ICM seizes on Google’s porn algorithm change

Grasping the opportunity for a bit of easy publicity, ICM Registry has seized upon a recent Google algorithm change to promote its .xxx gTLD’s brand.
It was reported earlier this week that Google has made it harder to accidentally stumble across sexually explicit imagery in Google Images by making its Safe Search filtering mandatory in the US.
The company defended itself from cries of censorship by pointing out that porn could still be found, as long as you are a bit more “explicit” about what it is you’re looking for, telling CNet:

If you’re looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting — you just may need to be more explicit in your query if your search terms are potentially ambiguous.

Now ICM is plugging .xxx as a “workaround” to this problem, saying in a press release today:

one can simply type a description of whatever porn one wants into any search bar followed by the letters “XXX.” Results are instant and on target. For example, if one is looking for adult content that includes a mainstream generic word like “Toys,” simply enter the search term “Toys XXX” and problem solved.

ZDNet gave similar advice in an article this week, and ICM says that traffic to its own search engine, search.xxx, saw a 50% spike in the last 24 hours as a result.
Could this be a portent for changes in user search behavior in the age of niche new gTLDs?

IEDR admits blame for hack that brought down Google and Yahoo

IEDR, the Irish ccTLD registry, has admitted that an attack on its own web servers was responsible for google.ie and yahoo.ie being hijacked last month.
In a detailed statement, the registry said that hackers spent 25 days probing for weaknesses in its systems, before eventually breaking in through a vulnerability in the Joomla content management software.
This enabled the attackers to upload malicious PHP scripts and access the back-end database, according to the statement. They then redirected yahoo.ie and google.ie to an Indonesian web site.
It’s a reverse of position for IEDR, which had appeared to blame one of its registrars (believed to be Mark Monitor) for the lapse in security when the hack was discovered last month.
IEDR told ZDNet October 11: “an unauthorised change was made to two .ie domains on an independent registrar’s account which resulted in a change of DNS nameservers”.
But today it said instead: “The IEDR investigation also confirmed that neither the Registrar of the affected domains nor its systems had any responsibility for this incident.”
The registry has filed a complaint with the Irish police over the incident, and apologized to its customers for the disruption.
It also said it plans to roll out a Domain Lock service to help prevent hijacking in future, though I doubt such a service would have prevented this specific incident.

Original .web gTLD applicant sues ICANN

Image Online Design, which unsuccessfully applied for the .web gTLD all the way back in 2000, has sued ICANN, alleging trademark infringement and breach of contract.
IOD, which says it has over 20,000 .web domains under management in an alternate root, says ICANN never officially rejected its .web bid, and that it should not have allowed other companies to apply for it.
It’s looking for an injunction preventing ICANN awarding .web to any other company, as well as seeking ICANN’s “profits” resulting from the alleged infringement of its mark.
There are seven .web applicants in the current round, but IOD is not among them.
The company paid $50,000 for its application in 2000, but it’s not happy with the $86,000 discount ICANN offered 2000-round applicants on their $185,000 fees if they wanted to resubmit their applications.
The IOD complaint claims:

Allowing other entities to file applications for a .web TLD while IOD’s .WEB TLD application was still pending is improper, unlawful and inequitable.

The complaint cites the November 2000 ICANN meeting in Marina Del Rey, during which the first proof-of-concept gTLDs were approved by ICANN’s board of directors.
It notes that then-chair Vint Cerf steered the board away from approving .web applications filed by Afilias and others because IOD was already operating .web in an alternate root at the time.
You can watch a video of that meeting here.
The complaint also alleges tenuous conflicts of interest between two .web applicants (Afilias and Google) and members of ICANN’s board of directors (current chair and vice-chair Steve Crocker and Bruce Tonkin in the case of Afilias, and long-gone chair Vint Cerf in the case of Google).
The suit comes just a few days after IOD’s fellow 2000 applicant and alternate root player, Name.Space, sued ICANN on similar grounds, trying to prevent 189 gTLDs being approved.
Here’s the IOD complaint.

Hey, domainers, watch Frank Schilling tell you why ICANN is cool

I think this is the first time I’ve seen noted domainer Frank Schilling appearing in an ICANN-related video.
It was produced by Google during ICANN’s meeting in Prague a few months ago, and published on YouTube this week.
Alongside many familiar faces from the ICANN-policy-wonk side of the industry, you’ll also see Schilling, who is of course behind portfolio gTLD applicant Uniregistry, telling you:

What I like about ICANN is just that: it’s not controlled by anyone, yet it’s controlled by you. You control it just by contributing to the process. And it’s open to anyone in any language, anywhere in the world

I think the video pretty much nails it.
ICANN 45 starts in Toronto, Canada this weekend. You don’t need to be there to get involved.

