Domain Name News - March 4, 2012

Here is a selection of recent items:

ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) has issued “SSAC Report on Dotless Domains” [pdf]. A “dotless domain” is a domain name consisting of a single label. The possible introduction of new gTLDs has raised the possibility of such labels appearing alone, e.g. in URLs or email addresses. The SSAC report analyzes the issue, and recommends strongly against the use of dotless domains.
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has strongly warned against giving the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) control of the governance of the Internet.
ICANN is calling for comments on a new proposal to extend new gTLD protections to the International Olympic Committee and the Red Cross/Red Crescent. Presently the new gTLD applicant guidebook provides protection to identical matches of certain IOC and RCRC terms. The proposal would extend protection to confusingly similar strings, and in all foreign languages. Both the process and the content of the proposal are coming under criticism.
The full schedule of the ICANN meetings to be held in San Jose, Costa Rica starting on Sunday, March 11 has been posted.
On February 21, CIRA released .CA Factbook, a collection of facts about .CA and the global domain name industry.

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