auDA Domain Name News - 5 January
05/Jan/2010
auDA Domain Name News is compiled by David Goldstein on auDA's behalf. The views expressed in the news items linked from auDA's website (Linked Documents), do not necessarily reflect the views of auDA. auDA does not warrant the accuracy or reliability of the information contained in the Linked Documents, and assumes no liability to any person for any reliance placed upon any information contained in the Linked Documents.
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- ICANN
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2009 Annual Report Published
The 2009 Annual Report for ICANN has been published online today. As you can see, it is changed only incrementally from last year's and is somewhat slimmed down. Publishing an annual report is part of ICANN's practice over the last several years, and an explicit commitment made in the Affirmation of Commitments signed in September 2009.
icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-24dec09-en.htm
Discussion Draft: Affirmation Reviews
ICANN is publishing today for public comment a discussion draft that addresses the requirements and implementation processes for the reviews called for in the Affirmation of Commitments.
icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-26dec09-en.htm
ICANN Publishes the December 2009 Semi-Annual Contractual Compliance Report
ICANN's Contractual Compliance Department published its fourth Semi-Annual Contractual Compliance Report. This report summarizes ICANN's compliance activities from January through November 2009. During this period, ICANN continued work on two studies (Whois accuracy and domain names registered using a privacy or proxy service); completed work on two audits to determine registrar compliance with the Expired Domain Deletion Policy, and issued an advisory to clarify one of its provisions; monitored and investigated claims of Whois inaccuracy; and held a UDRP workshop. This report contains details regarding each of the studies, audits and activities.
icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-24dec09-en.htm
Why the new gTLD process is going off on another wrong tangent
I’ve just submitted a response to an ICANN public comment period asking for feedback on a model that would allow people to send in “expressions of interest” for new Internet extensions like dot-com or dot-info.
kierenmccarthy.com/2009/12/28/why-the-new-gtld-process-is-going-off-on-another-wrong-tangent/
Innovations to spread as US cedes control over internet
THE next decade could see the US lose its title as the world's technology headquarters. All major technology innovation in recent history has emerged from the US, supported by the world's finest education, innovation and commercialisation industries.
www.theaustralian.com.au/business/innovations-to-spread-as-us-cedes-internet-control/story-e6frg8zx-1225814235591
Domain name extension 'could boost cyber-crime'
The introduction of internet addresses in non-Roman scripts could offer fresh opportunities to cyber-criminals, experts have warned. Next year Icann will for the first time accept internet domain names in non-Roman scripts. The domain name is the part of a web address that precedes the “dot”, such as timesonline.
technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6971724.ece
www.foxsmallbusinesscenter.com/scitech/2009/12/31/domain-extension-boost-cyber-crime/
Boston Globe Editorial: What’s Yahoo in Cyrillic?
The debut of Internet domain names entirely in non-Latin alphabets should be liberating for speakers of Russian, or Chinese, and a host of other languages. These users, because of a rules change by ICANN, can finally be free from Western technological dominance while surfing the Web.
www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/01/04/internet_whats_yahoo_in_cyrillic/
ICANN’s Proposed EOI Likely to Limit the Number of New gTLDs
Thinking about applying for a new generic top level domain? Then ante up $55,000 for the right to file an application.
www.internetcommerce.org/ICANN_EOI_to_Limit_Number_of_New_gTLDs
2010 preview: The polyglot web
Imagine what browsing the web would be like if you had to type out addresses in characters you don't recognise, from a language you don't speak. It's a nightmare that will end for hundreds of millions of people in 2010, when the first web addresses written entirely in non-Latin characters come online.
www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427395.800
Top IDN Moments of 2009
1. Chuck Gomes stating here that Verisign plans to allow the owners of IDN.com to essentially “alias” these domains so that they become IDN.IDN in relevant languages. Chuck said “if you were the registrant of [Name]-in-IDN.com, then no one else could register [Name]-in-IDN.com-in-IDN but you could activate the registration if you wanted to.” This flushed all doubts down the toilet that one day IDN.com won’t redirect to IDN.IDN.
idnblog.com/2009/12/29/best-idn-moments-of-2009/
Lost & Found WWW: Next year the first URLs made up of non-Latin characters will appear on the internet
In the very near future the way that we browse the internet will be radically different than that of today. When the non-Latin based characters come online it will turn into Armageddon for hundreds of millions of people. Next year, the first URLs made up of non-Latin characters will appear on the internet.
www.koreaittimes.com/story/6338/lost-found-www
Welcome to 2010. Now What? ... New TLD’s
We still don’t truly know what the effect of 10’s or 100’s of new extensions will have on value and demand of current TLD’s. We can all make our predictions, but until these new extensions are launched en mass, we can only guess and opine as to the outcome.
www.thedomains.com/2010/01/02/welcome-to-2010-now-what-2/
Even our fonts will betray us?
