Latest news of the domain name industry

Recent Posts

Is this the domain name industry’s first music video?

Kevin Murphy, November 30, 2010, Domain Registries

DotAfricaConnect is pretty serious about its plan for .africa.
The company yesterday released this music video to promote its top-level domain bid. Unlike most corporate anthems, this one is actually not terrible, despite the dodgy editing.

The singer, Patricia Kihoro, appears to be the former winner of an African TV talent show. It mystifies me how few people in the room seem to be paying her, and her dancers, any attention.

New TLD firms to ICANN: “Get on with it”

Kevin Murphy, November 8, 2010, Domain Registries

A number of prospective domain name registries have called on ICANN to shorten the window for its first round of new top-level domain applications.
While we now know that ICANN is working towards a May 30, 2011 opening date for applications, its recently published timeline does not specify how long the application period will last.
However, last month’s draft document “Delegation Rate Scenarios For New gTLDs” (pdf) states that the window of opportunity for TLD applicants will last 90 days.
Now, many of the companies and organizations that have been waiting the longest to apply have asked ICANN to narrow that period to 30 days.
Jon Nevett, president of Domain Dimensions, in a comment on the delegation rate report, wrote:

In prior presentations and discussions with ICANN staff, a 30-day application window had been discussed. I’m not sure how the 30 days turned into a 90-day window in this report. Tacking a 90-day window on after a four-month communications period does not make sense and is extremely unfair to applicants.

After the publication of the final Applicant Guidebook (AGB), ICANN plans to conduct a four-month outreach and marketing effort before accepting applications. The current draft AGB predicts an eight-month processing period for the very simplest applications.
Nevett, and others that subsequently echoed his views, believe that the longer window punishes companies that have invested resources in new TLD applications over the last few years.
There have already been a number of delays to the program’s launch, which was originally scheduled to kick off in 2009, and then mid-2010.
Nevett wrote:

Let’s stop punishing applicants by sucking them dry of all of their working capital by creating a seven-month communications/application period followed by a minimum eight-month review period piled on the years that they already have been waiting. We could do better.

His views were supported in separate comments by commercial operators including of Minds + Machines and .MUSIC, along with geo-TLD efforts including dotBERLIN and dotAfrica.
While the comment period has seen no opposing views, one criticism previously offered by opponents of the new TLD program is that it will unfairly benefit “insiders” – those people who participate regularly in ICANN for their own business purposes.

Africa gets its third ICANN registrar

Kevin Murphy, May 21, 2010, Domain Registrars

It’s been over eight years since ICANN held its public meeting in Accra, but only now has Ghana got its first accredited domain name registrar.
Ghana Dot Com becomes Africa’s third ICANN-approved registrar, the first new accreditation on the continent since 2007.
The first African registrar was Burundi’s AfriRegister, the second Kheweul.com of Senegal.
Ghana Dot Com appears to be the dba of Network Computer Systems Ltd, the ISP that already manages Ghana’s .gh ccTLD.
Its chairman, Nii Quaynor, is a former member of the ICANN board of directors, elected in 2000 and serving until 2003.
Ghana has about 23 million citizens and almost one million internet users, according to InternetWorldStats.com.