THE Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has agreed that “.中国”, meaning China, can officially begin use as a domain name next year, Jiefang Daily reported.

The China Internet Network Information Center made the announcement on Tuesday, saying it will provide a more convenient method for netizens who only use Chinese to surf the Internet, the report said.

At the annual ICANN meeting held in Paris, its executive council reached an agreement that other languages including Chinese can be adopted as Top-Level Domain Names. The decision means non-English Domain Name suffixes will appear online besides the traditional ones in English such as “.cn”, “.com”, and “.net”, the report said.

Next year Chinese enterprises can register online domain names by using complete Chinese characters that is made up of the Chinese name of the company and “.中国”. Meanwhile, Chinese Internet users can input the Chinese characters to reach the company’s Website, the report said.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200807/20080703/article_365509.htm

Thoughts on ICANN’s ‘Open’ Domain Namespace

I recently did a brief interview with Tom Sullivan of Fox Business News on the topic of ICANN’s recent move to open up the namespace and create a large number of new top-level domains. I’ve been somewhat distracted by personal endeavours for the past month, so the interview gave me the opportunity to really think hard about what ICANN’s decision means for the industry and where it might leads us in the next three to five years or so.

icann.jpgNew TLDs mean new competition:

New competition is a “really good thing” in this market. For too long the registry management space has been dominated by a very small number of players. Lack of choice hampers innovation. Worse, it has lead to increasing prices for what is otherwise, a commodity product. It may not happen immediately, but I believe that increasing the number of competing TLDs will keep rising prices in check, and possibly even lower them over the longer-term. Further to this, not a lot of innovation is coming out of the existing players. .MOBI, for instance, has done some interesting things, but no one is really going out on a limb and doing exciting things with a TLD. Give everyone the capability to get a TLD and I guarantee you, interesting things will start to happen.

The namespace will finally internationalize and personalize:

Since the origins of the Internet, domain names were limited to ASCII strings. This restriction will quickly evaporate as IDN TLDs come into existence and we will see massive growth in non-English, non-ASCII, top-level domains serving various communities. This is huge by itself! Making it even bigger is that the additional choice will make it even easier for regular people like you and me to get a meaningful domain name that relates to our personal identity. When .INFO opened up, the first thing I did was register rader.info because I had missed out on rader.com, net, org and ca. The mass market represents a huge growth opportunity, but I don’t think that .com, .net, .org, and the others have enough upside left to adequately capitalize on the demand it represents. New TLDs and innovative use of existing TLDs will make it easier to tap into these opportunities.

New TLDs are great for trademark holders:

They just don’t know it yet. Right now, rights holders are rabidly opposed to new TLDs because they believe it will create a nightmare for them in terms of protecting against trademark abuse in all of these new TLDs. On its face, the argument looks valid. After all, it’s tough to protect Tucows’ trademarks and copyrights in a small handful of top-level domains. Creating hundreds, or even thousands, of new top-level domains makes it almost impossible for us to protect ourselves, right? Sort of. The UDRP will still be in place to deal with any inevitable abuse, but there is a real opportunity here for rightsholders that I don’t think has been properly recognized yet.

This announcement clears the way for big brands to create their own top level domains and build trust mechanisms into those domains that will go a long way towards getting the upper hand in the rights battles that are occupying so much of their time. What I mean is, Chase Bank will find it a lot easier to create a trusted online service relationship with their clients if they do it within the context of a .chase top-level domain. It won’t eliminate phishing, but it will raise the bar. Over time, I believe internet users will start finding meaning in top-level domains that doesn’t exist today. The same way an average computer user recognizes the difference between .jpg, .xls and .pdf files, they will also recognize the difference between a .com, .fox and .nike domain extension.

New TLDs will force software developers to deal with security issues:

I don’t necessarily think that new top level domains are going to make it easier for phishers to phish, spammers to spam and scammers to scam. But I think there are enough people that are worried about this that it will force the issue to some sort of a resolution. The first step lies with the browser and email client vendors. Implementing URL authentication and verification tools will take some time and trial and error, but I think it will be a great development for overall consumer satisfaction and safety.

ICANN should, and will, get out of the way:

The Internet is a decentralized, unregulated space. Domain names aren’t. ICANN needs to get out of the way as much as possible and allow the namespace to develop its own characteristics along the same lines as the rest of the Internet. ICANN has been a centralized chokepoint for far too long, mostly at the behest of telco interests. This move clears the way for ICANN to do more coordination and less regulation. Strangely, this development comes at a time when most are calling for ICANN to regulate even more. I don’t think that this is either practical or desirable and will have strong negative effects on the viability of the DNS over the long term if they go this route.

