Details about the new extensions

The 26th of June, 2008 will probably be remembered as the day the ICANN, gathered in Paris, France, decided to allow for an unlimited number of domain name extensions to be created by registrars (not individuals).

Here’s what registrars need to create a new domain name extension, under the recently approved ICANN recommendation:

• A good idea for the extension (such as “.gaming” or anything else, really);
• Money, ranging from 150k$ to 500k$… or more;
• The networking resources to support the new extension’ management.

So that’s basically it — the ICANN will likely receive a considerable number of proposals by interested registrars, some of which might be industry leaders like Ebay looking to launch a .ebay for anything relating to online auctions. Such speculation might not last too long, though. The ICANN has said new domain name extensions might be approved as soon as early 2009 (there are talks about the second quarter of the year).

Technically, there will be a limited application period where any established entity from anywhere in the world can submit an application that will go through an evaluation process. It is already anticipated that there will be additional rounds relatively soon after the close of the first application round for those who will wait along the lines to see how the first round pans out.

Trademark lawyers might have a lot of work defending the established brands in these new extension spaces since they won’t be automatically reserved. There will, however, be an objection-based mechanism for trademark owners where their arguments for protection will be considered. Needless to say this will cost a lot in terms of time, energy and money.

The same kind of logic applies to offensive names that’ll be subject to an objection-based process based on public morality and order. This process will be conducted by an international arbitration body utilizing criteria drawing on provisions in a number of international treaties. The ICANN will not be the decision maker on these objections.

This proposal has been in the works for a while and as such, the ICANN has a multi-stakeholder policy development process that served as the foundation for the process design. It involved consultation with domain name industry, trade mark attorneys, the business sector, users, governments and technicians. There might be a few adjustments here and there, along the way but the basic idea of opening up the number of domain name extension is set to change the domaining landscape in still unforeseen ways.

The potential is huge for almost everybody. Those who play the new domain name game with the most flair stand to win the most. If you missed out on the big .com landrush back in 1995, 1996 and 1997, the launch of new domain name extensions in 2009 will probably be your second chance and nailing the hottest domains online, when they become available.

One might even say that the potential is downright exponential. Take the case of the already discussed extension for New York City dubbed .nyc, there will be people looking to register the word “tourism” in every popular language, followed by .nyc, such as tourism.nyc, tourisme.nyc and turismo.nyc, to name just a few.

All domainers should immediately make plans to profit from this new extension multiplication era. Hopefully, you’ll be part of those who come out on top when the dust settles!

Tags: icann, new extension recommendation, domain names, domains, extensions, dot anything, .nyc, new york city, paris, france, domaining, domainers, legal names, offensive names, trademarked names, branded names, trademark lawyers

Huge growth expected for new extensions

There nothing like bad debt to force non-profits, like the ICANN, into dubious decisions which are, in the end, motivated almost entirely by greed, whatever the risks to “the rest” of the business model.

The ICANN has announced its plans to greatly expand the domain name extension market, way beyond .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .name and such, to include just about anything a registrar is ready to pay between 150k$ to 500k$ for.

So we might assist to a giant IT business like IBM, for instance, paying the ICANN to establish a new domain name extension labeled “.ibm” which could then be resold to anyone interested in paying the yearly registration fee, which would be likely left entirely to the discretion of the registrar.

Imagine an online web where almost anything of any significance has its own domain name extension — it could get very confusing, very fast. As soon as early 2009, actually since that’s when the ICANN plans to fast track the approval for such extensions. The astute domainer should therefore understand that the ICANN needs lots of new money, fast.

Name extensions like .london, .melbourne, .islands, .vehicles, .loveable, .unbelievable and just about anything out there are expected to pop up faster than we can count them, changing the online landscape forever.

The ICANN believes in “choice and opportunity” as the two main lines of thought behind their move but the idea of letting registrars expand the domain name extension pool ad infinitum also holds great risks of overly diluting the current domain name extension momentum.

Individuals won’t be allowed to establish new domain name extensions as only companies with very deep pockets and the resources to operate such a service will be fast tracked through the approval process. Under these conditions, it’s obvious that Network Solutions and GoDaddy, to name only those, will be well positioned to launch a slew of domain name extensions.

