• .We Need A Separate Domain To Manage Our Contact Info?
  ICANN has certainly approved some weird top level domains lately. The only rationale for most of these is to force companies to register another set of domains to funnel more money to registrars... and back to ICANN as well
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• .TW to Launch English Second Level Domain Name
  NeuLevel and Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC) announced today that the .TW country code will provide English second level domain name registration services starting November 1. Currently, third-level .TW domains are only offered
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• New .tel domain will manage contacts
  ICANN has approved an application for a new .tel domain, that will hold contact details for companies and individuals. The final contract has yet to be produced, but Telnic, the company that put in the application, is expecting to offer .tel domains by the end of 2006
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07/21/2005

• Website.com Domain Name Sold for $750,000
  Sedo, the leading online marketplace for the buying and selling of domain names, has announced that the domain name website.com was sold for $750,000--marking the highest valued domain sale of 2005
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07/20/2005

• Why Not Divide the Internet?
  The desired goal of the other countries is to end up with their own local language suffixes, own local language domain names, basically their own Internet, with its own domain registration policies -- in a nutshell, a very big and a very complex global mess, indeed
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07/18/2005

• ICANN prez delivers internet vision
  n his most revealing interview since taking charge of internet overseeing organisation ICANN in March 2003, president Paul Twomey has accused governments looking to subsume ICANN into a UN body as "living in a political fantasy land", while at the same time being thankful that the internet community doesn't have tanks.
  Just months before the future of the internet is decided at a world summit in Tunisia, Twomey also tackled the US government's recent assertion of control over the foundation of the internet, plus internal criticism of the organisation's expanding budget and the recent process that handed ownership of the dot-net registry to VeriSign
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• US can't dominate domain names, says UN
  A United Nations working group has published a long-awaited report that effectively challenges US supremacy over internet domain names
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07/16/2005

• ICANN Delays Non-English Letters
  Concerns about "phishing" e-mail scams will likely delay the expansion of domain names to non-English characters, the chairman of the internet's key oversight agency said Friday
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07/15/2005

• UN outlines future of US-less internet
  The United Nations has released its report into how it expects administration of the internet to work in future
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• .mobi Maybe, Maybe Not
  The .mobi concept had good intentions when it originated in 2000, but today the newly minted domain threatens to split the Internet unnecessarily into mobile and not mobile
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• Report on Domain Hijacking Gets Mixed Reaction
  Alexis Rosen, president of the Public Access Networks Corporation (Panix), an Internet service provider (ISP) in New York City whose domain was hijacked earlier this year, contended that even if the committee's recommendations were followed, they would do little to deter domain thieves. He called for tougher penalties for domain registrars
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• ICANN Board Meeting, Luxembourg
  Approved Resolutions
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07/14/2005

• Guide helps firms avoid domain name problems
  Internet domain name management body Icann has issued advice to help firms avoid problems caused by lost or maliciously registered domain names
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• ICANN, VeriSign Will Consider Changes on .net Agreement
  ICANN and VeriSign will consider changes to the new .net registry agreement in response to a mass protest by major domain name registrars, who said the deal represented a "breach of trust" between ICANN and the registrar community. In response to a joint protest by more than 30 registrars at a Luxembourg meeting, ICANN chairman Vint Cerf announced today that VeriSign and ICANN will re-examine a provision in the agreement that lifts restrictions on the price VeriSign can charge registrars for each .net domain they sell
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07/13/2005

• UN report to leave ICANN’s balls intact
  A sneak preview of the UN’s report into internet governance has revealed that ICANN will retain its position as the lead technical body for the Internet. However, the organisation’s dreams of becoming a quasi-governmental body overseeing the future of the internet have been dealt a heavy blow
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07/12/2005

• ICANN warns world of domain hijacking
  ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee has outlined several famous and recent thefts of websites, including Panix.com, Hushmail.com and HZ.com, and listed where the system went wrong and what can be done to correct the flaws
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07/11/2005

• Web sites for mobile devices get suffix
  Consumers will soon be able to recognize Web sites specially designed for use by mobile phones by the new ".mobi" suffix, which will be introduced alongside the popular ".com" and other domain names
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07/08/2005

• ICANN: VeriSign Can Raise .net Prices in 2007
  ICANN is lifting restrictions on VeriSign's pricing of .net domains after Jan. 1, 2007, a move that may signal ICANN's intent to get out of the business of regulating domain name pricing
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• Google Wins Domain Name Dispute
  Google Inc., filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum on May 11, 2005 asserting legal rights to Web addresses [googkle.com, ghoogle.com, gfoogle.com and gooigle.com] bearing close resemblance to Google.com. Ruling in Google’s favor,
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07/07/2005

• Australia backs Internet status quo
  Australia has backed the current Internet governance regime in the wake of the Bush administration's surprise announcement it would not relinquish control of the Net to any other body
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07/06/2005

• ICANN Posts New gTLD Questions Paper
  In September 2004 ICANN published a strategy for the implementation of new top-level domains (TLDs). The strategy called for the implementation of a strategy that would appropriately take into account many relevant technical, economic, socio-political and cultural issues. In light of several new developments regarding DNS operations and structure, ICANN has developed a plan to facilitate implementation of the strategy for the designation of new TLDs
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• CENTR responds to US govt principles on DNS management
  CENTR concurs with the general consensus that modifications to authoritative data contained in the root zone have to date been exercised as a service to the community in a neutral and non-discriminatory manner
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07/05/2005

• XXX: A New Frontier for Cybersquatting?
  "Let the unseemly cybersquatting begin," said Karen Whitehouse, an Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)-watcher and author of the Weekend Geek blog. Though intended to make it easier to filter porn sites and keep people, especially children, from stumbling across them by accident, the upshot might be to force people and companies to register domains as a defensive move
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• ICANN's man in Europe bows out
  Internet overseeing organisation ICANN still has problems but it will come out of the UN's upcoming review into Internet governance with flying colours, the organisation's man in Europe, Paul Verhoef has predicted on the eve of his departure
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07/04/2005

• US government asserts control of the DNS
  The US government has indicated that it will continue to control the Internet's naming and addressing systems indefinitely, reversing a seven-year-old policy and creating the potential for a massive face-off with the United Nations
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07/01/2005

• US reasserts control over the Internet
  In an obvious snub to the United Nations, a statement from the Bush administration has made it clear it wants to keep ICANN on a very short leash
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• Bush administration annexes internet
  In a worrying U-turn, the US Department of Commerce (DoC) has made it clear it intends to retain control of the internet's root servers indefinitely. It was due to relinquish that control in September 2006, when its contract with overseeing body ICANN ended
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• Froomkin on US Announcing it Will Retain Control of DNS
  Personally, I'm actually not that upset with this promise to maintain the status quo because I don't see ICANN as deserving to slip loose of the last significant source of even potential control on its ever-expanding budget and activities. And, although it's not politically correct in international circles to say so, I'd be uncomfortable with any international control over the Internet that gave any foreign despot a say in how domestic communications work.
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• US to ICANN and UN: UCANT
  In four short paragraphs, the US has declared it will retain "its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." The "root zone file," or Domain Name System (DNS), is composed of 13 computers containing the master lists of net suffixes, and is currently managed by private companies under the supervision of the US government. At the same time, the new policy also makes it clear that US will not interfere with country suffixes (ccTLD), as "governments have legitimate public policy and sovereignty concerns with respect to the management of their ccTLD." Finally, the principles state that while the US will maintain ultimate DNS control, the technical, or day to day, operations can continue to be run by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Of course until yesterday, it had been assumed that ICANN would eventually take over ultimate control of the DNS
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