Domain Name News – February 10, 2008

ICANN Meetings Under Way In New Delhi – The ICANN meetings in New Delhi continue until Friday, February 15. Among other topics the meetings will include: a discussion of the review of the Joint Project Agreement between ICANN and the U.S. Government, a workshop on fast-tracking a limited number of IDN ccTLDs, and a workshop on ICANN’s planning for what happens if a Registrar were to cease operating. An online participation website is available, and some sessions will be webcast.

ICANN Posts Budget Framework For 2009 Fiscal Year – ICANN has posted its initial operating plan and budget framework for the 2009 fiscal year, which starts on July 1. Revenue is forecast to grow from $52 million this year to $61 million, an increase of approximately 17%. Expenses are forecast to grow from $42 million this year to $57 million, an increase of more than 35%. More than $10 million of the increase is related to new gTLDs and IDN activities.

NeuStar and Afilias Propose Changes to Curb Domain Tasting – In an attempt to stop abuse of the five-day Add Grace Period (AGP) on new domain registrations, NeuStar and Afilias, operators of the .biz and .info registries respectively, have proposed changes to limit the number of deletions during the AGP for which a registrar could receive a full registration fee credit. The limit would be a maximum of 50 deletions per month or 10% of that registrar’s net new monthly domain name registrations, whichever is greater. The ICANN Registrar community is currently discussing a similar proposal.

Record Price Paid For .UK Domain Name – The holder of cruise.co.uk has paid a record price of 560,000 pounds for the domain cruises.co.uk. The buyer said it was necessary to retain dominance in the ocean cruising market.

Picks To Click

• HRB Royalty, Inc., one of the H & R Block family of companies, wins a dispute over rapidrefund.ca.
• The .MOBI registry is auctioning 14 premium names on February 20.
• IPv6 host records have been added for several of the root DNS servers.
• IPv4 address depletion is approaching, even though ICANN has had some success in recovering a block of addresses. A survey of IT professionals indicates that only 16% consider address depletion a huge concern.
• “International Domain Name Law”, a book by David Lindsay.

Timeline

• Sun, Feb 10 – Fri, Feb 15: ICANN meetings in New Delhi, India
• Fri, Feb 15: last day for submissions to midpoint review of NTIA/ICANN agreement
• Wed, Feb 20 – Wed, Mar 12: .asia domain landrush
• Web, Feb 20: .mobi registry to auction 14 premium domains
• Tue, Feb 26: last day for comments on fast-tracking a limited number of IDN ccTLDs
• Thu, Feb 28: U.S. DoC public meeting on ICANN Joint Project Agreement
• Fri, Mar 7: last day for comments on the effect of new gTLDs on the DNS
• Wed, Mar 26: .asia domain first-come-first-served registrations begin
• Tue, Apr 15: last day for applications to the ICANN Nominating Comittee
• Sun, Jun 22 – Fri, Jun 27: ICANN meetings in Paris, France