According to Christina Warren at mashable.com, the switch to allowing non-Latin alphabet characters in web domains could give scammers a brand new toolkit. That's because browsers can't render many non-Latin characters, and the approximations may be doppelgangers for trusted sites. Alternatively, an address in an alphabet like Cyrillic, which shares certain letterforms with the Latin alphabet, can appear indistinguishable from pre-existing Latin-alphabet addresses:
scienceblogs.com/bioephemera/2010/01/even_our_fonts_will_betray_us.php
PayPal vs Fake PayPal: Can You Tell the Difference?
Back in October, we wrote about a new policy approved by ICANN that will allow non-Latin domain names to be registered in early to mid 2010. This is really exciting for Internet users in areas that use non-Latin alphabets (like Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and Cyrillic), who have spent the last fifteen years without full domain opportunities.
mashable.com/2010/01/01/idn-phishing/
Smart, China Mobile, Apple, ICANN, Verizon
... ICANN's introduction of non-Roman scripts to registrable domain names may increase cybercrime, as phishers take advantage of similarities between scripts to fool unsuspecting web users, an IP lawyer has warned.
www.telecomasia.net/content/fasttakes-smart-china-mobile-apple-icann-verizon
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- ccTLD & gTLD NEWS
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Berlin The Latest New TLD Battleground?
If you've been following the newTLD process within ICANN over the last year or so you will have probably been aware of how slow and tortuous development has been. To recap, ICANN, which oversees domain names globally, announced that it was "opening up" the internet so that "anyone" could get the domain extension they wanted. Of course it's not really "everyone" and the process to date has been far from smooth.
www.isquattedyour.eu/2009/12/21/berlin-the-latest-new-tld-battleground/
CNNIC Launches Online Complaint Reporting Service
News from China Internet Network Information Center is that CNNIC has published an online complaint reporting service to encourage Internet users to report issues related to bad domain names in an effort to purify the online environment for teenagers in China.
www.chinatechnews.com/2009/12/28/11271-cnnic-launches-online-complaint-reporting-service
HKIRC to launch ‘.香港' full Chinese domain name in 2010
Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation Ltd (HKIRC) announced today that ‘.香港 registrations will be offered free to all ‘.hk’ customers in the second half of 2010 with the aim of helping them develop their sites with full Chinese domain names. This is to increase the popularity of Chinese domain names and to maximize benefits to the Internet community, and ultimately to sustain the status of Hong Kong as a digital city.
https://www2.hkirc.hk/company_info/pressrelease.jsp?item=193
no: Update in Norid's domain name policy 1 March 2010: The registration fee and the annual fee increases
On 1 March 2010 the fees for registration and annual upkeep will rise to NOK 60. In addition to covering the general price increase over the last few years, this rise is caused by Norid's need to lessen our deficit due to heightened demands for security and emergency preparedness.
www.norid.no/regelverk/forslag/2009-12-28/index.en.html
nz: Consultation on Second Level Domains Policy Review
InternetNZ, through Domain Name Commission Limited (DNC), is currently reviewing the existing Second Level Domains (2LD) policy. ... This policy was last reviewed over 2003-2004 when a Working Group put out papers for public consultation. These papers sought comment on a number of issues including introducing registrations in .nz at the second level and the process for creating a new second level domain. The review resulted in changes to the process of creating a new second level domain but did not introduce .nz registrations at the second level.
dnc.org.nz/2LD-review09
Coordination Center for TLD RU has published the english-language translation of Terms and conditions of domain names registration under domains .RU and .РФ
Let us inform you that the english-language translation of the latest version of Terms and conditions of domain names registration under domain .RU and translation of Terms and conditions of domain names registration under domain .РФ is presented on our web-site now.