Consumer Watchdog slams “outrageous” Google and Amazon keyword gTLD bids

Consumer Watchdog, a California-based consumer rights advocacy group, has attacked Google and Amazon’s new gTLD applications in a letter to an influential senator.
The organization has asked Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, to “thwart” the “outrageous” plans for single-registrant dictionary-word gTLDs.
Google and Amazon have separately applied for dozens of gTLDs — such as .music, .blog and .book — that they would exclusively use to market their own products and services.
Consumer Watchdog said in its letter (pdf):

If these applications are granted, large parts of the Internet would be privatized. It is one thing to own a domain associated with your brand, but it is a huge problem to take control of generic strings. Both Google and Amazon are already dominant players on the Internet. Allowing them further control by buying generic domain strings would threaten the free and open Internet that consumers rely upon. Consumer Watchdog urges you to do all that you can to thwart these outrageous efforts and ensure that the Internet continues its vibrant growth while serving the interests of all of its users.

As we reported yesterday, a number of domain name industry participants are planning to complain to ICANN about these applications on pretty much the same grounds.

Google junks three of its new gTLD applications

The identities of the first four new gTLD applications to be withdrawn have been revealed by ICANN.
Google has, as predicted, dropped its bids for .and, .are and .est, because they’re protected three-letter country-codes listed in the ISO 3166 alpha-3 standard.
An application for .ksb, by the KSB, a German maker of “pumps, valves and related liquid transportation systems”, has also been withdrawn, though the reasons are less clear.
KSB is not a protected geographic string, nor has .ksb received any negative public comments. I’m guessing the application was an unnecessary defensive move.
With Google expected to lose 30% of its application fees for the three withdrawn applications ($165,000) I can’t help but wonder why ICANN allowed it to apply for the strings in the first place.
The ban on ISO 3166 alpha-3 codes in the Applicant Guidebook appears to be hard and non-negotiable. The strings essentially enjoy the same degree of exact-match protection as Reserved Names such as .iana and .example.
However, while the TLD Application System was hard-coded to reject attempts to apply for Reserved Names, banned geographic strings did not get the same safeguards.
There’s one other application for an ISO 3166 alpha-3 string — .idn — which does not appear to have been withdrawn yet.
There are at least 16 other applications for protected geographic words that may require government support — but are not outright prohibited — according to our DI PRO study.
According to ICANN, six applications have been withdrawn to date. The change in status only shows up on ICANN’s web site after the refunds have been processed, however.
Google, which applied as Charleston Road Registry, has 98 new gTLD applications remaining.

Did Google withdraw three new gTLD applications?

Is Google behind the three new gTLD applications that have already been withdrawn?
ICANN senior veep Kurt Pritz revealed yesterday that three applications were already on the scrap heap, long before they’ve been evaluated, but he didn’t say which ones.
After a helpful nudge from a DI commenter, my best guess now is that they’re Google’s applications for .and, .are and .est.
As I blogged here and reported here over a month ago, these three strings are all protected geographic names, under ICANN’s rules.
They’re the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes for the United Arab Emirates, Estonia and Andorra, which would be classified as country names and therefore banned by the Applicant Guidebook.
Many thanks to Silvia for the reminder.

Congressmen say new gTLDs need more comments

Senior members of the US Congress have asked ICANN to prove that it’s giving the internet community enough opportunity to comment on its 1,930 new gTLD applications.
A letter from the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate judiciary committees sent to ICANN yesterday basically implies rather heavily that, again, ICANN’s new gTLD program outreach sucks.
Sens. Leahy and Grassley, and Reps. Smith and Conyers write:

many members of the public outside the ICANN community are unaware that the New gTLD program is underway. Of those who are aware, few know about the public comment process or comprehend that their opportunity to participate in this forum is scheduled to end in less than a week.

Probably not coincidentally, the letter comes soon after requests for more time to comment from the Association of National Advertisers and the Intellectual Property Constituency.
The IPC wants another 30-45 days added to the comment period, which is currently set to close — at least for comments that will be forwarded to evaluators — this Sunday.
The Leahy letter highlights the need for comment on “potentially sensitive names like ‘.church’, ‘.kids’, and ‘.sucks'”, which should be a cause for concern for at least seven gTLD applicants.
Given who’s pulling the strings here, it’s not surprising that the letter also highlights the demands from IP interests for stronger rights protection mechanisms, such as a permanent Trademark Clearinghouse service.
They write:

ICANN’s current policy only requires the Clearinghouse to be available for the first 60 days after a registry launches. Moreover, the Clearinghouse will only give notice when someone registers a website that is identical to a trademark; not when the website contains the trademark in a varied form.
As an example, this means that a nonprofit such as the YMCA will receive notice only if a user registers a website such as www.yrnca.give or www.ymca.charity within the first 60 days of the “.give” or” .charity” registry. The YMCA would not receive notice if a person registers those names after 60 days, or if someone registers a closely related name such as www.ymcaDC.charity.

