“All this has happened before, and all this will happen again“. – Battlestar Galactica (Pythia).

Back in 2001, a company called New.net published a piece of software (.dll file) which enabled people to resolve domain extensions such as .xxx .law .kids and .church and many others. They also teamed up with ISP’s to provide the service. Check it out yourself at archive.org (and before you ask, it wasn’t me who did the johnson.family that’s in the middle of the page).

In any case, these “domains” were not real TLD’s, as we know them today. Many people called them subdomains or an “alternative DNS root”. This wasn’t the first time that these extensions appeared either; Eugene Kashpureff ran Alternic in the mid 90′s, and directly challenged Internic. That was actually fun to watch. Alternic also had .xxx too.

Here are a few extensions that New.Net were marketing back then:

agent
arts
auction
chat
church
club
family
free
game
gmbh
golf
hola
inc
kids
law
llc
llp
love
ltd
med
mp3
school
scifi
shop
soc
sport
tech
travel
video
xxx

Why is this relevant today? The ICANN board meets to discuss .XXX. Will they approve it after all these years? I’m guessing they will. This whole debate has gone on long enough.

Got some new ideas for a gTLD?

The Australian Government has released a Fact Sheet on ICANN’s new gTLD process. The purpose is to raise community awareness and allow interested people the opportunity to feed comments back to the Government.

A spokesperson from the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) told Domainer Income that the Australian Government “is not conducting a formal consultation with a set time frame“, however DBCDE “will consider any comments received“.

Its known that many Governments, including Australia, provide advice to ICANN on matters of interest or concern through the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). However, final decision making authority ultimately rests with the ICANN Board.

The Australian Government is an active member of the GAC, and has been since its inception in 1999. Officers from the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy represent the Australian Government in the GAC. Note that ICANN meets three times a year and right now, the GAC is meeting in Brussels.

This presents many Domain Investors with a unique opportunity to provide feedback directly to the Australian government, without going through auDA. The reason I mention that, is because auDA holds the “delegation of authority for administration of the au ccTLD” on behalf of the Commonwealth (of Australia).

As such, I’d STRONGLY encourage everyone to submit questions, comments and/or concerns – about ICANN’s proposal to the following:

Via Email: newgTLDs at DBCDE.gov.au

In Writing:

The Director
Internet Governance, IPND and Numbering Team
Department of Broadband, Communications
and the Digital Economy
GPO Box 2154
Canberra ACT 2601

Feel free to post a comment and let everyone know you made a submission.

ICANN has released its 2009 Annual Report over the Christmas / New Years period (just when nobody was looking).

Here is one very interesting paragraph on private registrations. “ICANN has obtained preliminary results of its study of domain names, registered among the top five gTLDs, which appear to have been registered using a privacy or proxy service. ICANN published preliminary findings on its website (that 15-25% of these domain name registrations used these services) and will seek validation of the study’s findings with the registrars of record for those domain names.“  Of course, some would call that an invasion of privacy. The results will make an interesting read….

Overall, the 2009 report is a goldmine of breach notices, consumer complaints, terminations and non-renewals – far too many to list here. If need some humorous bedtime reading you can download it directly.

ICANN has released the second update to the GNSO Council on the implementation of its recommendations for the Add Grace Period (AGP) Limits Policy.

Since April 2009 (when ICANN implemented policy to interfere with a free market), “the number of AGP deletes across all TLDs has held steady at around 55-65k names per month approximately 0.3% of what it once was”.

As we suspected, ICANN has hired Rod Beckstrom as its new CEO. If you look at the House of Reps grilling of ICANN, there was an underlying theme of “security”, so this appointment doesn’t exactly come as a shock.

Beckstrom spent less than 12 months in the Department of Homeland Security, where he was the Director of the National Cybersecurity Centre. Now ICANN is plugging him as an Internet Security expert! Oh, give me a break!

I don’t believe that less than 12 months in a bureaucratic job puts you in the “expert category”, particularly when you  resign after  “after learning that orders were canceled for computers, network equipment, furniture and office space in Arlington slated for his group.”

While Beckstrom officially reported “to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom said he has not yet had a meeting with her.” Here is his resignation letter.

Fast forward another 4 months to today, where he goes on the record saying “I do want to really understand how the IANA (Internet Assigned Names Authority contract) works, how the DNS system works.” Ummmm… this does not exactly inspire confidence! Shouldnt you know this already? But you are supposed to be an Internet security expert and you don’t know how DNS works! WTF?

Beckstrom is touting himself as this honest, straight talking guy, so lets see if he does the right thing and cancels these proposed gTLD’s. Action speaks louder than words.

According to Viviane Reding, commissioner for Information Society and Media, ICANN is approaching a historic point in its development, posing the question of whether to become a fully independent organization, accountable to the global internet community. “Europeans would expect so, and this is what we will push for. I call on the US to work together with the EU to achieve this,” Reding said.

September 30 will be a decisive day, as the agreement between ICANN and the US Department of Commerce will expire. The result may result in a more open and independent governance of the internet – or not.

I’d note this ICANN “Return for organisation exempt from income tax” which lists “Paul Twomey (CEO), $691,610 ($255,649 contribution to employee benefit plans)”. Like many people, I think that’s a bit too much for a not for profit. However, the theory goes, that if you want to attract the best talent, then you have to pay the big $$$. I did say theory didn’t I?

Via: VUNET

The U.S. House Of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet recently met to examine issues related to ICANN, including the expiring JPA (Joint Project Agreement) between the Department of Commerce and ICANN, as well as ICANN’s proposed introduction of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs).

What Happened?

It was quite entertaining. See for yourself; we have preserved this historical grilling session here:

Feel free to rate the video and post comments.

Documents

Chair Boucher’s Opening Statement

Chair Waxman’s Opening Statement

Testimony of Fiona Alexander, Associate Administrator, Office of International Affairs, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce

Testimony of Paul Twomey, President and CEO, ICANN

Testimony of Kenneth J. Silva, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, VeriSign

Testimony of Christine N. Jones, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, The Go Daddy Group, Inc

Testimony of Sarah Deutsch, Vice President & Associate General Counsel, Verizon Communications

Testimony of Thomas M. Lenard, President and Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute

ICANN has allowed .biz domain registry NeuStar to grant 1 and 2 character second-level .biz domain names. The domains will be available via an RFP process, with any ungranted domains available via auction.

For more details, check out this article in Kikabink News.

The nation of Iraq may make a leap into the Internet community with the extension .iq. Iraqi chairman of The National Communications & Media Commission (Siyamend Othmend) said the domain name would allow Iraqis to “stake a virtual flag” in the world of the Web.

The chairman also stated in a letter to ICANN, “It is “an important tangible and symbolic milestone for this nation, as well as the freedom and hopes of the Iraqi people”.

A recent survey cited by the U.S.-led administration in Iraq found that about 6% of Iraqis say they have access to the Internet but fewer than 2% use it regularly.

Source: USA Today

This is the live video webcast of the ICANN hearing. Check it out NOW.