This isn’t really news for .com domainers:

Domain names are a little bit like real estate. Quality domain names will always be quality domain names. Short, memorable, easy to spell - all hallmarks of a great name. Great names with great extensions, like fox.com will always be great. But, for specific purposes, perhaps fox.news is a better name? It all depends on what you want to use the name for and how strong your existing brand is. I don’t think that this necessarily leads to any sort of real negative impact on .com name valuations, but it will create new opportunities for buyers and sellers.

Overall, I don’t think that anyone actually recognizes the true size of the opportunity that is facing the Internet. I’m quite excited at the prospects hinted at by this announcement and look forward to capitalizing on as much of it as possible.

In a move that will change the World Wide Web as we know it, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has plans to extend top-level domain names and approved the introduction of Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) written in Arabic and Chinese scripts.

The board’s decision to extend generic top-level domain (TLD) names, that currently only include .com, .org and .biz, has been eagerly anticipated after discussions were initiated in 2005. ICANN had always kept close control over the creation of TLDs but its recent decision will bring in more naming flexibility as new web addresses can end with .tech, .fun or .anything.

Under a fast-track process approved by ICANN, countries where the official language is written using a non-Latin script (such as Cyrillic, Arabic or Chinese) can create a new TLD consisting of the country’s name written in that script. “One of the most exciting prospect before us is that the expanding system is also being planned to support extensions in the languages of the world,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN’s chairman. “This is going to be very important for the future of the Internet in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia.”

A system called Punycode has been adopted that will encode TLDs written using Unicode characters into a sequence of letters, digits and hyphens that can then be stored by existing DNS servers. Upon approval of the implementation plan, it is planned that applications for new names will be available in the second quarter of 2009

source: http://www.itp.net/news/523495-web-addresses-in-arabic-will-now-be-possible

New Domain Extensions Help Clarify the Future of the Internet

TLD's

A new wave of domain extensions will be hitting the market in the years to come.  ICANN approved the sale and listing of new “vTLD’s”, as coined by David Castello for “Vanity Top Level Domains”.

The initial expectation for the market is the creation of geo TLD’s, such as .paris, .chicago, .nyc, etc.  Expense is a bit of an issue, as it costs well above $100k to register and maintain such a TLD.  So, after that, larger corporations (profit and non-profit) are expected to get involved with .ibm, .nike, .microsoft, .church, .hostpital, etc. 

From there, it will take coordination within industries to create new TLD’s.  I would next expect to see the likes of a .hotel, .energy, .finance, .sports, and .shopping (or something of the retail commerce industry).

And lastly, do not forget the foreign language TLD’s.  Extensions in non-latin characters have been approved, so expect to see IDN’s with IDN TLD’s, such as 東京.日本 (Tokyo.Japan in Japanese) very soon.  The big question in this space is whether countries will map currently owned domains in their country extensions to the new TLD.  For instance, we own シアトル.jp (Seattle.jp).  Does that get mapped to  シアトル.日本, the new TLD for that domain?  Korean Internet firms have already been planning on this happening, as discussed by the Korea Times in, “New Internet Domains Excite Firms“.

シアトル.jp

While all of these TLD’s will have the chance to proliferate, ICANN and the domain system is merely clarifying two things for the english language Internet by creating this excess real estate.

  1. The TLD “.com” is the main English language domain and will only grow from this increase in supply to the market.  Anyone looking for the primary target of their search will go to the .com first, even if listed among choices within search results.  It is human nature, at least for now…time will tell how long that lasts.
  2. Content is king.  As search moves more towards the semantic web, or web 3.0, generic domains will slowly lose value if they do not have content.  People will slowly begin to access that content through multiple paths, not just your domain.  If you own the domain, you own the content, but without it your domain loses value.  Kevin Kelly explains the future of accessing information quite well, in “The Four Stages of Internet Things“.

Both of these forces are attacking parked .com’s.  Their years are numbered.  Prepare yourself.

IDNC WG - Final Report on IDN ccTLD Fast Track & Public Comments

With the reference of Draft Final Report for IDN ccTLDs Fast Track, IDNC WG obtained Public Comments up to 23rd June 08 and posted on url http://forum.icann.org/lists/idn-cctld-fast-track/.

Along with others, I also have participated to submit some comments which were posted on the forum (as email archive).

Report was finalized uploaded on 26th June 08 for public http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-26jun08-en.htm.

