ICANN Meetings This Week in San Juan - ICANN meetings are taking place in San Juan, Puerto Rico until Friday, June 29. The meeting website includes agendas, times, speakers and copies of presentations, and issues to be considered include new gTLDs, registrant protection, GNSO improvements, and IDNs. In the days just prior to the meetings, ICANN has published several documents and reports, including: 

• draft management operating principles for community consultation
• a ccNSO working group report on the ICANN geographical regions
• a summary and analysis of responses to the request for comments on ICANN's performance
• draft IDN evaluation plans
• a call for comments on GNSO improvements
• IDN program status report
• a statement on proposed next steps for IDN deployment in the root zone

Business.com For Sale - The Wall Street Journal Online reports that the business.com domain and site are for sale, and could be worth up to $400 million. The name had been bought by two entrepreneurs in 1999 for $7.5 million.

.CN Domain Becomes Third Largest ccTLD - China's Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), registry for China's .cn domain, has announced that the number of registered .cn domain names has reached more 5.3 million. It is now the third largest country-code Top-Level Domain, following Germany's .de and Britain's .uk.

Picks To Click

• The auDA Foundation seeks applications for its second round of grants.
• A petition against domain name parking, and a comment by Mark Jeftovic.

Utube Lawsuit Stays Alive But Some Claims Dismissed - In the lawsuit by Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment (utube.com) against YouTube, Inc. (youtube.com), the court has dismissed several of the claims including trademark infringement and trespass to chattels. The court found that the trespass claim required physical contact but that it is not possible to trespass intangible property. Other claims including unfair competition and deceptive trade practices remain active.

Picks To Click

• The Hartz Mountain Corporation wins a dispute over hartz.ca.
• New Zealands's .nz registry operator has begun introducing IPv6 connectivity for its nameservers.

Worldwide Domain Registrations Reach 128 Million - VeriSign's quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief reports that the total number of domain registrations worldwide has reached 128 million, a 31% increase during the previous year. The number of .com/.net domain names grew to 69 million, a 28% increase year over year and 6% quarter over quarter. CcTLD names grew at 33% year over year and 5% quarter over quarter.

Nominet Launches Best Practice Challenge - Nominet has initiated the Nominet Best Practice Challenge 2007, which will recognize UK organizations "which follow the core themes identified by the Internet Governance Forum: Security, Access, Openness and Diversity." Winners will be announced at a parliamentary event in October.

Picks To Click

• Michael Geist criticizes the lack of progress, including CIRA's, toward internationalized domain names (IDNs).
• As of October, the .es registry for Spain will allow domain names using accented characters associated with Spanish and the other languages of Spain.
• A Financial Post article on British Columbia's domainers.
• Information on the ICANN meetings on June 25-29 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

RegisterFly Domains Being Transferred to GoDaddy - Registrar GoDaddy.com has reached an agreement with RegisterFly, which had had its registrar accreditation terminated by ICANN, to transfer RegisterFly's portfolio of domain names to GoDaddy.com. ICANN has welcomed the announcement.

.TRAVEL Registry Gets Reprieve - SEC documents indicate that Michael Egan, president of Theglobe.com, has lent $250,000 to the company with the possibility of increasing the loan to $3 million. The company had previously filed documents stating that it might not be able to fund its operations beyond May 2007 unless it received additional capital. Theglobe.com owns Tralliance which operates the .travel domain. (Thanks to John Levine's blog.)

Picks To Click

• The website for Kieran McCarthy's book "Sex.com: One Domain, Two Men, Twelve Years and the Brutal Battle for the Jewel in the Internet's Crown".
• ICANN posts procedures for test IDN deployment in the root zone.
• SnapNames is being acquired by Oversee.net.
• Stratton Sclavos has resigned from VeriSign as CEO and member of the Board.