Amazon May Not Get Its .Amazon Domain-Name Extension After All

Walmart (NYSE:WMT), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and more than a dozen other retailers who applied for their own top-level domains (TLDs) were expecting to see them rolled out starting this year. But the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is running into more delays in approving the vanity domains, and some—including .amazon—look like they may …

The Rise of Cyrillic Domain Names

This week, on a cruise ship navigating Russia’s Neva river, around 250 domain registrars and resellers are gathered for the RU-CENTER annual domain conference. RU-CENTER is the largest Russian registrar in a market that is dominated by three companies. RU-CENTER and competitor Reg.Ru both manage around 28% of domains registered in the country’s national suffix …

Do Google searches for “facebook” mirror African Internet growth trends?

Google Trends Interest over time allows us to view search trends for specific geographic areas by month. Since Facebook use is synonymous with Internet use in the majority of African countries, we’ve attempted to use search interest for the network to make conjectures about the stage of African Internet growth in each African nation. We’ve …

GAC Advice to ICANN Board “Anti-Competitive” says DotConnectAfrica in response to the GAC Advise Objection notice it received on its .africa bid

  DotConnectAfrica in a spirited effort to secure its application on .africa that has lately been a victim of GAC advice during the just concluded ICANN Beijing 46th meeting has called the GAC Advice anti-competitive saying:   “we see the GAC Policy Advice as a wrong step, and against the explicit commitment to fair competition …

ICANN on Africa’s Internet Market and Hub Offices: Interview with Brad White, ICANN’s Director of Global Media Affairs

Africa is increasingly becoming a key player in global business and essential resources like the internet will definitely be forming a critical part of this growth. At the end of 2012, Africa’s internet penetration rate was quoted as heading to 16%. While this is quite low compared to global rates, the continent has witnessed a …

Proposed ICANN Whois Information Status Policy opened for Public Comment

ICANN is opening a Public Comment Period for the proposed Whois Information Status Policy. Members of the Internet Community are asked to provide feedback on the proposed document. The proposed Policy is based on a recommendation from the Generic Names Supporting Organization Council related to the display of statuses in the Whois output by registry …

Lifting barriers to Internet development in Africa: suggestions for improving connectivity

There have been significant improvements to Africa’s Internet connectivity in the last five years. Enormous investment in telecoms infrastructure has characterised these improvements, especially in terms of intercontinental connectivity and terrestrial fibre networks: Submarine cable investment has amounted to around USD3.8 billion and terrestrial networks have seen over USD8 billion of investment. Internet exchange points …