(To which I add, as an aside: and what if Intel wants to register www.buymcafee.shop?)
I think the Congressmen/ANA/IPC have a point, anyway, at least about the lack of commenting from people outside the tightly knit ICANN community.
A lot of data was released on Reveal Day, and much more has been released since.
There are 1,930 new gTLD applications.
The public portions weigh in at almost 400 MB in HTML format and generally run to between 15,000 and 50,000 words apiece.
The 20,000 published application attachments (which MD5 hashing reveals comprise close to 3,000 unique files) are currently taking up about 6 GB of space on the DI PRO server (where subscribers can cross-reference them to see which files show up in which applications).
It’s a lot to read.
That must be at least part of the reason there hasn’t been a single community-based objection comment about Google’s single-registrant .blog application yet.
For me, that’s the benchmark as to whether anyone in the real world is paying attention to this program.
I mean, seriously: no bloggers are concerned about Google using .blog as an exclusive promo tool for its third-rate blogging platform?
What’s worrying the Congressmen is that ICANN’s expensive Independent Objector is not allowed to object to an application unless there’s been at least one negative comment about it
The IO can file community-based objections on behalf of those who cannot afford to do it themselves, but it’s not at all clear yet what the cut-off date for the IO to discover these comments is.
Hopefully, when ICANN reveals its proposed evaluation timetable this week, some of these questions will be answered.

Three Google gTLD applications doomed to fail

Google has applied for three new generic top-level domains that will almost certainly be rejected because they are on ICANN’s list of banned geographic strings.
I reported the story for The Register yesterday.
The applications for .and, .are and .est are affected by the rule that prohibits the delegation of three-letter country codes appearing on the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 list.
A fourth application by a different company, for .idn, is also impacted by the same rule.
Based on DI’s analysis, there are at least another 16 new gTLD applications that are not currently self-designated geographic but which are also protected (but not banned) as geographic terms.
English dictionary words, brands and acronyms are affected.
DI PRO subscribers can read the full analysis here.

Schilling applies for “scores” of new gTLDs

Domaining icon Frank Schilling’s new venture, Uniregistry, has applied for “scores” of new generic top-level domains, “most” of which he expects to be contested.
Schilling won’t say exactly how many or which strings Uniregistry is pursuing, but he did reveal that while he is not going for .web, he will be in contention with Google for .lol.
“It’s closer to TLDH than Donuts,” Schilling told DI in an interview this evening, referring to the announcements of Top Level Domain Holdings’ 68 and Donuts’ 307 applications.
I’m guessing it’s around the 40 to 50 mark.
Despite the portfolio and Schilling’s history in domain investing, Uniregistry isn’t what you might call a “domainer” play.
The company doesn’t plan on keeping whole swathes of premium real estate for itself or for auction, Schilling said. Nor does it intend to rip off trademark owners.
“We’ve seen good TLDs fail with bad business plans,” he said, pointing to premium-priced .tv as an example. “You need to allow other people to profit, to evangelize your space.”
“I’m not going to get as rich from this as some of our registrants,” he said.
Uniregistry only plans to hold back a “handful” of premium names, Schilling said. The rest will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
To avoid creating wastelands of parked domains, the company plans to deploy technical countermeasures to prevent too many domains falling into too few hands.
“The way we’re going stage the landrush it will be very difficult to game it,” he said. “There’ll be significant rate limiting, so you can’t come and take 500 domains in ten milliseconds.”
“What we want to avoid is someone going in and getting 100,000 of the best ones on day one. It’s not fair, and it’s unhealthy for the space.”
Schilling is one of the industry’s most successful domainers. His company, Name Administration, is one of the largest single owners of second-level domain names.
Now Schilling says he’s brought his considerable experience as a domain name registrant Uniregistry’s business model and policies.
The company’s message is that it’s “registrant-centered”.
While that sounds like an easy, glib marketing statement, Schilling is backing it up with some interesting policies.
He’s thinking about a much closer relationship between the registry and the registrant that you’d see in the .com space.
When a second-level domain in a Uniregistry gTLD expires, registrants will get 180 days to claim it back from the registry, possibly even circumventing the registrar.
Uniregistry will even directly alert the registrant that their name is going to expire, a policy that Schilling said has been modeled in part on what Nominet does in the .uk space.
“Registrants have the ability to go to the registry to manage their .co.uk, to transfer the domain, to change certain pieces of information,” he said.
The 180-day policy is designed in part to prevent registrars harvesting their customers most valuable domains when they forget to renew them.
Rogue registrars and registrars competing against their own customers are things that evidently irk Schilling.
“I prefer a system that protects registrants,” he said.
But existing registrars are still the company’s proposed primary channel to market, he said. Uniregistry plans to price its domains in such a way as to give registrars a 50% margin.
“I think there’s enough margin in these strings for registrars to make a great living,” Schilling said.
Schilling hasn’t ruled out an in-house pocket registrar, but said it wouldn’t be created to undercut the regular channel.
The company has hired Internet Systems Consortium, maker of BIND and operator of the F-Root, as its back-end registry provider.
Judging by Uniregistry’s web site, which carries photos of many ISC staff, it’s an unusually close relationship.
I’ll have more on Uniregistry’s plans for Whois and trademark protection in a post later.