cctld.ru/en/news/news_detail.php?ID=604
Russia will be heard in ICANN
Mr. Igor Schegolev, the RF Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation, has co-opted Russia’s representative to the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) under the internet-corporation ICANN – Mr. Oleg Chutov - Director of the Department of scientific and technical and strategic development of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications.
cctld.ru/en/news/news_detail.php?ID=595
uk: Nominet legal boss quits
Emily Taylor, Nominet's long-serving legal and policy director, has resigned. The non-profit company in charge of the .uk domain registry declined to explain her departure.
www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/24/nominet_taylor/
Nominet head of legal resigns
In an abrupt move, Emily Taylor has resigned from her position as director of legal and policy at .uk registry Nominet. When contacted, the not-for-profit had no news about her potential successor or the reason for the sudden move.
www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2255470/nominet-head-legal-resigns
uk: Changes to Nominet acceptable use policies
On 1 February 2010 we will make some changes to the acceptable use polices for our registrar systems.
www.nominet.org.uk/news/latest/?contentId=6973
uk: Nominet governance consultation update
Our consultation on shaping the future of .uk closed on 15 December and we would like to thank all members, registrars and stakeholders who gave us feedback.
www.nominet.org.uk/news/latest/?contentId=6960
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- DNS SECURITY
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The Evil (Cyber) Empire: Inside the world of Russian hackers
Did Russian hackers manage to steal tens of millions of dollars from Citigroup? While The Wall Street Journal reports that the FBI is investigating the alleged loss, the financial organization denies losing money in such a security breach. It may take awhile to uncover the truth, but reports of the attack have cast yet another spotlight into the shadowy world of cybercrime. This report, adapted from a cover package by NEWSWEEK's Russia-language partner,Russky Newsweek, takes a closer look at those behind this global threat.
www.newsweek.com/id/228674
Germany Plans Internet Virus Phone-Call Alerts
Germany's federal computer security agency (BSI) and the German Internet business federation ECO said that Internet providers already had the technology to know which of their customers were infected. The German officials estimated that one quarter of the computers in the country had been taken over by harmful software.
www.enterprise-security-today.com/news/Germany-Plans-Internet-Virus-Alerts/story.xhtml?story_id=122000A8ASME
Good Guys Bring Down the Mega-D Botnet
For two years as a researcher with security company FireEye, Atif Mushtaq worked to keep Mega-D bot malware from infecting clients' networks. In the process, he learned how its controllers operated it. Last June, he began publishing his findings online. In November, he suddenly switched from defense to offense. And Mega-D--a powerful, resilient botnet that had forced 250,000 PCs to do its bidding--went down.
www.cio.com.au/article/330940/
www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/330940/
www.computerworld.com.au/article/330940/
computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/scrt/57ED3E6596FEA686CC25769A0071F9A1
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- DOMAIN DISPUTES
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Google loses Canadian Groovle domain name claim
A Canadian company behind a search engine called Groovle.com has won a case filed against it by online search giant Google.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8435576.stm
How to beat Google in a domain name dispute
Google wins domain name disputes almost every time, and it suffered its second loss ever on Christmas Eve. How "Groovle.com" avoided a one-way transfer to the Googleplex.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/how-to-beat-google-in-a-domain-name-dispute.ars
Google Loses Another Domain Name Dispute by John Levine
For the benefit of trademark owners, ICANN has something called the UDRP (Uniform Dispute Resolution Process) that allows the owner to file a complaint against an allegedly infringing domain name, to be resolved by one of a small set of arbitrators. About 90% of UDRP cases that proceed to a decision are decided in favor of the complainant; opinions differ as to whether that's because of the merit of the complaints or the institutional bias of the arbitrators.
weblog.johnlevine.com/ICANN/groovle.html
www.circleid.com/posts/20100101_google_loses_another_domain_name_dispute/
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- IPv4/IPv6
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A decade's worth of IPv4 addresses
During the first decade of the 21st century we went through over 1.3 billion IPv4 addresses. eighty-one percent of the usable IPv4 addresses are now gone, leaving us with just a couple years' supply left.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/dont-publish-the-decade-in-ipv4-addresses.ars
Will the Internet Run Out of IP Addresses in 2012?
