Amazon beats ICANN on .Amazon gTLD following DCA Trust’s precedent setting case in .Africa IRP!

Amazon.com has become the latest winner in the ICANN Independent Review Process IRP. Amazon was one of the largest applicants for new domain names, but its .brand strategy was slowed down when governments opposed its .amazon application. Amazon’s applications had been rejected three years ago after ICANN accepted Governmental Advisory Committee consensus advice.  That advice, …

.CLUB bags $2.7 million in domain name sales in Q2 2017

.CLUB sold $2.7 million of domain names in Q2 2017 mostly attributed to China registrars with strong pinyin and number sales. .Club sold a total of 666 premium names sold in Q2 via auctions, through the registrar channel and aftermarket platforms, and directly by the registry, generating over $205,000 in one-time fees and more than …

March 2017 was strong for .Com domains with 3.22 million new registrations

The latest official .com transactions report from Verisign, which includes data by registrar for March 2017 have shown that March was a strong one with 3.22 million new .com domain registrations. Compare this to March 2016 when there were 3.08 million new .com registrations. The top registrars in terms of new registrations saw little movement. …

Hiro Hotta and Patricio Poblete are 2017 Multistakeholder Ethos Award winners

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has announce the recipients of the 2017 Multistakeholder Ethos Award. This year, the community evaluation panel recognized two long-time members of the ICANN community: Hiro Hotta and Patricio Poblete. The awards were presented today at ICANN59 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Multistakeholder Ethos Award honors members …

US Embassy in Costa Rica threatens to close ccTLD Registry over Pirate Bay domain

The Costa Rican registry that manages the coutry’s .cr says it won’t comply to US Embassy’s threats to shut down the registry without a court order. The manager written to the ICANN organization to complain about harassment and personal insults unless it suspends ThePirateBay.cr. In a letter [PDF] sent to the head of the Governmental …

Donuts to Acquire Rightside for $213 Million in Merger Agreement

The domain name registry operator of the larget new domain extensions portfolio Donuts Inc., and Rightside Group, Ltd.  have announced an agreement and Plan of Merger under which Donuts will acquire Rightside for $10.60 per share in an all-cash tender offer, for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $213 million. The purchase price represents a …

.Africa Founder Sophia Bekele Named Industry Trailblazer & Internet Governance Pioneer, by CIO

“Inspired to set up DotConnectAfrica, as its name aimes, to Connect Africa through a Single Pan-African domain name“ The CIO East Africa, an influential IT, Business and Leadership News Magazine talked to Sophia Bekele about her journey, taking stock of a decade of professional activities and achievements to date, in the ICT and DNS Industry, …

SSAC security group warns Emoji domain names cause trouble

Emoji domain names have received some press over that last year thanks, in part, to .ws allowing registrations of emoji domain names. Now, the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) has published a report (pdf) warning against the use of these domain names. The brief report notes that emoji in domain names are not …