ICANN's board of directors is set to approve the new Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) during a "special" board meeting at the end of the month The board meeting agenda for their 27th June meeting includes several "consent" items, but tucked the main agenda items include the 2013 RAA. If the board votes to approve it at the upcoming meeting then I suspect registrars … [Read more...] about ICANN Board Set To Approve New RAA
Generic top-level domain
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
Making Sense of GAC Advice?
On the final day of the recent ICANN meeting in Beijing the GAC, which includes representatives from many countries' governments, issued their communique as they do at all ICANN meetings. While the contents of a GAC communique always attracts commentary and reaction, the GAC communique from Beijing has probably provoked more debate, anger and confusion than any … [Read more...] about Making Sense of GAC Advice?
XXX Registry Launches Promotion
ICM Registry, the guys behind .xxx, have announced a big pricing promotion available via select registrars. The promotion, which runs for the entire month of May, has .xxx domain names available from as low as USD$8.99 Disclosure: We are one of the registrars … [Read more...] about XXX Registry Launches Promotion
Google Does The Right Thing Opening Several Closed Generic Applications
Over the last few months one of the areas of attention in the new TLD project has been "closed generics". I've written about this several times in the past and I've also raised the issue in as many fora as possible. Yesterday ICANN published a letter they'd received from Google with respect to several of their new TLD applications. Whereas Google had made it clear … [Read more...] about Google Does The Right Thing Opening Several Closed Generic Applications
European Hotel Association Files Objections Against .Hotel Applications
HOTREC, the European association of hotels, restaurants and cafes has filed four community objections with the ICC. They're concerned about several of the "closed generic" applications for .hotel and derivatives of the string. With that in mind they've filed against the following: Application # 1-1016-75482 for HOTELS by Booking.com B.V. Application # 1-1249-36568 for … [Read more...] about European Hotel Association Files Objections Against .Hotel Applications
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
ICANN Launch New WHOIS Inaccuracy System
ICANN's Compliance team put the new WHOIS inaccuracy reporting system live earlier today. (Oddly enough Google alerts picked up on the new page!). The new system should make reporting issues easier for all parties involved ie. reporters, ICANN and the affected registrars. They're also including generic information on how registrants may update their own domain … [Read more...] about ICANN Launch New WHOIS Inaccuracy System
More DotConnectAfrica Fun And Games
If you've been following the ICANN new TLD program over the last couple of years you'll probably be aware of some of the applications and the applicants. However in the case of the competing bids for the .africa string the competitors, or at least one of them, has brought more "colour" to the proceedings than most of the other applicants combined. DotConnectAfrica (DCA) … [Read more...] about More DotConnectAfrica Fun And Games
ICANN Beijing Schedule Published
The full schedule for the 46th ICANN public meeting in Beijing has been published. The schedule starts on the Thursday with GAC meetings and runs until Thursday's Public Forum. As is common with ICANN meetings the days are long, with many meetings scheduled to start before 8am local time. If you're not attending in person you'll be able to follow the meeting online, as … [Read more...] about ICANN Beijing Schedule Published