Current Internet addresses are limited, and Vint Cerf predicted we would run out by 2010. Now pundits say the new date is 2012. The problem is that Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4) is mathematically limited with 32 bits and the shift to IPv6, which uses 128 bits, is likely to take a long time. Meantime, coexistence and IPv4 conservation could help.
www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=70830
news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20100103/tc_nf/70830
www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=0020000031B0
IPv6: A Lost Decade? by Yves Poppe
A 'decade from hell', according to Times Magazine, a 'dazing decade' says Newsweek. In Copenhagen, at the Climate Change Conference, the World Meteorological Organization talked of the 'hottest decade on record'. BusinessWeek characterized the decade as one of 'innovation interrupted'. All this gloom made me wonder how to qualify our IPv6 decade?
www.circleid.com/posts/20091228_ipv6_a_lost_decade/
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- MISCELLANEOUS
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Domain Pulse 2010 in Switzerland Getting Closer
The Domain Pulse 2010 conference, the premier domain name conference in the German-speaking countries, will be held in Lucerne, Switzerland on 1 and 2 February.
goldsteinreport.com/article.php?article=9948
www.domainpulse.com/2009/12/26/domain-pulse-2010-in-switzerland-getting-closer/
www.domainnews.com/en/domain-pulse-2010-in-switzerland-getting-closer.html
E-numbering can help India avoid 11-digit regime
India can adopt telephone number mapping to avoid migrating from 10-digit mobile number to an 11-digit number. The ever-increasing number of fresh subscribers every month has exhausted the allotment of new serial mobile numbers available with the department of telecom (DoT), forcing the industry to seek migration to the 11-digit solution.
www.mydigitalfc.com/plan/e-numbering-can-help-avoid-11-digit-regime-529
NXDOMAIN Substitution: Good or Evil? by Geoff Huston
Sometimes its not just the words that create meaning in a conversation, but the gaps in between the words, or the white spaces that can also convey meaning. Sometimes it's not just what is said, but also the manner of what is not said that conveys meaning and has value. Oddly enough, this observation about the value of the spaces between the words in human communications carries through to the Domain Name System, or DNS.
www.circleid.com/posts/nxdomain_substitution_good_or_evil/
December 2009 Web Server Survey
In the December 2009 survey we received responses from 233,848,493 sites, an increase of 212k since last month.
news.netcraft.com/archives/2009/12/24/december_2009_web_server_survey.html
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- DOMAINING & AFTERMARKET
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Big Sale of Barns.com and Landmark 6-Figure IDN Deal Take Top Spots on This Week's Domain Sales Chart
A pair of nice six-figure sales headline this week's domain sales report. Barns.com bagged the top spot after changing hands for $175,000 in a private sale. North Carolina businessman Jeremiah Johnson, who already had a well established business in this space at WoodBarns.com, acquired the category killing domain and is already putting it to good use. His new website at Barns.com offers a wide variety of barns, including custom metal and Amish wood structures, that are sold nationwide with free delivery and installation.
dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2009/20091223.htm
Pair of Six-Figure .DE Domains Including the Largest IDN Sale Ever Reported Lead This Week's Abbreviated Sales Chart
Christmas is just two days away and many offices have already shut down or at least let key staffers head home early. That was the case at Sedo this week. With our normal contact person on holiday, we did not receive their usual sales data report and were unable to reach any of our many other contacts there to track it down. Since Sedo often accounts for as many as half of the sales reported in any given week, we have abbreviated our usual Top 20 charts to accommodate the reduced data set available.
dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2009/20091230.htm
Life in the Fast Lane: Rick Latona Got a Late Start But He's Quickly Closing In on the Competition
Over the last few years the domain industry has been going through a consolidation stage in which bigger fish swallow up smaller ones, creating industry conglomerates like NameMedia, Demand Media, Oversee.net and Thought Convergence. With venture capitalists pumping tens of millions of dollars into the space, it seemed obvious that the game was over for self-financed entrepreneurs with dreams of grandeur. They couldn't possibly compete against the new domain industry behemoths. Apparently Rick Latona never got that memo.
dnjournal.com/cover/2009/november-december.htm
2010 DOMAINfest Global Agenda and Speakers Confirmed
The 2010 DOMAINfest Global conference later this month offers a fresh agenda, featuring rich sessions, structured networking, innovative contests, top speakers and fun social events according to the conference organisers.
www.domainpulse.com/2010/01/01/2010-domainfest-global-agenda-and-speakers-confirmed/