auDA Domain Name News - 19 December
19/Dec/2011
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.
**********************
GOVERNANCE
**********************
OECD Council Recommendation on Principles for Internet Policy Making
www.oecd.org/dataoecd/11/58/49258588.pdf
**********************
DOMAIN NAMES
**********************
**********************
- ICANN
**********************
Muscovites Pose Insightful Questions About New gTLDs
As part of ICANN's campaign to raise global awareness about the opportunities and challenges of New gTLDs, Internet companies, government, Internet users and representatives of Russian media met in Moscow at the downtown Marriott Royal Aurora. The event, hosted by the .ru/.рф ccTLD Coordination Center, enabled Russians interested in new gTLDs to interact with ICANN's President and CEO, Rod Beckstrom; Board Director George Sadowsky; Chief of Staff Christopher Mondini; and ICANN's representative for the region, Veni Markovski.
newgtlds.icann.org/program-status/past-events/reports/new-gtlds-moscow-12dec11-en
Letter: Plenty of .protections for the Web domain expansion by Rod Beckstorm
When I saw the Dec. 12 editorial “What’s the .rush?” I had to ask, “What .rush?” The program of ICANN to open the Internet to new TLDs has been anything but rushed. It took more than six years of thoughtful discussion, debate and study involving governments and intellectual property experts from around the globe.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/plenty-of-protections-for-the-web-domain-expansion/2011/12/14/gIQAnMf30O_story.html
Notice of Publication: Revised IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process Implementation Plan
Following the ICANN Board's approval on 8 December 2011 of the amendment to the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process Implementation Plan, ICANN is providing this notice of publication for the Revised Implementation Plan. This amendment was considered following guidance received from the ccNSO during the ICANN meeting in Dakar, Senegal.
www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-15dec11-en.htm
EBERO Plan Moving Forward Rapidly
Monday, 5 December marked the Request for Information (RFI) deadline that asked Emergency Back-End Registry Operator (EBERO) candidates to submit their proposals if they would like to be considered for the new gTLD EBERO Program. We received 14 RFIs from respondents in North America, South America, Asia and Europe and we plan to make the final selection of EBERO organizations in 2012.
blog.icann.org/2011/12/ebero-plan-moving-forward-rapidly/
Half the industry fighting over EBERO contracts
ICANN received a whopping 14 responses to its recent request for emergency back-end registry operators, contracts that could turn lucrative if and when new gTLDs start going out of business.
domainincite.com/half-the-industry-fighting-over-ebero-contracts/
Important Progress on Accountability and Transparency
The ICANN Board made a couple of important decisions regarding accountability and transparency at its 8 December meeting. Specifically, it approved compensating Directors and also enhanced ICANN’s conflicts of interest rules
pir.org/node/1850
**********************
- ccTLD & gTLD NEWS
**********************
Providing Persistent Domain Names Under .ARPA by Gavin Brown
Some domains are too big to fail. Quite apart from the obvious ones like google.com and facebook.com, upon whose availability our everyday lives depends, there are many others upon which the infrastructure of the Internet (and much of the modern world itself) depends. These are domains like w3.org and ietf.org, which host the technical specifications which describe the World Wide Web and the Internet themselves.
www.circleid.com/posts/20111215_providing_persistent_domain_names_under_arpa/
auDA releases governance review of .au
.au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA) the regulatory of the .au domain name space today released a review of governance undertaken by Westlake Consulting Ltd and Argo Pacific.
www.coopermills.com.au/wordpress/index.php/2011/12/auda-releases-governance-review-of-au/
Renewed DNS.be registration platform on 13 December 2011
Dec 13, 2011 Today DNS.be renewed its registration platform used by the network of 470 registrars to register and manage domain names. These registrars have access to this platform 24/7 via a web interface or a direct automatic interface.
dns.be/en//renewed_dnsbe_registration_platform_on_13_december_2011
Fi-domain name celebrates 25th anniversary
Finns have been using fi-domain names for 25 years already. FICORA started to grant fi-domain names in 1997, and at that time, the total number of fi-domain names was 7,000. Nowadays there are 40 times more domain names than 25 years ago, the number currently being almost 300,000.
www.ficora.fi/en/index/viestintavirasto/uutiset/2011/P_50.html
fi: Advice for companies and organisations on registering domain names
Companies and organisations are advised to consider which domain names would be important for the business, and then register these through a reliable registrar. Inappropriate marketing strategies are sometimes used by companies selling domain names - FICORA advises caution.