Forget the principle of fairness in the creation of these extensions. The ICANN has decided to unilaterally favor the rich registrars because this, for all useful purposes, is a huge money grab for the folks at ICANN who will surely vote themselves a nice salary increase to cover for the added workload of managing this new mess. If university students want to study a case where a non-profit corporation ditches coherence in favor of sheer greed, this is it.

From a legal standpoint, if you have a brand that you need to protect in the digital realm, expect to be financially fleeced out by the seemingly never-ending multiplication of domain name extensions, in the years to come. Keep in mind that the ICANN has no “overall” rule that’ll protect your brand within all domain name extensions since every single registrar may rule over their extension as they please. So unless you want to be sending nasty cease and desist letters all the time, paying your lawyer premium fees to do so, you’ll probably end up buying out your brand name in all of these extensions — in both cases, the ICANN has setup a system where almost everybody has to become paranoid about protecting their brand.

Examples abound. Think of Apple Computer. They have their “apple.just-about-anything” brand established worldwide but what happens when .london pops up. They’ll probably want to buy apple.london. And then, what if 250 more popular european cities pop up. Apple will almost certainly want to buy apple.paris, apple.lyon, apple.rome (or apple.roma, for the locals) and if certain cities don’t see their extension purchased by such industry heavyweights, will they turn their back on them? For instance, if Apple chooses not to buy apple.prague, will the people living in Prague see this as an offensive gesture?

This is just one example among countless others that’ll make domaining a new, uncharted world of utter confusion, frustration and exploding costs.

Some domainers might get their hands on interesting domain names, like gamers.london or visiting.london but overall, there’s no guarantee these new extensions will draw natural visitors. The mainline .com will likely remain “king of the hill” for many years to come -but- seeing the failure of the much hyped .biz might send a chill down the back of those registrars who feel they can push any extension down potential domain owners’ throats.

It’s already expected that some of these new domain name extensions will be more attractive —and expensive— than others but if the ICANN allows for a seemingly uncontrolled expansion of the extension pool, it’ll almost certainly backfire and the internet, as a relatively healthy entity, could be hardly hit.

Let’s hope for the best with this latest ICANN move but at the same time, let’s also (discreetly) brace for a bumpy ride.

Tags: icann, new domain name extensions, new extensions, registrars, domain names, domains, domainers, domaining, rich registrars, expensive extensions, greed, internet, naming system, root dns, new names approval

Yet another price increase for the “.org”

Just last year, in 2007, the Public Interest Registry (known as the PIR) hiked the price of “.org” domains by 2,5% to $6,15 but that apparently wasn’t enough since this year, on November 9th, 2008, they increase the price -again- by 10% for a new record price of $6,75.

Furthermore, Alexa A.S. Raad, CEO of the PIR didn’t find it necessary to explain why such an increase was suddenly made necessary. She and her “senior management team” just decided that they would levy more “internet taxes” from the 7-or-so million dot org domain name owners.

Here’s a copy (in .pdf format) of Raad’s letter to the ICANN, announcing the PIR will be unilateraly jacking up the .org prices, in November.

So as far as accountability goes, the PIR isn’t going to win any prizes soon.

Perhaps the “senior management team” desperately vyed for a huge salary increase and simply decided to tax everyone else for their own lifestyle upgrade, who knows? The PIR provided no reason whatsoever for the increase so “the real reason” is up for speculation.

This new “.org” increase which applies to all new registrations, renewals and transfers between accredited registrars isn’t the only price hike the ICANN has blessed as the “.com” will increase 7% to $6,86 and the “.net” will go up 10% to $4,23, in October of 2008.

The most probable cause for all these increases is likely related to sheer greed, lack of credible oversight and a domain name scheme based on a largely unaccountable oligopoly.

In clear, domain name owners are powerless against these new taxes being forcefully levied against them. Such a state of affairs is unacceptable and until the price hikes are properly justified, there should be no upward movement in prices since, by all means, the only they should be going is… down!

Domain name owners shouldn’t be complacent against the tendency of the PIR-type of domain monopolies to jack up the prices whenever they want (probably on a whim) without any need for accountability.

