• Australian domain policy faces radical shakeup
  The .au domain administration body (auDA) plans to sell previously-prohibited geographically-based domain names, as well as implement a host of other significant changes
  .... full story
  
• Long-awaited DNS Report from National Academy of Sciences Released
  The most important conclusion in the report is that it lays to rest, once and for all, any lingering technical controversies about the addition of new top-level domains.
  .... full story
  
• ICANN Publishes Second Annual Update on the InterNIC Whois Data Problem Report System
  This Report summarizes ICANN's experience with the operation of the Whois Data Problem Report system (WDPRS) during a 12-month reporting period that ended 28 February 2005. ICANN developed this system to receive and track complaints about inaccurate or incomplete Whois data entries. Individuals who encounter such entries may notify ICANN by completing an online form, which is then forwarded to the registrar of record for appropriate action.
  .... full story

03/30/2005

• Should the UN administer the Internet?
  The International Telecommunication Union increasing interest in the Internet could presage a power struggle between ITU, ICANN, and perhaps even the US government, which retains some oversight authority over ICANN and appears content with the current structure.
  In a series of speeches over the last year, Zhao has suggested that the ITU could become involved in everything from security and spam to managing how IP addresses are assigned. The ITU also is looking into some aspects of VoIP communications, another potential area for expansion.
  .... full story
  
• David vs Goliath angle misses point says Nominet
  UK domain registry Nominet has explained the process behind its decision to cede control of the itunes.co.uk to Apple, in a bid to scotch perceptions that it is siding with corporate organisations
  .... full story

03/29/2005

• Will ICANN Add A Tax On Dot Coms?
  Late last year, we noted that ICANN was trying to slip in an extra $0.75/year/domain "tax" on all .net domain holders. At the time, we noted it was expected that they would expand this tax to other domains (despite the fact that a few years ago the group was slapped down in its attempt to charge an extra buck per domain, since the group has no authority to impose a tax). Apparently, not enough people got upset about the $0.75 issue, because ICANN has come back and quietly slipped a $2/year/domain tax on all .jobs and .travel domains. Next up may be .coms -- since the existing contract expires in 2007.
  .... full story
  
• $2-a-year fee for domain name owners
  An announcement from ICANN. It says that all owners of future .jobs and .travel domains will have to pay ICANN a $2 annual fee.
  The first big question, of course: Where will the money go? The .jobs and .travel documents don't say. But check out an article written by this author last December about a $.75 annual fee being levied on .net. One-third of the .net money will go to "developing country stakeholders," one-third will "facilitate the security and stability" of the Internet's naming system, while the remainder can be spent freely by ICANN without restriction
  .... full story
  
• A UN Managed Internet
  The international community wants to shift control of the internet from U.S. based ICANN, to the United Nations
  .... full story
  
• VeriSign wins back .net registry
  VeriSign has won the battle over the .net registry, reclaiming the five million Internet domains as its own
  .... full story
  
• Panel: VeriSign Should Retain Domain Name
  An independent advisory firm recommended Monday that VeriSign Inc. be given another six years to run the Internet's third most popular domain name suffix
  .... full story
  
• iTunes.co.uk owner fights on against Apple
  Erstwhile teenage dotcom millionaire and porn prodigy Ben Cohen is in dispute with Apple over his ownership of itunes.co.uk. He is taking them to the High Court to try and overturn a ruling from Nominet - the UK's domain name registry - that he should give up the website
  Cohen, the 22-year old founder of SoJewish.com, registered the address in November 2000 after he was unable to register tunes.co.uk. Apple did not launch its iTunes service in the US until April 2003.
  He was on the scene before Apple’s iTunes, so why should the name go to them just because they are bigger?
  .... full story

03/28/2005

• ICANN Publishes Telcordia Report on their Findings and Rankings for .NET
  Telcordia has completed a period of extensive evaluation, including site visits by the Telcordia team to each applicant's facilities, the completion of preliminary written reports, and follow-up questions to each applicant. A team of technical experts from Asia, Europe and North America provided technical advice to Telcordia concerning operational aspects of the DNS during this process. ICANN has now received the evaluators' final report and rankings
  .... full story
  