https://domain.fi/info/en/index/tietoa/ajankohtaista/2011/P_51.html
nl: The.nlyst 5 is out now
The fifth issue of The .nlyst – SIDN’s magazine for internet professionals and everyone with an interest in the .nl domain – was published this week. This edition focuses on our registrars and reveals the diversity of firms that offer .nl services to the public. The magazine is available to download from this website.
https://www.sidn.nl/en/news/news/article/thenlyst-5-beschikbaar-1/
Public invitation for Expression of Interest for consultancy services for preparation of RNIDS for certification under ISO 2700 standard
Register of National Internet Domain Names of Serbia (RNIDS), hereby invites interested consultants to express their intention to offer services for the preparation of RNIDS for certification under ISO 2700 standard.
rnids.rs/en/what-s-new/public-invitation-for-expression-of-interest-for-consultancy-services-for-preparation-of-rnids-for-certification-under-iso-2700-standard/id/3259
Have brand owners found an unlikely friend in .XXX? by Fred Felman
In a move that reinforces their communication of support for creating a brand rights holder-friendly environment, the ICM registry, who operate the .XXX registry, have begun to take independent and unique action to thwart brand abuse. According to this post in World Trademark Review, it appears that they have created their own way to act on obviously infringing names.
https://www.markmonitor.com/mmblog/have-brand-owners-found-an-unlikely-friend-in-xxx/
xxx: Whoops, There It Is!
ICM Registry, the company that administers the .XXX sTLD, announced this morning that it was suspending domain registrations "that appear to involve unmistakable, blatant cybersquatting." The announcement came in the wake of suspicious registrations for famous trademarked names including BusinessWeek.xxx, CNBC.xxx and WashingtonPost.xxx, among others. ICM's swift move to suspend the questionable registrations is commendable and shows that the registry is committed to protecting trademarks and enforcing its own policies.
www.domainnamestrategy.com/2011/12/14/whoops-there-it
xxx: Whoops, There It Is!
ICM Registry ... announced this morning that it was suspending domain registrations "that appear to involve unmistakable, blatant cybersquatting." The announcement came in the wake of suspicious registrations for famous trademarked names including BusinessWeek.xxx, CNBC.xxx and WashingtonPost.xxx, among others. ICM's swift move to suspend the questionable registrations is commendable and shows that the registry is committed to protecting trademarks and enforcing its own policies.
www.domainnamestrategy.com/2011/12/14/whoops-there-it
Manwin reminds affiliates not to register its trademarks in .xxx
Manwin isn’t going to protect its trademarks in .xxx by paying anything to ICM Registry, so it’s asking its affiliates not to register them, either.
domainnamewire.com/2011/12/16/manwin-reminds-affiliates-not-to-register-its-trademarks-in-xxx/
**********************
- NEW TLDS
**********************
FTC Warns That Rapid Expansion of Internet Domain Name System Could Leave Consumers More Vulnerable to Online Fraud
The Federal Trade Commission today sent a letter to ICANN expressing concern that the organization's plan to dramatically expand the domain name system could leave consumers more vulnerable to online fraud and undermine law enforcers' ability to track down online scammers.
ftc.gov/opa/2011/12/icann.shtm
FTC Raps ICANN's Increased Number of Domain Names Plan
FTC Raps ICANN Increased Number of Domain Names SchemeA plan by the custodians of the Internet that will dramatically increase the number of domains on the Net would make consumers more vulnerable to online fraud and impede the ability of law enforcement to bring cyber scammers to justice, according to a federal consumer watchdog agency.
www.pcworld.com/article/246486/ftc_raps_icanns_increased_number_of_domain_names_plan.html
FTC warns domain-name expansion poses ‘significant threat to consumers’
The Federal Trade Commission in a Friday letter urged ICANN to rethink its plan to allow for new domain-name endings, warning that the current plan could harm consumers and hamper law enforcement.
thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/200059-ftc-warns-domain-name-expansion-poses-significant-threat-to-consumers
Legal Brief - December 2011 - ICANN's New gTLD Program: Dates Are Set for More Clarity by Chase Marshall :: Sedo.com Legal Staff
ICANN’s new gTLD Program moves ahead as planned. With the application period scheduled to open in less than three months, important updates have been released for applicants. After a recent meeting in Dakar, Senegal, ICANN has agreed to establish a Trademark Clearinghouse, set important deadlines, and provided additional planning resources for gTLD applicants.
https://sedo.com/links/showlinks.php3?tracked=&partnerid=&language=us&Id=2942
United Nations, ITU, IMF, NATO and others ask for special protection in new gTLDs
The United Nations, ITU, IMF, NATO, OECD and 23 other international organizations have requested special protection in next year's expansion of the Internet.
