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 …

GAC Advice on .africa application fails to address vital concerns

Beijing 46th meeting was the platform that was used to post the ICANN GAC advice, which is a requirement of the new gTLD progress for all the new applications.  GAC is an advisory body to ICANN. Though their advice came slightly after the deadline since the new gTLD program guideline clearly indicates in Module 3: …

ICANN Appoints First Two New gTLD Data Escrow Agents

Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management, Inc. and NCC Group have been approved by ICANN to provide data escrow services to new gTLD registry operators. All new gTLD registry operators will be required to regularly deposit a backup copy of their TLD registration data through one of the approved data escrow service providers. The data held …

Bartleby’s Prefers Not to See Amazon Run Web Books Domain

Herman Melville’s character Bartleby the scrivener famously said he “would prefer not to,” and 160 years later the owner of Bartleby’s Books would prefer not to see Amazon (AMZN).com Inc. control Internet addresses ending in .book. “I would just hate to see the cultural process that books represent be controlled by a single firm,” John …

GAC Advice largely unworkable

The position of GAC and its importance in the ICANN new gTLD progress is being placed in a very tight spot over the relevance and the practicability of the recommendations that it has offered on the new gTLD applications and more specifically the Safeguard Advice. GAC entered ICANN as one of the arms that would …

Is the ICANN GAC right? It depends on who you ask

What they’re saying about the GAC’s safeguard advice The ICANN New gTLD Board Committee request for comment on the GAC’s safeguard advice has closed, and the reply period will open soon. Here are some select comments, along with links to the full comments. “Instead of Guidebook advice, the GAC has offered public policy advice and …

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 …