• Legal row over iTunes domain name
  Benjamin Cohen, 22, registered itunes.co.uk in 2000, but earlier this month the UK domain name registry, Nominet, handed the name over to Apple.
  Mr Cohen, of Hackney, east London, has applied to the High Court for a judicial review, saying Nominet is biased against small businesses
  .... full story

03/25/2005

• WIPO publishes case book of domain name decisions
  The World Intellectual Property Organisation has published an overview of trends in its 7,000 domain name dispute decisions since 1999. It is, in effect, a free online case book about cybersquatting that can help parties to gauge their chances before action.
  .... full story
  
• ICANN's new US$2 Domain Name Tax
  Today ICANN published two proposed registry agreement, one for ".jobs" and one for ".travel".
  .... full story

03/24/2005

• Brace yourselves - .eu domains are (almost) go
  A mere six years after they were first proposed Europe is a step closer getting its very own top level domain - .eu.
  Erkki Liikanen backed the proposal for a Europe-wide domain name, the final part of a web address like .uk or .fr, when he was Commissioner for Enterprise in the late twentieth century (November 1999).
  .... full story
  
• ICANN Completes Negotiations with Applicants for .JOBS and .TRAVEL
  ICANN has completed negotiations with the applicants for the .JOBS and .TRAVEL sponsored top-level domains. The .JOBS and .TRAVEL sponsored TLD registry agreements have been posted on the ICANN website and submitted to the ICANN Board for approval
  .... full story
  
• .eu is officially born
  Icann ticks a box and readies new domain for release next year
  .... full story

03/23/2005

• ICANN approval means .eu domain should be available this year
  The seven-year wait nears its end
  .... full story
  
• ICANN rubber-stamps .eu domain name
  What eu’ve all been waiting for
  .... full story
  
• Australian Search Engine In Dodgy Domain Reg Scandal
  Australian Search engine Ansearch finds itself in hot water over some particularly ill thought out domain name purchases
  .... full story

03/21/2005

• National Arbitration Forum Issues Decision on Hillary Clinton Web Address
  A National Arbitration Forum arbitrator rules in favor of Hillary Clinton regarding the Internet domain name hillaryclinton.com
  .... full story

03/20/2005

• Shambles at the .Pro Registry
  Registration of .Pro domains has descended into shambles as the Registry responsible for their administration has allowed a flood of domain registrations which appear to be in breach of the strict rules restricting who can register a .pro domain and the certified credentials required before any such domain can work
  .... full story

03/19/2005

• Domain Name Disputes - Basic options
  When you find that you are a victim in a domain name dispute, what do you do?
  .... full story

03/18/2005

• Domain Names: A Sneaky Attempt To Take My Name
  After accumulating several hundred names I decided to take a break and pondered my next move. I didn’t have to wait long. Within a week I received a notice from my registrar. It seemed a registrar in Germany had someone who was transferring one of my domain names to their account. How could they get away with that?
  .... full story

03/17/2005

• Get set for the great domain sale of '05
  The .au domain regulator, has decided to remove restrictions on the previously unavailable geographic domain names, which will go up for grabs on an online list to be published in six weeks
  .... full story
  
• ICANN asked to probe all transfer problems
  Domain name registrar Melbourne IT says it hopes the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the arbiter of domain-related issues, will investigate all registrars who do not adhere to its domain transfer policy with the same zeal it has shown in investigating the hijacking of the domain of New York ISP, Panix
  .... full story