news.dot-nxt.com/2011/12/14/igos-special-gtld-exemption
House subcommittee hearing on new gTLD program [reg req'd]
Below is a transcript of the House Commerce subcommittee hearing on new gTLDs on 14 December 2011.
news.dot-nxt.com/2011/12/14/house-gtlds-hearings-transcript
FTC and Congressmen argue for new gTLD scale-back
Political pressure to delay or limit the program for potentially thousands of new Internet extensions has further increased with not one but two highly critical letters from the US establishment.
news.dot-nxt.com/2011/12/17/ftc-goodlatte-berman-gtld-scale-back
IGOs plead for special new gTLD protections
Twenty-eight intergovernmental organizations, including the UN, ITU and WIPO, have asked ICANN for special protection for their acronyms in the new TLDs program.
domainincite.com/igos-plead-for-special-new-gtld-protections/
**********************
- DOMAIN DISPUTES
**********************
Typosquatting is huge but not dangerous, study finds
A study of typosquatted domain names has found that the practice is reaching pandemic levels for the largest brands, but that there’s surprisingly little malware distribution going on.
domainincite.com/typosquatting-is-huge-but-not-dangerous-study-finds/
Typosquatting - study reveals the real risks when you mistype a website's name [VIDEO]
Admit it. You've made mistakes when typing in the name of a website. Your fingers fumble over each other, and before you know it you're not on google.com but goole.com instead. It's an easy mistake to make and - inevitably - there are people waiting to take advantage of it.
nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/12/14/typosquatting-study-real-risks/
Typosquatting - what happens when you mistype a website name?
Paul Ducklin takes an in-depth look at the scale and the risk of the typosquatting industry: registering mis-spellings of popular domains in an attempt to profit from typing mistakes. Applying every possible one-character typo to the domain names of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple and Sophos, Ducklin collected HTTP data and browser screenshots from 1502 web sites and 14,495 URLs.
nakedsecurity.sophos.com/typosquatting/
Typosquatters have our typos covered
Typosquatting is the practice of registering a domain name that's slightly different from that of a heavily trafficked site in the hope of catching some accidental traffic. Research by a security company suggests there's a lot of it about, especially around major brands.
www.itwire.com/business-it-news/security/51829-typosquatters-have-our-typos-covered
How typosquatting scams work
Here is an actual example of typosquat hosts found in the wild and show how typosquatting scams work.
www.ciol.com/Security/Application-Security/News-Reports/How-typosquatting-scams-work/157818/0/
Typosquatted Domain Names Pose Plenty of Risk But Surprisingly Little Malware
A recent study took an in-depth look at the scale and the risk of domain name typosquatting — the practice of registering mis-spellings of popular domain names in an attempt to profit from typing mistakes. "Applying every possible one-character typo to the domain names of Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple and Sophos," Paul Ducklin, Sophos' Asia Pacific head of technology collected HTTP data and browser screenshots from 1502 web sites and 14,495 URLs.
www.circleid.com/posts/20111215_typosquatted_domain_names_pose_plenty_of_risk_little_malware/
**********************
- MISCELLANEOUS
**********************
Judiciary Postpones Final Action On Net Piracy Bill
After two days of acrimonious debate, the House Judiciary Committee postponed further action on Friday on a bipartisan bill that would authorize new tools for tackling the growing problem of online piracy and counterfeit goods on foreign websites.
techdailydose.nationaljournal.com/2011/12/judiciary-set-to-resume-work-o.php
Stop Online Piracy Act vote delayed
The House Judiciary Committee considering whether to send the Stop Online Piracy Act to the House floor abruptly adjourned Friday with no new vote date set—a surprise given that the bill looked certain to pass out of committee today.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/stop-online-piracy-act-vote-delayed-probably-well-into-2012.ars
Sopa battle hots up as US Congress debates piracy bill
Hollywood's most powerful executives and Silicon Valley's billionaires have been glued to the goings-on in a frills-free Washington committee room.
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/15/sopa-bill-congress-online-piracy
Hollywood Tries to Wash the Web with SOPA - The Stop Online Piracy Act aims to stop illegal streaming. It won’t
In the spring of 1982 a House of Representatives subcommittee decamped to Los Angeles to hold hearings about a new gadget called the VCR. Movie studios believed home viewing of feature films would destroy theaters and, ultimately, their entire industry, and they wanted Congress to do something to stop it. The late Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, warned the committee, “The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.” Home video is now Hollywood’s most profitable business.
www.businessweek.com/magazine/hollywood-tries-to-wash-the-web-with-sopa-12152011.html
Vint Cerf: SOPA means 'unprecedented censorship' of the Web
Vint Cerf, the legendary computer scientist who's known as one of the fathers of the Internet for his work on TCP/IP, is the latest technologist to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act.