For the readers who wonder who the “senior management” people are, at the PIR, here’s a shortlist:

• Alexa A.S. Raad - CEO (she signed the “price increase letter” to ICANN)
• David Maher - Senior Vice President, Law & Policy
• Pamela Miller - Director of Operations and Compliance
• Lance Wolak - Director of Marketing
• Nayla Foster - Head of Global Sales
• Lawrence C. Martin - Director of Finance & Administration

It would be interesting to see if their salary will increase after the Noverber 9th “.org” price increase since without properly justifying their 10% hike, it’s entirely plausible that they will personally profit from their “support” for it.

If you read through the PIR web site, you’ll find wholehearted tidbits like “this globally diverse group is committed to protecting your interests” but when the price of the “.org” registration goes up 10% without a single word of justification, it’s pretty hard to imagine that particular intervention was only made to “protect YOUR interests” as it was more likely intended to TAKE MORE MONEY FROM YOU, wether you like it or not.

Tags: dot org, .org, pir, public interest registry, registrars, icann, price increase, domains, renewals, transfers

Verisign yanks up domain name fees — again

If you own a “.com” or “.net” domain name, this is very bad news, on all fronts.

Verisign, for the second time in just 6 months, is asking every single domain name owner to shell out even more money to register, transfer or renew their “dot coms” and “dot nets”.

Take notice that starting October 1st, 2008, California-based Verisign which operates the “.com” and “.net” domain name suffixes will raise the fees required to own them. And these aren’t insignificant raises, we’re seeing the “.com” increase from 6.42$ to 6.86$ per DNS (a 6.86% raise) and the “.net” go from 3.85$ to 4.23$ (a 9.87% raise).

Non-content of taking in astronomical amounts of fees for the “.com” and “.net” namespaces, Verisign says that rising traffic on the internet, allegedly from web-connected wireless devices, new technologies that use DNS and demands on improving net security, drive the newly imposed increase.

Domain name owners would be entirely justified, yet again, to interpret this latest increase as sheer greed on the part of Verisign, an incestuous monopoly that’s been decried by both domain name owners and ICANN representatives alike.

Without any dependable independent audit being conducted, Verisign alleges that it handles approximately 33 billion DNS queries daily, with a maximum potential volume of 400 billions — which shows, among other things, how very, very far we are from putting any meaningful stress on Verisign’s current technological setup. Furthermore, Verisign intends to expand that DNS handling capacity to 4 trillion per day, within a couple of years.

For those who keep tabs of Verisign’s arrogance and greed, keep in mind that the last time the billionnaire company bumped up the “.com” and “.net” fees was October 15, 2007 when the “.com” rose from 6$ and the “.net” from 3.50$. Prior to the latest “greed shots”, fees had remained stable since 1999, when the ICANN first set up a DNS pricing scheme.

Because of arrogant price hikes like this one, both Verisign and the ICANN, a for-profit firm that works with the U.S. Department of Commerce to set DNS policy, are continuing to meet with significant resistance from the internet community, as a whole, who view such price hikes as unjustifiable taxation.

Tags: .com, .net, domains, domain names, verisign, icann, internet, price hike, fees, greed

Volunteering for the ICANN

If you’re looking to have a say in the future decisions the ICANN takes regarding the stewardship of the domain names you’ve grown to like so much, now’s you chance!

Under the theme “Make the Internet Your Business”, motivated individuals are invited to submit a Statement of Interest by April 15th, 2008, at 23:59 UTC.

You’ll probably be interested to know that the Nominating Committee is independent of the ICANN and it’s specifically tasked with searching the world for hopefully experienced individuals to fill the following key positions on ICANN’s Board as well as its Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees:

• 2 Board Directors
• 1 GNSO Council member
• 1 ccNSO Council member
• 2 ALAC members (who will represent Europe and North American regions)

Hagen Hultzsch, Chair of the Nominating Committee (NomCom), describes the challenge for the selected individuals as follows:

“Beyond its responsibilities for keeping the internet secure, stable and interoperable, ICANN’s mission is to grow and evolve its global multi-stakeholder decision-making process, so it is the individuals who make up the wider internet community who direct and decide the internet’s future.”

