CIRA Calls For Nominations For Board Election - The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has a issued a call for individuals to be considered by the Nomination Committee for the Board of Directors election to be held this September. The last day for applications to the Nomination Committee is Monday, May 21. The 2007 election, to be held this September, will be a split ballot composed of candidates selected by the Nomination Committee and nominated directly by Members. The Member nomination process will take place during July.

CIRA Issues Fraud Alert - CIRA has issued a fraud alert, advising .ca domain holders not to respond to communications from DAD Deutscher Adressdienst GmbH, a German company, under the confusing banner of the Registre Internet du Canada (Canadian Internet Registry). According to CIRA: "The scam is targeting CIRA Registrants in Quebec with French language faxes or letters containing official looking forms requesting Registrant contact information. While the forms appear to be required to update domain name Registration records, they are actually luring unsuspecting Registrants into a $1457 package of marketing services offered by DAD Deutscher Adressdienst GmbH."

ICANN Proceeding With RegisterFly Termination - A US Federal Court judge has issued a preliminary injunction granting ICANN the right to terminate registrar RegisterFly's accreditation as soon as possible. RegisterFly has been ordered to provide current and accurate data for all of its domain names. ICANN is inviting statements of interest from other accredited registrars to act as a transfer provider, to temporarily hold the domain names and help registrants to transfer to any accredited registrar of their choice. The court decision also requires RegisterFly to post a notice on its website; as of this writing, this has not been done.

.BIZ Registry Price To Increase - NeuStar, registry operator for the .biz domain, has given notice of a 7% price increase, from $USD 6.00 to $6.42. The increase is scheduled to take effect on October 19. Individual registrars will decide whether or not to change their retail prices.

Picks To Click

• The 2007 board election is under way for Nominet, the .uk registry.

More Registry Price Increases - Following VeriSign's registry price increases announced for .com and .net, Public Interest Registry and Afilias have announced registry-level price increases for .org and .info names, respectively. The increases for each are 2.5%, from $US 6.00 to $6.15, and will take effect in October. Individual registrars will decide whether or not to change their retail prices.

.ASIA Domain To Launch - DotAsia Organization, registry operator for the .asia domain for the Asia/Pacific region, will begin accepting .asia domain name applications in June. According to DotAsia documents, the launch will begin with a sunrise process separated into three main phases: the first for governments, the second for Registered Mark owners, and the third for registered companies.

.EU Domain Is One Year Old - The .eu domain for Europe has turned one year old, and has more than 2.5 million registrations. It is the third most popular European TLD, after .uk and .de.

Picks To Click

* GoDaddy.com, Inc. wins a dispute over godaddy.ca.

* The agenda of the April 24, 2007 meeting of the CIRA Board of Directors.

ICANN Board Rejects .XXX Domain Application - By a 9-5 vote with one abstention, the ICANN Board has rejected the .xxx domain application from ICM Registry. The decision came nearly seven years after the proposal was first made. ICM Registry is reportedly considering court action.

VeriSign To Raise .COM/.NET Registry Fees - VeriSign has announced that as of Oct. 15, the registry fee for .com domain names will increase by 7% from $USD 6.00 to $6.42, and that the fee for .net domain names will increase by 10% from $3.50 to $3.85.

Major .AU Policy Changes Being Considered - auDA, Australia's .au domain administrator, is considering changes to .au policy, including: allowing second-level registrations (e.g. xyz.au), changes to .au eligibility and allocation policy rules, and allowing registrants to sell their .au domain names. As part of the process, an online survey is being conducted.

Picks To Click

• A summary of the busy ICANN meetings at Lisbon, Portugal.
• ICANN's current information on the RegisterFly situation.
• The minutes of the February 27, 2007 meeting of the CIRA Board of Directors, including approval of a compensation package for Board members as supported by a membership consultation.
• A tutorial [PDF] by Rob Hall of Momentous.ca on how the marketplace for expiring domain names has changed.
• The optional .eu registrar Code of Conduct is in effect as of March 29.
• The .info domain has surpassed 4 million registrations.
• Yellow Pages Group loses [PDF] a dispute over yellowpage.ca.
• The Motley Fool Inc. loses a dispute over fools.com.