03/15/2005

• Apple wins iTunes.co.uk case
  Update Apple has been awarded control of the domain iTunes.co.uk, even though it was registered before the Mac maker announced its online music service.
  The decision by Nominet-appointed expert Claire Milne, a telecoms consultant, puts the UK registry in a difficult position where it is deciding cases for businesses despite prior rights and possibly against the law of the land
  iTunes.co.uk’s orginal owner, Benjamin Cohen, has vowed to fight on, threatening to appeal the case through Nominet or, if necessary, the High Court.
  Only last month, Nominet ruled that Game.co.uk should be handed over by game consultant Gareth Sumpter to Game plc. That decision - due to go to appeal next month - raised the worrying possibility that large companies would be encouraged to sue smaller competitors online. For a few thousand pounds, large companies may be able to get hold of domains potentially worth tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds.
  The full decision is not available yet. But it would appear that the long-held notion of prior rights has been set aside in Nominet's most recent domain resolution rules. Has the UK registry become corporate friendly?
  .... full story
  
• ICANN review blames Melb IT for hijack
  Domain name arbiter, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has placed the blame for the domain hijacking of panix.com squarely on the shoulders of Melbourne IT.
  The domain name of Panix, one of the oldest ISPs in New York, was registered with Dotster, a registrar based in Washington. The hijack took place on January 15. By January 17, the domain had been restored.
  In its review of the incident, which was finally released yesterday, nearly two months after the incident, ICANN chief registrar liaison Tim Cole said: "Based on documentation provided by Melbourne IT, Ltd. and Dotster, Inc., the panix.com incident occurred as a result of a failure of Melbourne IT to obtain express authorization (sic) from the registrant in accordance with ICANN's Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy."
  Cole had further criticism for Melbourne IT. "ICANN considers this to have been one of the more serious breaches of its policies by an accredited registrar. We are also very concerned by Melbourne IT's explanation that the incident happened because Melbourne IT had purportedly 'delegated' to a reseller the critical responsibility for obtaining the consent of the registrant prior to submitting a transfer request to the registry," he wrote
  .... full story

03/14/2005

• Local.com Domain Resold for $700,000
  New domain names can't get much cheaper, but the secondary market continues to see big-ticket sales. Local.com was bought for $700,000 Monday by search engine services firm Interchange Corp., which operates the ePilot pay-per-click advertising network
  .... full story
  
• 66.3 million domains registered globally, 5 million in Q3 2004
  VeriSign announced that over five million new domain names had been registered during the third quarter of 2004 alone, with 66.3 million domain names currently registered worldwide
  .... full story

03/11/2005

• Domain Valuation and Valuation Scams
  There is no shortage of self-styled "domain name appraisers" which use formulas relating to length, common word frequency, etc., but if "lawyer.com" is worth $4M, is "goodlawyer.com" worth more or less than that?
  Sedo.com and Afternic.com are probably the top two domain marketplace sites, which also provide appraisal services.
  There is a somewhat widespread scam currently going around in which a domain registrant receives a random purchase inquiry. When the domain registrant responds to the inquiry, the putative purchaser states that they will pay the amount provided by an objective appraisal, and the "purchaser" states that they only trust any of three or four services. One of those services, coincidentally, is priced well below the other ones. So, the domain registrant obtains the appraisal, sends it to the "purchaser", and the "purchaser" is never heard from again. The point of the scam is to induce domain registrants into buying useless appraisals.
  .... full story
  
• CIRA Says .CA Registry Growing Fast
  The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (cira.ca) announced this week that the 500,000th .ca domain name has been registered.
  .... full story

03/10/2005

• Closeout.com Domain Has Strong Sales From Day One Due To Domain's Unknown Popularity
  Closeout.com had close to $10,000 in 'background traffic' sales in its first 30 days. The traffic was mostly from people who just typed the domain name into their browsers to see what it brought up.
  A few years ago, it was not uncommon for a domain such as closeout.com to fetch a sale price in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions. Owner Ben Neydavood bought the domain in 1997 on a whim and left it sitting unused for years, unaware of its hidden potential.
  Ben said, "We had no idea that this domain was getting so much traffic. I decided to develop the domain around a year ago to offer good deals I found on marked down products. As soon as the site went live we got sales - I hadn't even told my family it was active."
  .... full story
  
