John Demco
ICANN Publishes New gTLD Program Contention Sets – ICANN has completed the contention sets for the New gTLD Program. A contention set is a group of two or more gTLD applications containing identical or visually similar gTLD strings. In addition to 230 exact match contention sets, ICANN has published two non-exact match contention sets in ASCII: .hotels and .hoteis, and .unicorn and .unicom. It has also identified two IDN contention sets: 盛贸饭店 and 盛貿飯店, and 点看 and 點看.
CIRA To Hold Member Event in Vancouver – The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) will hold an event for CIRA Members from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT on March 25 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Vancouver. The event will be an opportunity to meet other Members, to engage with CIRA Board members and staff, and to discuss Internet issues and upcoming CIRA initiatives.
Nominet Decides Not To Proceed With “Direct.uk” – Nominet, registry for the .uk domain, has decided not to proceed with a proposal to accept second-level .uk domain registrations, e.g. direct.uk. Among other things, many respondents to a consultation felt “that the release mechanism did not give enough weighting to existing registrants, and could lead to confusion if they could not obtain the corresponding domain.” Nominet will consider revising the proposal.
Picks To Click
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Michael Berkens comments on a number of similar and possibly confusing
new gTLD strings which were not put into contention sets by ICANN. - Neustar has given notice that the registry fee for .biz domains will increase to USD $8.63 on September 1. Also, Afilias has given notice that the registry fee for .info domains will increase to USD $8.16 on the same date.
- The Public Interest Registry has published its bi-annual report The Dashboard outlining the growth of the .org domain during the second half of 2012.
Timeline
- Wed, Mar 13: Objection period for new gTLD strings closes
- Sun, Apr 7 – Thu, Apr 11: ICANN meetings in Beijing
- Mon, Jul 1: .org registry fee increases
- Sun, Sep 1: .biz, .info registry fees increase