It seems some of the upcoming discussions might be about the multilingual issues in bringing the world’s languages to the domain names and also, the opportunity to offer consumers more “suffix” choices (beyond the common “.net”, “.org”, “.biz” and “.info” alternatives to “.com”).

So if you’re fluent in gTLDs, ccTLDs, DNS logic and related matters, this might be your time to “make the Internet your business” and join the influential team of ICANN leaders — good luck to all applicants.

Tags: icann, committees, organizations, gtld, cctld, dns, domains, domain names

Investigation on domain tasting

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), as the global internet regulator, is currently investigating domain tasting, a controversial process where users register domains to test (and validate) their effectiveness in collecting certain levels of traffic and then cancel the registration before fees become due.

The call for this investigation by the ICANN came after it was found that less than one percent of all “.org” domain names are registered.

For business owners, from all over the world, this is a much needed initiative since peoplewho intend to use the internet to promote their business will welcome the increase in available domain names.

The investigated domain tasting practice has been unnecessarily tying up millions of available domain names -and- adversely impacting the average domainer.

In the past seven years alone, the number of domain name inquiries has risen from 1 billion to 30 billion per day, according to VeriSign, the US company controlling the “.com” and “.net” gTLDs.

In fact, VeriSign was set to raise the registry fees for these domains next month to account for the upgrading to registration systems that was much needed to cope with the overwhelming flood of automated applications and scripts operated by speculators.

As if domain tasting, in and of itself, wasn’t enough of a problem already, criminal practices such as phishing and pharming (related to domain tasting) pose even greater threats for businesses and individuals using the internet.

For instance, anonymous parties often register domains to estblish lookalike sites to obtain confidential information from unsuspecting customers. They’re able to gather private data without the usual risk of being identified (or traced) because they’re “in the process” of registering the domain name, thanks to the lax “domain tasting delay” handling.

Riskwise, the domain tasting loophole is unacceptable to both businesses and their customers. Furthermor, other unwanted commercial side-effect of this shady practice include consumer confusion and increased costs incurred to all businesses that need to register domain names “defensively” while allocating the necessary resources to keep an eye on the situation.

The ICANN’s investigation will also consider ways to counteract unnecessary costs for domainers. In the event domain tasting were to be rendered illegal (and technically impossible), the domain name business would gain credibilty while reducing its operating costs.

Fighting domain tasting is the right thing to do.

Tags: domain tasting, phishing, pharming, icann, investigation, domainers

Turcotte’s CIRA answer to ICANN

Those who know Bernard Turcotte, President and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), can fully appreciate his undeniable wit, intelligence and integrity.

The ICANN, on the other hand, isn’t so reliable.

Accountability, transparency and a general inability to properly conduct consultations continue to be documented weak spots, among others.

It so happens that the ICANN invited the CIRA to answer its Request for Public Comments regading the ICANN’s performance. That was on May 8th, 2007. Three days later, Turcotte answered that… he wasn’t going to answer!

Turcotte hits all the nails on the head, in his carefully crafted answer to the ICANN. On every account, Turcotte is right on the money. The ICANN needs to clean up their act before bothering every domain name authority into providing them with valuable feedback they’re likely to entirely disregard.

Here’s part of Turcotte’s letter to the ICANN:

“In the past we have raised concerns over the transparency and accountability of governance at ICANN including how it conducts its public consultations. More recently, we have been encouraged by the steps ICANN has undertaken to increase transparency, and have stated this opinion publicly at the ICANN Lisbon meeting.

Although improvements have been made, ICANN’s recent Request for Public Comments represents a clear step backwards in ICANN’s journey towards becoming a truly transparent and accountable organization.

That’s exactly how many Canadian domain name owners feel about the way the ICANN is currently handling its business. Furthermore, Turcotte adds:

“Due to the poor design and implementation of this Request for Public Comments we, as most serious stakeholders should, see few – if any – advantages to contributing to this effort which cannot produce any usable results while potentially further alienating constituents.”