• Willie Black enters Nominet advisory board election
  It seems that UK registry Nominet really can't do without its ex-chairman Willie Black
  .... full story
  
• Update Regarding .NET Selection Process
  The evaluators' final report and rankings are scheduled to be posted on the ICANN website on 28 March 2005. The Internet community will be invited to review the report and submit comments. ICANN will promptly enter negotiations with the top-ranked applicant to reach a mutually acceptable registry agreement. ICANN's proposed form of the registry agreement has been posted on the ICANN website
  .... full story

03/09/2005

• Italian domain registry registers 1 millionth domain name
  One million Italians use digital signature.
  .... full story

03/08/2005

• Dot-ca domain reaches milestone
  The dot-ca Internet domain registry has passed the half-million mark, according to figures released Tuesday by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA)
  .... full story
  
• LogicBoxes announces support for .IN domains
  LogicBoxes, a software and consultancy company specialising in solutions for ICANN accredited registrars and web hosting companies, today announced that it has introduced software and consultancy services for .IN domain accredited registrars
  .... full story

03/07/2005

• Domain name sytem offers back door to criminals
  A recently approved system that allows countries to create web addresses using a mixture of European and non-European languages could open a back door for scammers warned the UK Internet Forum
  .... full story

03/05/2005

• Feds Catching Up With Proxies and Private Registration
  The Commerce Department has disputed claims that the department launched a new policy when it declared in February that people would no longer be able to keep their personal contact information private when they register a .us domain
  But at least two .us domain registrars, Go Daddy and Network Solutions, as well as three affiliates of these companies, "had a different view of their obligations under the registrar agreement," the department said.
  The five companies offered proxy or Private Registration services to customers, which allowed them to mask their true contact information. Although customers who purchased the proxy service were required to provide their Registrar with authentic contact information, the Registrar inserted its company name and contact details in the whois database in place of these customers to protect their data from spammers, stalkers and others. The NTIA maintained that this violated the government's policy
  Last month, the department required NeuStar to revise its contract with registrars to include wording that now specifies that proxy registration is not allowed. The changes consisted of adding "No Proxy Domain Name Services" to a heading in the contract and adding a new paragraph, labeled section 3.7.7.4.2
  The added paragraph constituted new policy, not clarification of an existing policy, and Registrars criticized the government for making the pronouncement three years too late, since Registrars have been selling proxy registrations for three years. NeuStar knew that Registrars were selling proxy registrations during that period and that the Department of Commerce should have known about it as well.
  Whether the NTIA decision constituted a new policy or a clarification was irrelevant at this point in light of the more pressing concern about the implications for privacy.
  "The issue we are concerned with is that people's right to a private registration has been unilaterally ripped away by the NTIA ... without any public hearing of any kind,"
  .... full story

03/04/2005

• .us Domains - No More Privacy
  The U.S. Commerce Department has ordered companies that administer internet addresses to stop allowing customers to register .us domain names anonymously using proxy services or Private Registration.
  The move does not affect owners of .com and .net domains. But it means website owners with .us domains will no longer be able to shield their name and contact information from public eyes
  The Electronic Privacy Information Center said the move violates First Amendment rights to anonymous free speech. And the representative of one of the largest domain-registration companies is concerned that customers who have been victims of stalkers won't be able to protect their privacy without changing their web address to a domain that offers anonymity
  It's possible legal action could prevent the NTIA and Department of Commerce from having their way -- privacy advocates say the directive violates First Amendment rights to anonymous free speech.
  Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC, said the Supreme Court has ruled on at least four occasions that the right to speak anonymously is protected by the First Amendment. He believes this allows individuals the right to express themselves on the internet without having to reveal their identity
  "The government simply may not require people who wish to speak to present their actual name as a condition of speaking," Rotenberg said. "This tradition of anonymity is deeply rooted in constitutional history, and it is very troubling when the U.S. government attempts to impose true-name disclosure requirements on people who are simply seeking to speak online."
  .... full story

Click here to see the list of U.S. States and Countries with which we've done business registering domain names!