ICANN Signs Contract for ‘.asia’ with DotAsia Organization
After the last agreement ICANN and DotAsia Organization, the sponsoring organization for the .ASIA top-level domain, announced the signing of the .ASIA Registry Agreement on 6 December 2006 at the ICANN Annual Meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil. On 18 October 2006, the ICANN Board approved the designation of the .ASIA sponsored top-level domain and authorized the President to implement the Agreement. With the addition of .asia, 266 domain names now exist on the Internet. DotAsia is the first gTLD registry with a headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region.
December 10th | Domain Names, Icann | Comments (0) |
.EU domains will get a price reduction from Jan 2007
EURid lowers the registration and renewal fee for .eu domain names. The lowered amount is from 5 - 10 euro.EURid, the registry for .eu domain names, has decided to lower the fees associated with owning a .eu domain name. As of January 1st 2007, the price for registering a domain name and the annual renewal fee will be 5 euro as opposed to today’s 10 euro.
This substantial reduction is possible thanks to the huge interest in .eu and the high number of registrations. Note that this fee, set by EURid, is charged to the accredited .eu registrars and that they in turn set the prices for their customers. Many registrars bundle their services also to include web hosting and email packages, for instance. However, EURid is convinced that the price reduction will be carried forward and that end users will also benefit from reduced registration and renewal rates, given the competition between registrars.
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November 30th | Domain Names | Comments (2) |
ICANN approved .ASIA (Official)
sTLD Agreement with .ASIA (DotAsia Organisation Limited)
Whereas, on 4 December 5, 2005, the board authorized the President and General Counsel to enter into negotiations relating to proposed commercial and technical terms for the .ASIA sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) with the applicant, DotAsia Organisation Limited,
Whereas, on 18 July, 2006, ICANN announced that negotiations with the applicant for the .ASIA sponsored top-level domain had been successfully completed, and posted the proposed .ASIA sponsored TLD registry agreement on the ICANN website,
Whereas, the Board has determined that approval of the agreement, and delegation of a .ASIA sponsored top-level domain to DotAsia Organisation Limited would be beneficial for ICANN and the Internet community,
October 22nd | Domain Names, Icann | Comments (1) |
AOL gives out free .com domains to anyone who asks
AOL has just announced that it will give a free domain name to anyone who asks for one.
There’s a catch. You don’t own the domain name; AOL does. What you can do is use is use that domain as your e-mail address and your home page starting in September. So can your friends, family, and members of the same club, organization, sports team, and so on.
It’s an intriguing idea, and one that’s likely to gain some attention from folks who always thought of buying a domain name and never quite got around to it. It also solves the problem of what to do with a domain name once you purchase it: instead of paying a hosting company a few dollars a month, AOL takes care of everything at no additional cost.
August 18th | Domain Names, Offers | Comments (0) |
Sedo announces a New and Improved Domain Parking Program
Better earnings, more detailed statistics, and website-like page layouts add up to more money for you!
Based upon the tremendous success of our professional domain parking program, SedoPro, we will be introducing a number of upgrades and improvements to the Sedo Parking Program over the coming weeks. New features to look for include:
- More detailed statistical tools: Sort your domains into portfolios for quicker analysis. Find out where your visitors are coming from and where they’re clicking on your pages. Identify domains needing optimization, and view trends in your portfolio performance.
- Website-like page layouts: Help make your visitors feel at home with one of four colorful new page designs. Select matching photos to customize the look and feel of your parking pages.
- Better earnings: First, we’re now passing more of the earnings on to you. Sure, this means less revenue for us, but we’re hoping you’ll tell your friends about all of the money you’re making with Sedo parking, so they’ll park with us too! Second, we’re now using a new feed from our advertising provider, which will impact both CTR and CPC for many keywords. Although our tests show that the new feed performs better overall, some keywords will perform better than on our existing feed, and some will perform worse. Thus, you’ll want to double-check your optimization to make sure that you’ve picked the most relevant keyword possible, and follow the advice in our Guide to Choosing Money-Making Keywords.
August 18th | Domain Names | Comments (0) |
IANA Contact goes to ICANN again
ICANN just has been awarded the IANA contract again. The United States Department of Commerce has executed a new contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to continue to perform the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) function.
The IANA function includes Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, as well as root server system management functions.
“In executing this contract the Department of Commerce has confirmed that ICANN is uniquely positioned to perform this function,” said Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN.
The new contract for the IANA function is a five-year agreement, consisting of a series of one-year options. ICANN has held the contracts for this function since 1998.
August 18th | Domain Names, Icann | Comments (0) |
Ã…land Islands Country Code Top-Level Domain .Ax Goes Live
The Ã…land Islands Country Code Top-Level Domain .Ax Goes Live
MARIEHAMN ÅLAND, FINLAND–Aug 15, 2006
Today the Ã…land Islands Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) became operational. The Ã…land Islands is an autonomous administrative province of Finland and has up until now been using aland.fi, which is part of the Finnish ccTLD .fi.
The .ax domain was passed into Finnish law this spring and on 9 June the last hurdle was removed when ICANN adopted the .ax domain. The new top-level domain will make the Åland Islands more visible on the Internet. The Åland Islands already has its own stamps and its own flag, and getting its own top-level domain name will further strengthen the Islands’ identity.
The registration fee is 50 € for three years, however registering .ax domains is limited to local persons and business. And since there are about 26,000 inhabitants less than 400 domains have been registered so far.
Some of the rules for the top-level domain name are:
- A domain name may not be a word denoting form of enterprise, form of foundation, from of community or abbreviation thereof.
- A domain name cannot be a top level domain whether it is a generic (i.e. .info, .net) or a country code.
- A domain name may not contain defamatory expressions or expressions that encourage criminal activities.
- A domain name must be active (there must be name servers), and it is not allowed to apply for domains to store or resell.
August 16th | Domain Names | Comments (0) |
United States cedes control of the internet
In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet.
Having been the internet’s instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more international body.
However, assistant commerce secretary John Kneuer, the US official in charge of such matters, also made clear that the US was still determined to keep control of the net’s root zone file - at least in the medium-term.
“The historic role that we announced that we were going to preserve is fairly clearly articulated: the technical verification and authorisation of changes to the authoritative root,” Kneuer explained following an afternoon of explicit statements from US-friendly organisations and individuals that it was no longer viable for one government to retain such power over the future of a global resource.
August 8th | Domain Names, Icann | Comments (0) |