Everybody wants the ICANN to improve but the way things are going nowadays, it’s better for the CIRA and other country-level domain name authorities to focus on helping the ICANN get back on track than sending out recommendations that aren’t likely to be properly handled.

The domain name business, worldwide, needs more professional administrators like Bernard Turcotte to bring back absolute accountability and transparency to the way domain name matters are dealt with.

Tags: domain names, cira, icann, bernard turcotte, accountability, public comments

List of generic TLDs

There’s a lot of business happening in the .com namespace and it’s only natural since this particular domain name suffix is the most popular, on Earth.

The .com domain name suffix is one in a short list of generic top-level domains which are intended for particular classes of organizations. These gTLDs are three (3) or more letters long and are named to identify the type of organizations they represent.

The IANA confirms that the following gTLDs currently exist:

• .aero – for the air transport industry;
• .biz – for business use;
• .cat – for Catalan language and culture;
• .com – for commercial organizations but unrestricted;
• .coop – for cooperatives;
• .edu – for post-secondary educational establishments;
• .gov – for governments and their agencies in the United States;
• .info – for informational sites but unrestricted;
• .int – for international organizations established by treaty;
• .jobs – for employment-related sites;
• .mil – for the US military;
• .mobi – for sites catering to mobile devices;
• .museum – for museums;
• .name – for families and individuals;
• .net – originally for network infrastructures but now unrestricted;
• .org – originally for organizations not clearly falling within the other gTLDs but now unrestricted;
• .pro – for certain professions;
• .tel – for services involving connections between the telephone network and the Internet (added March 2nd, 2007);
• .travel – for travel agents, airlines, hoteliers, tourism bureaus, etc.

The .arpa suffix is sometimes considered to be a gTLD, it depends on who you ask.

The following gTLDs are in the process of being approved and may be added to the root nameservers in the near future:

• .asia – for the Asian community;
• .post – for postal services;
• .geo – for geographically related sites.

As you can see, .com is just one of the domain names, albeit a dominant one, that you can promote your organization with. Major companies nowadays own almost every “dot” for their names because so many people tend to naturally type them in.

Experts argue that adding too many domain name suffixes in this coveted gTLD list will dilute the tremendous power of .com and balkanize organizations switching to .museum, for instance.

To this day, however, most organizations that own and operate a lesser known gTLD domain name usually have their own .com, mainly as a precautionary meaure because that’s what visitors tend to use the most.

Tags: gtld, generic domains, domain names, web, .com, dot com

The ICANN looks to introduce tiered pricing for .biz, info and .org gTLD domain names

All domain name owners, in the world, count on the fact that every year, the domain name renewal price should be stable between 6$US and 12$US, depending on the related services.

The ICANN is currently looking to enact a tiered pricing policy that would allow registrars to charge whatever they decide to renew a .biz, .info or .org domain name.

Here’s the way this nightmarish scenario plays out.

You buy a given domain name and you build it up. Visitors come in larger numbers and you’re finally on the first page of the search engine results. You’re quite happy with the way things are going. Life is good.

Then, one morning, you get a message from your registrar requesting that you renew your domain name for another year, based on the ICANN’s newly approved tiered pricing and this means instead of paying, let’s say 10$US a year, you’ll be charged 75,000$US because your domain name is now associated with a web site that is getting more attention (all based on the sole registrar’s appreciation).

Is that the worst nightmare ever, or what?

The simple fact the ICANN is looking to go forward with this terribly bad piece of legislation shows it has little or no respect for 99.999% of us, loyal domain name registrants.

If you don’t act now and tell the ICANN it’s proposed plan makes no sense and threatens to litterally stiffle, freeze and kill any kind of innovation online, next Monday, it might be too late… so act now!

Here’s how, write a message to any of these Public Comment Forums using the corresponding email addresses. For instance, I wrote to the biz-tld-agreement@icann.org forum because I own excellent .biz names.

Don’t take any chances, the ICANN has a troubled history of lacking good judgement and unilaterally favoring “registrar” friends, in their previous decisions — act now or risk seeing the end of the internet, as we know it.

Tags: icann, domain names, domains, legislation, registrars, .biz, .info, .org