There are thousands of sites and services on the 'net that offer domain name whois lookup services. As of last night many of them may have stopped working. Why? Many of them rely on fairly rudimentary software that parses the whois from Verisign (for .com and .net) and then relays the query to the registrar whois. The site or service then displays the whois output from the … [Read more...] about Some Whois Lookup Services Might be Broken
How Much Should Startups Budget for a Decent Domain Name?
Bill Sweetman from NameNinja has released a handy little guide to domain name pricing for startups. While the guide is aimed at businesses starting out, the information around domain name pricing is applicable to anyone who wants to either "upgrade" their online brand or launch a new one. The guide focusses primarily on .com domain names, but also mentions both ccTLDs, … [Read more...] about How Much Should Startups Budget for a Decent Domain Name?
Dutch Registry Unveils NL Branding
SIDN, the ccTLD registry for .nl, has unveiled new branding for the .nl ccTLD. Up until now the branding available was focussed on either SIDN itself or its registrars. There was no real ".nl brand" per se. The registry explain their rationale in an email to registrars: In March 2016, we introduced our new corporate logo and SIDN Registrar logo. The SIDN Registrar logo … [Read more...] about Dutch Registry Unveils NL Branding
CENTR Awards to Include Best Registry as Chosen by Registrars
CENTR, the body which represent of European domain registries, will be holding its annual awards again this year. What's different for 2017 however is that they've added a new category: Registry of the Year And unlike with the other award categories, this one is open for voting to the registrar channel. The question registrars are being asked is: Based on the … [Read more...] about CENTR Awards to Include Best Registry as Chosen by Registrars
Africa DNS Forum to be Held in Tanzania
The 5th annual Africa DNS Forum is being held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on July 26 - 28. The event, which is being organised by AfTLD, ICANN and ISOC in association with a number of other organisations, will run over two days and cover both technical and business aspects of the domain name industry. The current draft schedule has speakers covering topics such as DNSSEC, … [Read more...] about Africa DNS Forum to be Held in Tanzania
RIPE Introduces Code of Conduct for Mailing Lists
RIPE has introduced a code of conduct for its mailing lists. In common with many technical organisations and communities a lot of the work within the RIPE community is conducted via mailing lists. The organisation already had a code of conduct for its face to face meetings, but it didn't cover interactions on the mailing lists. Here's the text of the code of conduct in … [Read more...] about RIPE Introduces Code of Conduct for Mailing Lists
IGF 2017 Opts for .Swiss Domain
This year's IGF (Internet Governance Forum) meeting is being held in Geneva, Switzerland from December 18th to 21st. The venue for the event will be the United Nations Office at Geneva Palais des Nations, Avenue de la Paix 14, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland. As the Swiss government is the host for the event it's no big surprise that they've opted to use a .swiss domain … [Read more...] about IGF 2017 Opts for .Swiss Domain
Brands and Domains Early Bird Tickets go on Sale
Brands and Domains is a domain event that focuses on brand owners and how they are using or potentially could use top level domains. And in this context when we say "top level domain" what we mean is the likes of Sony running the .sony TLD. The event is scheduled to be held in The Hague (Netherlands) from 1 - 3 October 2017. To get a taste of the event you can peruse the … [Read more...] about Brands and Domains Early Bird Tickets go on Sale
ICANN 59 Full Schedule Published
The full schedule for ICANN 59, the policy forum, which is being held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg from June 26 - 29 has been published. As this is a "policy forum" there are fewer frills ie. no big opening ceremony, gala or board meeting. As they've been doing for the last few meetings ICANN is using Sched to manage the schedule, which means that you … [Read more...] about ICANN 59 Full Schedule Published
Heading to ICANN 59? Get Some Tips From the Local Host
ICANN 59 will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa later this month. In ICANN terms it's what they call a "policy forum", so the focus will be on policy work and the meeting won't have as many of the frills you find at the bigger meetings. For those of us in Europe the timezone difference with South Africa is negligible (1 hour ahead of London / Dublin and on the same … [Read more...] about Heading to ICANN 59? Get Some Tips From the Local Host