news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57344028-281/vint-cerf-sopa-means-unprecedented-censorship-of-the-web/
Free Speech's Weak Links Under Internet Blacklist Bills
The Internet Blacklist bills — the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) — would have a disastrous effect on online freedom of speech. In order to understand the ways a site placed on the blacklist could be denied a chance to connect with an audience, we’ve used our Free Speech is Only as Strong as the Weakest Link chart.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/free-speechs-weak-links-under-internet-blacklist-bills
SOPA Undermines the U.S. in Its Negotiations for a Free, Open Internet
Yesterday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) approved an influential Recommendation on Principles for Internet Policy Making. It contains a set of 14 principles intended as a blueprint guiding Internet policy development for its 34 member states and Egypt.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/sopa-undermines-united-states-oecd-negotiations-free-open-internet
Internet Society Joins Opposition to Stop Online Piracy Act [news release]
The Internet Society Board of Trustees has expressed concern with a number of U.S. legislative proposals that would mandate DNS blocking and filtering by ISPs to protect the interests of copyright holders.
www.internetsociety.org/news/internet-society-joins-opposition-stop-online-piracy-act-sopa
Lines Drawn on Antipiracy Bills
Type “download movies for free” into Google, and up pops links to sites like the Pirate Bay, directing users to free copies of just about any entertainment — the latest “Twilight” installment, this week’s episode of “Whitney,” the complete recordings of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/technology/lines-are-drawn-on-legislation-against-internet-piracy.html
Stopping SOPA's Anti-Circumvention by Wendy Seltzer
The House's Stop Online Piracy Act is in Judiciary Committee Markup today. As numerous protests, open letters, and advocacy campaigns across the Web, this is a seriously flawed bill. Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Darrell Issa's proposed OPEN Act points out, by contrast, some of the procedural problems. Here, I analyze just one of the problematic provisions of SOPA: a new"anticircumvention" provision
www.circleid.com/posts/20111215_stopping_sopas_anti_circumvention/
Net founders fight piracy law with 'censorship' claim
The founders of Google, Twitter and eBay have signed a strongly worded letter criticising controversial US legislation ahead of a debate in Congress. The Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) aims to slash the amount of pirated content on the internet.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16195344
Community Consultation – ARIN’s WhoWas Service
ARIN is currently offering a trial WhoWas service that will provide historical registration information for a given IP address or ASN. This trial period will run until the production system is deployed, and will serve to provide much needed data to assist ARIN in defining the scope and use for this service.
https://www.arin.net/announcements/2011/20111212.html
Andy Linton appointed to ASO AC
The APNIC EC is pleased to announce that Andy Linton has been appointed to the NRO NC / ASO AC
www.apnic.net/publications/news/2011/linton-aso-2012
APNIC Appoints Andy Linton to NRO NC
APNIC is pleased to announce that Andy Linton has been appointed as a representative to the Number Resource Organization (NRO) Number Council (NC) for the APNIC region for a one-year term starting 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2012.
www.nro.net/news/apnic-appoints-andy-linton-to-nro-nc
**********************
- DOMAINING & AFTERMARKET
**********************
A Trio of Six-Figure Sales Sets the Pace in Another Busy Week for the Domain Aftermarket
Domain buyers were out in force this past week, ringing up more than two dozen reported sales at five figures or more. Three of those cracked the six-figure mark, led by a pair of sales at GoDaddyAuctions - #1 PokerBonus.com at $110,508 and #2 Lela.com at $100,463.
dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2011/20111214.htm
Back to the Future: After a Domain Conference Shakeout T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Shines in 2011 Show on Fort Lauderdale Beach Equilibrium has finally been restored on the domain conference circuit. In the first few years after T.R.A.F.F.I.C. started it all back in the fall of 2004, domain conferences were special events that people often spent an entire year looking forward to. Successful innovators always attract competition though and by 2009 we were crisscrossing the U.S., and even the Atlantic Ocean, to cover six different shows put on by various promoters in just the first six months of that year.
dnjournal.com/cover/2011/october.htm
DomainDiscover joins the SedoMLS Premium network! This month saw the addition of registrar DomainDiscover to the SedoMLS Premium Network. SedoMLS Premium partners like DomainDiscover help your domain listings reach the widest possible audience of interested buyers. Now, any domain registered with DomainDiscover can be listed in the SedoMLS Premium network.
https://sedo.com/links/showlinks.php3?tracked=&partnerid=&language=us&Id=2941
© .au Domain Administration Limited ABN - 38 079 009 340.
