Tag Archives: .POST

Domain Name Registrants, Domain Name Registrars, ICANN and Governance, New gTLDs

Daily Wrap: .POST Goes Live, Go Daddy Denies Front Running, .HOTEL Objections, 3 gTLD Applications Withdrawn

A new gTLD came into existence this month with the .POST gTLD entering the root of the internet. The gTLD was first approved in December 2009 and there has been a project underway to get it operational since then. In June 2012 Afilias was chosen as the .POST registry operator.

Go Daddy was recently accused of misusing customer domain name search activity for profit by a blogger. And on a posting on the Inside Go Daddy blog, the company vehemently denied they have anything to do with front running, saying they never have “and never will front run domain names. Ever.”

The process is called domain name front running and it means a registrar monitors customer searches and then registers the domain names for their own purposes.

The posting asks “why would someone believe they experienced front running?” And then answers saying “sheer volume. As the world’s largest registrar, the volume of domain name activity, both in terms of availability searches and registrations we see, is significant. Go Daddy performs tens of millions of availability checks for our customers each day, many of which are searches for the same domain name by different customers.”

“In fact, more than six percent of customer searches for available domain names are performed by more than one person each day. This overlap in domain name requests happens every day. As unique as customers believe their domain name ideas are, there’s more ‘innovation collision’ than many people realize. With so many domain name registrations happening every day, there is a good probability a domain name you searched for is also being searched by someone else.”

Some of the world’s major hotel chains are planning to object to six of the seven .HOTEL gTLD applications, along with applications for .HOTELS, .HOTEIS and .HOTELES, Domain Incite reported.

The coalition of hotel chains says “they want the Independent Objector to object to these applications on community grounds. Failing that, they’ll file their own official Community Objections.”

The “coalition’s members include the Choice Hotels, InterContinental, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Starwood and Wyndham hotel chains. Together, they say they have over 25,000 hotels in over 100 countries.” The applicant that has gained the support of the hotel coalition is DOTHOTEL.

Domain Incite is also speculating that it is Google that has withdrawn three of its gTLD applications with the likely gTLDs withdrawn being .AND, .ARE and .EST, “the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes for the United Arab Emirates, Estonia and Andorra, which would be classified as country names and therefore banned by the Applicant Guidebook.”

Last week ICANN hosted a webinar that Domain Incite participated in which revealed, among other things, in addition to the three gTLD applications that have been withdrawn, there have been 49 requests to change applications, the vast majority of applications will receive clarifying questions with around 90 per cent receiving clarifying questions on financial status and around half of geographic applications not yet supplying letters of support from the relevant government.

Ram Mohan has been reappointed as the Security and Stability Advisory Committee non-voting liaison to the ICANN Board with the new term commencing at the conclusion of the 2012 annual meeting. Mohan commenced this role in 2009. Mohan is Executive Vice President, & Chief Technology Officer of Afilias.

Domain Name Registry, ICANN and Governance

ICANN: .post Agreement Amendment

ICANN logoPurpose (Brief): ICANN is posting today for public comment the Universal Postal Union (UPU) request to amend its Sponsorship TLD agreement to remove the requirement to reserve the “previously-reserved IANA domain strings” at the second level. This change in the agreement means that .post would be allowed to register, for example, biz.post, com.post, uk.post, etc. Comments may be submitted through 9 May 2012.

You may access the Public Forum here.

Public Comment Box Link: www.icann.org/en/news/public-comment/post-amendment-2012-09apr12-en.htm

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-2-09apr12-en.htm

ICANN and Governance

ICANN Signs Two Historic Agreements with UN Agencies

ICANN logoICANN and the Swiss-based Universal Postal Union (UPU) have signed a historic agreement giving the UPU managing authority over .post as a top-level domain. This agreement came about after long negotiations, public review through ICANN’s public comment process, and consideration by ICANN’s Board of Directors. An equal level of effort was required from representatives of the UPU. The result is what may be the first truly secure top-level domain for the provision of services by the UPU member states.

“We are terribly excited about the emergence of .post as the newest generic top-level domain,” ICANN CEO and President Rod Beckstrom stated at the U.N. office in Geneva during a news conference immediately following the signing of the contract. “This contract with the UPU is an important contribution to the Internet. It is part of our desire to provide a single interoperable communications network that can connect all people around the globe. It also strengthens ICANN’s role as a leader in dealing with IGOs.”

UPU Director General Edouard Dayan said the .post project is an important initiative for developing and providing secure and trusted postal services over the Internet.

At the highest conceptual level, the agreement represents linking the top-level of the Internet’s Domain Name System with the real-world physical networks of the postal system, with 600,000 global physical offices and proximity to most humans. To enable its customers to take advantage of the services the UPU envisions for .post, the UPU is already installing the first computers in many villages in their local post offices to provide those services, which can include:

  • Hybrid email; that is, email that turns into physical mail at the post office nearest the recipient. Imagine you want to send a message to an 85-year-old aunt in Switzerland who does not use email. Hybrid mail would transform your email into a letter at your aunt’s national or nearby post office. As an analogy, think of turning emails into telegrams.
  • Cybersecurity services that link authenticated addresses and personal knowledge to strengthen identities on the Internet.
  • New types of financial services.

It is at the UPU’s discretion to set technical standards for national postal systems to join the network.

ICANN and the Swiss-based Universal Postal Union (UPU) have signed a historic agreement giving the UPU managing authority over .post as a top-level domain.

ICANN and the Swiss-based Universal Postal Union (UPU) sign a historic agreement giving the UPU managing authority over .post as a top-level domain.

In addition to the UPU-ICANN contract, ICANN also entered into another important agreement the day before in Paris with another U.N. entity, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The UNESCO-ICANN cooperation agreement is intended to assist with the process of expanding the adoption of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). IDNs are non-Latin based characters that can now be used on a limited initial basis in the top-level domain portion of an Internet address name, which is that portion of the name that is to the right of the dot, such as .com.

“IDNs might well lead to a huge expansion of Internet users among many who have previously felt estranged from the online world by their inability to use their native language,” said Mr Beckstrom. “This agreement with UNESCO will assist the inclusion of as many language groups as possible and, in the process, it will help ICANN fulfil its mission of global inclusivity by expanding our wide arena of international stakeholders.”

UNESCO and ICANN sign partnership agreement to promote linguistic diversity on Internet

UNESCO and ICANN sign partnership agreement to promote linguistic diversity on Internet

To access an audio recording of today’s UPU-ICANN news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, go to
audio.icann.org/meetings/upu-signing-geneva-11dec09-en.mp3.

To see pictures from UPU-ICANN signing, go to
www.flickr.com/photos/seiitiarata/sets/72157622979405570/.

To see pictures from the UNESCO-ICANN signing, go to
www.flickr.com/photos/seiitiarata/sets/72157622978859354/.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-11dec09-en.htm