John DemcoHere is a summary of some recent domain name items: VeriSign has published its quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief. The number of domain name registrations has grown to 162 million, a 26% annual increase. A number of ICANN-controlled domains including icann.com and iana.com were hijacked and redirected briefly on June 26. ICANN has issued a…
John DemcoMcAfee Maps the Malicious Web – McAfee has published its annual assessment of malicious websites around the world. The report estimates the percentage of risky websites in a number of TLDs, based on safety assessments from McAfee’s SiteAdvisor web safety database. Overall, 4.1% of websites are rated as risky. The .com domain comes in at…
John DemcoPicks To Click• The agenda of the June 3, 2008 meeting of the CIRA Board of Directors• New open source DNS software, Unbound has been released• Ireland’s .ie domain has surpassed 100,000 registrations• The .au registry has introduced changes to its domain transfer policy, and on June 25 the .uk registry will introduce an…
John DemcoICANN Posts Draft 2008-2009 Budget – ICANN has posted its draft operating plan and budget for 2008-2009. Total expenses are budgeted to be $US 58.5 million, a 37% increase over the current fiscal year’s budget of $42.6 million. Picks To Click The Domain Game, a book by David Kesmodel. An article on domain entrepreneur Kevin…
John DemcoCIRA Issues Operations Update in Advance of WHOIS Changes – The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has issued an operations update effective June 10. Many of the changes are amendments to legal documents related to the WHOIS service. Under the new policy, public availability of individual registrants’ personal information will no longer be required. .ORG…
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 Thursday, May 29. The election will…
John DemcoNominet Board Involves Itself in Board Election – Nominet Board members have taken the unusual step of contacting the organization’s membership “about the future independence of Nominet”. A letter, sent during the organization’s Board elections which close on April 30, points out that three Board candidates propose a distribution of Nominet’s accumulated profits, but that…
John DemcoICANN GNSO Passes Anti-Tasting Resolution – The Council of ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organization has passed a resolution which could effectively kill domain tasting, the practice of registering many domain names and then using the five-day Add Grace Period to cancel for refund those which don’t get enough traffic. The new policy would limit the…
John Demco.CA Domain Surpasses One Million Registrations – The .ca domain surpassed one million active registrations on April 11. Subsequently the number as posted on the CIRA website has fallen slightly below the one million mark, due to normal domain expiries which may often exceed new registrations on weekends. The number is expected to surpass and…
John DemcoICANN Approves Changes to .INFO and .BIZ Registry Agreements – The ICANN Board has approved requests from NeuStar and Afilias, operators of the .biz and .info registries respectively, intended to curb domain tasting. The changes limit the number of deletions during the five-day Add Grace Period (AGP) that a registrar can execute and receive a…
John Demco.COM and .NET Registry Fees To Increase – VeriSign has announced that as of October 1, the registry fee for .com domain names will increase from $USD 6.42 to $6.86, an increase of 7%. Also, the fee for .net domain names will increase from $3.85 to $4.23, an increase of 10%. Individual registrars will decide…
John Demco.CA Registry Launches One Million Domain Countdown – The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has launched a campaign to celebrate the registration of one million dot-ca domain names, with the milestone expected in April. The campaign website onemilliondomains.ca features dot-ca facts, a trivia challenge, and profiles on a number of dot-ca sites. .XXX Domain Proponent…
John DemcoMore Than 500,000 Applications At Close of .ASIA Landrush – The .asia Landrush period ended on March 13. The total number of domain applications was 505,838, including applications received during Landrush and the earlier Sunrise and Pioneer periods. During Sunrise and Landrush, 46,748 domains received more than one application and will go to auction. The…
John DemcoWorldwide Domain Registrations Climb To More Than 153 Million In 2007 – According to VeriSign’s quarterly Domain Name Industry Brief, at the close of 2007 there were more than 153 million domain name registrations worldwide, a 27% annual increase. The number of .com and .net domain names surpassed 80 million, a 24% increase; and ccTLD…
John DemcoNetwork Solutions Sued Over Domain Front Running – A class action lawsuit has been filed against Network Solutions for domain front running. ICANN is also named in the suit filed by Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP. According to the law firm’s press release: “Whenever someone searches for the availability of a domain name through Network Solutions’…
