9 more new gTLD’s join the IDNs for delegation

ICANN’s New gTLD Program will result in the expansion of available Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), such as .COM, .NET or .ORG, from 22 to possibly 1,400 new names or “strings”. On 23 October 2013, first new gTLDs from ICANN’s New gTLD Program were delegated. This means they were into the Internet’s Root Zone, the authoritative database …

WHOIS Website Beta Launched by ICANN

Following through on community recommendations for improving accountability and transparency, ICANN has launched the first phase of a new “one-stop” online resource about the WHOIS directory service. This new information website provides a clear and easy-to-understand explanation of how to access existing WHOIS information on who has registered domain names. It also makes it easy …

ICANN ICC denies Community Objections to .Islam and .Halal

Two separate ICC panels have denied the objections to the new gTLD’s .Islam and .Halal finding that although there “opposition to Respondent’s application to some extent, but such opposition is not substantial”.Although they were two separate opinions both shares a lot of the same finding and drew the same conclusions: Here are the relevant parts …

Premiere IDN New gTLDs cleared for Delegation

The first four domains from ICANN’s New Generic Top-Level Domains Program which are  Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) were cleared to proceed to delegation. This marks the start of a measured roll out of new gTLDs, which are designed to expand opportunities for businesses, communities and Internet users around the world. These first new gTLDs, or …

Vatican bags “.Catholic” in four languages

Pope Francis and the Vatican are at the helm of an internet name revolution as the industry opens the doors to tens of thousands of personalised websites The Pope is at the helm of an internet revolution as the Vatican becomes the first organisation to launch a new domain name under revamped rules. It has …

Ukrainian IGF discusses Cyrillic domains issues

The Fourth Ukrainian IGF took place on October, 3, 2013. During the course of the Forum Ukrainian and international experts discussed issues of Internet infrastructure development, network safety, international tendencies in informational community development. One of the Forum’s meetings was devoted to the issue of cyrillic top-level domains. In August, 2013,domain names registration in the …

NEPAD presentation of .africa history at ICANN Durban, seen as massive misrepresentation

“African government delegates were finally complaining they were coerced into ‘AU position’ and stating that they have no reason to object to DCA or a competitive bid for Africa”. DotConnectAfrica has emerged as the first firm to show interest of the project dotAfrica (.africa). . This was explicitly reported to the delegates attending the AfriSIG …