X
- Nominet admits membership fees mistake
- Government to regulate UK-related domain names
- Domainer objects to Epik’s acquisition over Masterbucks collapse
- Freenom is losing another ccTLD after collecting military emails
- DENIC kicks out NCC as ICANN’s sole escrow agent
- ICANN takes over country’s ccTLD after Hall of Famer’s death
- ICANN Ombudsman quits
- ICA baffled by plan to outlaw domaining in India
- No $8 million discount for dot-brands, says ICANN
- Epik lost 125,000 domains in Q1
- Buckingham leaves Nominet’s board early
- Epik is off the ICANN naughty step
- Identity Digital is gobbling up Verisign’s back-end business
- o.com auction likely a damp squib after Overstock rebrand
- ICANN actually CHANGES Verisign’s .net contract after public comments
- GoDaddy takes over .health
- The looooong road to urgently hiring ICANN’s next CEO
- Rwanda picked for ICANN meeting
- Governments call for ban on gTLD auctions
- Red Cross gets takedown powers over .org domains
- Domain universe grew 1% in Q1
- Closed generics and IDNs debates are big drag on new gTLDs
- New gTLD registry gets second ICANN breach notice
- Epik lost another 22,000 domains to transfers in February
- Mystery buyer rescues Epik at end of crazy week
- Millions of domains to be deleted as Freenom loses its first TLD
- Everyone hates Verisign’s new .net deal
- UAE boasts rapid domain growth in 2022
- ICANN just put a date on the next new gTLD round
- Three more straggler new gTLDs coming soon
- Three more dot-brands realize the futility of existence
- woke.com among domains in NamesCon auction
- Domainer asks court to block Epik sell-off
- .web delay likely after Verisign rival files ICANN appeal
- CentralNic starts returning cash to shareholders as revenue grows
- Newly launched .zip already looks dodgy
- Progress made on next new gTLD round rules
Beckstrom: DNS is under attack
ICANN chief Rod Beckstrom has come in for a bit of criticism over “inflammatory” comments he made at the Government Advisory Committee meeting on Tuesday.
The headline quote: “The domain name system is more fragile and vulnerable today than it has ever been. It could stop at any given point in time, literally.”
Beckstrom described a DNS on its knees, then pointed the finger at unspecified nations for DNS abuses allegedly happening within their virtual borders, and said he would be writing to GAC members for more information and advice.
It was part call to arms, part Chicken Little.
If you missed it, here’s a full transcript. …continue reading
Security faux pas in Nairobi
ICANN committed a diplomatic faux pas in its handling of the security scare before its meeting in Nairobi, according to the Kenyan Government Advisory Committee rep.
“We spent most of the months leading up to the meeting occupied and dealing with issues to do with security and I feel this was to do with badly handled communication,” Alice Munyua of the Communications Commission of Kenya said during a meeting on Tuesday.
“I feel that communicating people’s fears …continue reading
Go Daddy busts through 40 million mark
Go Daddy has registered its 40 millionth domain, and it’s closing in on a 50% market share.
The company said that it is now three times the size of its nearest competitor, eNom, and is registering, renewing or transferring one domain per second on average.
Adding domains at a rate of one million per month, Go Daddy could feasibly break through 50 million by the end of the year, but seasonal ups and downs may make early 2011 a more likely timeframe. Go Daddy tends to see a spike in sales after its notorious Super Bowl commercials.
The registrant of the company’s 40 millionth domain does not want his or her identity revealed.
Gossip: Blackouts, Dallas and Kanye
Eight moderately amusing links from the last 24 hours.
- Apparently, ICANN didn’t trust Nairobi’s electrical grid or its hosts’ generators, so took backup power from the US embassy. All was well until a blackout took out the embassy… but not the Kenyatta.
- Squatters prefer “www” typos shocker.
- One-year registrations give you …continue reading
Nominet to release one-letter domains
Nominet, the .uk registry, is thinking about releasing previously restricted domains for registration, including one and two-letter domains and domains that match existing TLDs.
If the scheme goes ahead, it would mean hundreds of domains such as com.co.uk, mobi.co.uk and de.co.uk, which contain strings currently used at the top level, could be auctioned off.
Essentially all ccTLD strings would be made available, as well as …continue reading
ICANN chief slams African monopolies
ICANN may have been handed a lemon when it discovered six African nations will be crashing its party in Nairobi, but CEO Rod Beckstrom today sought to make lemonade.
Beckstrom “threw down the gauntlet” and invited IGAD nation leaders to “shatter telecom monopolies” and make high-speed internet access more affordable to the average African. …continue reading
Oscar winners show desire for .movie
As a bit of a film buff, I’ve always thought the case for a .movie gTLD was a slam-dunk.
I’d really rather see movie posters containing URLs like sherlock.movie rather than sherlock-holmes-movie.warnerbros.com.
I thought I’d figure out how many of last night’s Oscar nominees managed to secure movietitle.tld for their official web sites and how many went for other options. …continue reading
Cyber cop wants Whois privacy shake-up
Registrars should be made to police Whois so cops can take down illegal sites faster, even if domain name prices have to go up as a result, ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee has been told.
Speaking at the GAC hearing on new gTLDs in Nairobi this afternoon, Paul Hoare of the UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency called for …continue reading
Gossip: Geldof, China and Site Finder
Eight Sunday morning tidbits.
- Bob Geldof was on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show this morning, via satellite from Nairobi. It seems likely he’s there in relation to to IGAD conference on east-African drought, which is being held at the same venue as the ICANN meeting, which kicked off today. Let’s hope he’s …continue reading
Contested TLDs by the social media numbers
There are a surprising number of new TLD proposals with two or more would-be applicants. Quite a few are also playing the social media marketing game to win support.
A quick and dirty analysis of the contested TLDs show that .gay and .eco have the largest show of popular support, while some TLDs have seemingly no following at all.
The numbers are not earth-shattering, but I’ve made the table now so I may as well share it.
…continue reading
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