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Bloxx Backs Future Proofing of Internet

However, Security Expert Warns That Land Grab for New Domains Will Make It Impossible For Conventional Web Filters to Keep Up With Predicted Growth of the Web Bloxx, the enterprise web filtering specialist, today welcomed the recommendations announced by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to extend the currently available top level domains (IDN ccTLDs)[1]. The move would, along with the longer IP addresses available under IPv6, protect the Internet for all Continue reading ‘Bloxx Backs Future Proofing of Internet’ »

£.com To Be Auctioned Off Today

Richard Haigh, a businessman who bought the domain name www.£.com for £20 nine years ago is hoping to auction it for more than £1million today. Today, on 26th June 2008, at the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, Amsterdam, Great Britain’s “pound domain” (£.com) will, along with associated property, be auctioned for sale as part of the IP Business Continue reading ‘£.com To Be Auctioned Off Today’ »

Main IDN User Question

One of the main IDN questions asked by end-users in the last few months, and that have been discussed during the ICANN Paris meeting in the recent week is as follows:

“If I have registered <domainname>.tld, then how will you ensure that I am also the registrant of <domainname>.<idn-tld>, for all languages.”

The question shows that there is an expectation that:

(i) there is a way to translate the .tld into other languages. Having done that with .test I can assure you it is quite a challenge to find a word that is an adequate translation for all users in a community. Often there is more than one way to express the word “test” in various languages. Some existing TLDs might be easier to translate than others, but common for them is that they could be represented several ways within one language.

(ii) that the registry operator for the .tld will apply to become the operator for such new TLD(s), and that if they doso and are successful in their application, that they will implement .tld with an aliasing functionality where registrants under .tld automatically becomes registrants of the same domain names under .idn-tld

On the gTLD side of things:

a. the GNSO policy for introduction of new gTLDs states that there is not precedence for becoming an operator of an IDN TLD. In other words, just because you are operating a TLD today it does not mean that you automatically become the operator for any translated version of that TLD (being IDN or ASCII, but mostly discussed in relation to IDNs).

b. in the process for introduction of new gTLDs there are various objection procedures available. While they are not implemented completely yet you might imagine that the .tld registry operator might object to someone else applying for the IDN version the .tld.

c. The policy does not provide a global direction to registration policy regulations, such as for example whether or not new TLDs should be aliased to an existing TLD.

On the ccTLD side, the situation is similar:

a. the IDNC WG final report does not talk about this specific topic.

b. based on community discussions during the last few months, it could be anticipated some IDN ccTLD will be operated as aliased versions of the existing ccTLDs, and others will not. The decision is usually referred to a difference in opinion on whether there should be IP protection or more competition and choice.

On the technical side of things:

a. aliasing have often been connected to the concept of DNAME. DNAME have been initially tested, and indications are that it will not be useful to provide the aliasing functionality. ICANN is looking into the opportunity for having more tests done on this topic.

b. without a standard way of implementing aliasing the concern is that aliasing will be implemented in many different ways leaving users confused and a need to further education than currently is needed, which could be avoided.

In Summary: There is no guarantee to the registrants, it depends on whether existing registry operators will apply for the IDN version of the their TLDs; that the application is granted; and that they will implement aliasing as their registration policy, which we currently do not have a technical standard for, and which the policies are not providing global direction upon.

The IDNC WG has produced its draft final report [PDF, 97K] for discussion by the GAC and the ccNSO pursuant to the charter of the IDNC WG. Please note this document has not been signed off by the IDNC Working Group. The public comment period on the draft officially closed on 23 June 2008.

Summary: The IDNC Working Group (IDNC WG) report on the methodology it proposes that would enable the timely and efficient ("fast track") introduction of a limited number of non-contentious IDN ccTLDs, while an overall long-term IDN ccTLD policy is being developed.

Process: This draft document has been made publicly available at this time solely to alert the community to the latest IDNC WG thinking and to facilitate the discussion by the GAC and the ccNSO at the ICANN Paris meeting. This document has not been signed off by the IDNC Working Group.

Background: The IDNC WG was charted by ICANN’s Board to develop and report on feasible methods, if any, that would enable the introduction, in a timely manner and in a manner that ensures the continued security and stability of the Internet, of a limited number of non-contentious IDN ccTLDs, associated with the ISO 3166-1 two-letter codes (both the official code list of ISO 3166-1 and the list of reserved ISO 3166-1 code elements)(popularly known as "the fast track"), while the overall IDN ccTLD policy is being developed.

source: http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-24jun08-en.htm

Bulgaria Applies for Top-Level Domain .bg in Cyrillic Script

Bulgaria has submitted a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the Top-Level Domain (TLD) '.bg' in Cyrillic script as part of efforts to boost national pride amid a growing influence of English. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has also called for his country to be assigned a Cyrillic TLD as the Kremlin is concerned that Russian, once the main language throughout the Soviet Union, is losing ground to local languages. More...