In the last couple of days there's been some media coverage in Ireland of a case involving a small Irish business and Lady Gaga. Some people are crying foul and accusing Lady Gaga and her lawyers of being heavy-handed and that their actions were tantamount to bullying. While the Irish Independent's coverage of the story is comprehensive I wanted to dig a little deeper as … [Read more...] about Is Lady Gaga A Trademark Bully?
ccTLDs
IEDR Hiring
The IEDR is hiring to fill a couple of roles. One of the roles is "Registration Services Administrator" which sounds like an entry level position (€23k / year) processing new domain name registrations and transfers: Reviewing, authenticating and processing automated applications (tickets) for new registrations received from customers, and ensuring these applications are in … [Read more...] about IEDR Hiring
IEDR Publish 2012 Domain Figures
IEDR have published their latest annual report which covers the period up to the end of 2012. Here's a few of the highlights: Renewal rate of 86% Total .ie domains at year-end of 182,284, up 5.3% year-on-year New .ie domain registrations down 15% on 2011 By way of comparison the .no domain registry (Norway) currently has 588999 domains registered. In terms of … [Read more...] about IEDR Publish 2012 Domain Figures
ccTLD Registries Under Attack?
In the past 24 hours both the .nl domain registry and .be domain registry have been attacked. The .be registry's public facing website was defaced, though the defacement had no impact on the registry data. As would be expected the registry data is not linked to the public facing website. DNS.be informed registrars that they are still investigating the incident but weren't … [Read more...] about ccTLD Registries Under Attack?
IEDR Appoint New Registration Services Team Lead
IEDR announced earlier today that Paul Shortt has been appointed Supervisor of the Registration Services team. Effectively the role is manager of the registration services team which handle the day to day operations handling new registrations, updates and transfers of .ie domain names. According to the announcement Mr Shortt will be reporting directly to IEDR CEO David … [Read more...] about IEDR Appoint New Registration Services Team Lead
Nominet Puts Draft Registrar Agreement Out For Consultation
Nominet, the .uk domain name registry, has published a draft registrar contract for consultation. The registry had been planning a revision of its contracts for some time. Full details of the consultation, as well as the related documents, may be found here. Nominet are currently planning two public sessions to discuss the contract in July, one in London and one in … [Read more...] about Nominet Puts Draft Registrar Agreement Out For Consultation
Belgian Country Code Now Supports IDN
Earlier this week dns.be launched IDNs (internationalised domain names). The Belgian registry opted to support the accented characters for Dutch, French and German. In so doing they've also ended up providing support for other European languages, such as Swedish, Finnish and Danish. The characters supported are … [Read more...] about Belgian Country Code Now Supports IDN
More Premium Domains Released by ME Registry
The .me registry held back a bunch of domain names when they went live a couple of years back. They've been releasing some of them via auctions, while others have been made available to companies who were able to submit a project plan to the Montenegrin company. Some of the higher profile .me domains would include wp.me, fb.me, v.me and there are plenty of other ones being … [Read more...] about More Premium Domains Released by ME Registry
French Domains Popular With Individuals
According to the .fr registry's latest report .fr domain names are popular with private individuals. One in two new .fr domain names is registered to a private individual. Currently over about 40% of .fr domains are registered to individuals, compared to approximately 20% 6 years ago. AFNIC's latest report is available here. … [Read more...] about French Domains Popular With Individuals
A New Domain For Canada
CIRA's CEO, Byron Holland, made an important announcement today aimed at all Canadian internet users. CIRA currently runs .ca, but feels that maybe it's not quite Canadian enough... At present the .eh ccTLD is not assigned, though I'm not sure what the process would be for getting it assigned to Canada Meanwhile ICANN's CEO has found a cure for herpes You'd never … [Read more...] about A New Domain For Canada