Recently in dotasia Category

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1. discover.asia (US$112,111)
2. sex.asia (US$ 83,334)
3. buy.asia (US$73,000).

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At the midpoint of 2008, there were 168 million domain name registrations across all
of the Top Level Domain Names (TLDs). This represents a four percent growth over the
first quarter of 2008 and a 22 percent growth over the same quarter last year. The base
of Country Code Top Level Domain Names (ccTLDs) totaled 65 million domain names,
a four percent increase quarter over quarter and a 27 percent increase year over year

One of the things that people really really hated about our old order system was the lack of a bulk order option for domains.

Our nice new shiny order system solves this issue once and for all!

You can now order up to 100 domains at once via our new bulk order system.

We're also adding support for more TLDs to the website order system. We don't want to play email ping pong with you anymore than you do!

ICANN's 32nd International public meeting opened in Paris yesterday morning.

There are several hot topics on the agenda and judging by the crowds of people at last night's welcome cocktail, attendance levels are good.

If you're interested in finding out more head over to the meeting's official site where you can find details of meetings, talks, presentations and more.

The areas that are bound to attract attention this week are quite diverse and encompass topics such as new TLDs, the launch of .tel (dottel), Whois (again!), registry failover, the registrar agreement and both IDNs and IPv6. (Can you say "acronym hell"??)

Of course no ICANN meeting would be complete without an equally busy social agenda and last night's welcome cocktail at La Defense (photo above) was no different. Wednesday's gala dinner is being held in yet another famous Parisian landmark (more on that Thursday I hope!)

Every time a new TLD launches the registry operators have to come up with ways of distributing "premium" names.

Premium names are the "super" domains that are usually dictionary words or close to them. These domains are easy to remember and easy to get to. The most heavily demanded ones are usually related to the adult industry, so it's not surprising to see that there is always a heavy demand for sex.tld (where tld is the TLD in question)

In the case of dotEU Eurid ran a couple of "sunrise" periods, which were open to trademark and other prior rights holders ie. entities that had a valid claim on a name via a trademark or other method. Even though dotEU has been up and running for some time there are still plenty of legal battles being fought over the sunrise domains.

With dotAsia they have opted for a number of sunrise periods as well, but they also added in an auction scheme to make it more "interesting". If more than one request was made for a domain name in landrush then the domain is automatically put into an auction which is being managed by Pool. What makes it all the more interesting is that some people are suspecting foul play.

Personally I find the entire system of auctions quite confusing and frustrating, as I've ended up bidding against myself for at least one name. I won't be able to use the domain until someone wins the auction!

Oh well... hopefully dotTel will do a better job of their launch!

Journalists call from time to time asking me to talk about various internet related topics. Most of the time the publications or shows are "general interest", so you can only talk about very general things.

Last night, however, was quite different, as I was one of the guests on "Domain Masters" which is broadcast and streamed weekly at 7pm EST (11pm in Ireland, midnight CET)

The show's host last night was my good friend Jothan Frakes who is one of the domain name industry's gurus.

Although I was very nervous (which probably showed!) we had a nice chat about Blacknight, domains and the internet industry.

If anyone wants to hear the show there should be an mp3 version available on the WebmasterRadio site at some time over the next couple of days.

UPDATE: The Mp3 from last night is now available on the site http://www.webmasterradio.fm/Internet-Marketing/Domain-Masters/Geo-Domain-Expo-and-BlackKnight.htm

UPDATE 2: Of course if I provided proper hyperlinks people might be actually able to use them!
So here you go: Show details including podcast

As a domain registrant you have certain rights. Unfortunately those rights can be abused by companies that don't believe in ethical business practices.

It would be nice and simple if the whois display were the same across all TLDs (ie. domain extensions), but they're not.

A basic right is for the domain to be registered to you and under your control.

That means that the domain details should show yours. For example a .ie domain registered to me shows:

status: Active
nserver: NS.BLACKNIGHTSOLUTIONS.COM
nserver: NS2.BLACKNIGHTSOLUTIONS.COM
source: IEDR

person: Michele Neylon
nic-hdl: ABG182-IEDR
source: IEDR

person: Blacknight.ie Hostmaster
nic-hdl: AAM456-IEDR
source: IEDR

For some TLDs, such as .eu the command line whois will give out varying amounts of information and you may need to go to the web based whois server to get the full details.

In either case the registrant is listed somewhere, even if the public cannot see it easily.

If the registrant wants to move their domain between registrars that is their right.

Under ICANN rules registrars are obliged to provide the EPP codes to registrants in a timely fashion (bearing in mind that you cannot transfer newly registered .com's etc., between registrars immediately)

If they want to update their domain's nameservers then they should be able to do so.

Unfortunately this does not happen.

The reality is that a disproportionate number of companies are denying registrants basic rights.

In some cases they may be doing this by accident, but in other cases it is 100% deliberate.

There is no valid reason for your web designer or developer to put their details all over your domain. None.

If you have asked your designer / developer to register a domain for you and paid them for it then it should be registered to you (which is one of the reasons why .ie domains are attractive!).

Over the past couple of years I've seen some crazy things, including a particular "registrar" that registers ALL .co.uk domains to themselves regardless of who has requested the domain.

Another company warehoused hundreds of .eu domains "on behalf" of their clients ie. in the hope that the clients would want to register the domains at some point in the future. Of course it wasn't clear if they would be charged a premium for this "service".

If a provider won't update the DNS for a domain then there is something wrong somewhere.

(If they can't update it due to the DNS not being loaded that is the registrant or their provider's issue!)

There's no good reason to delay handing over an EPP key.

If a registrant wants their co.uk domain retagged simply do it.

Why make people suffer?

Over the next couple of months a new domain extension will go live - dot asia (.asia) which is aimed at representing the businesses and people of the Asia Pacific region.

We'll be providing information on the registration requirements over the next few days as well as pricing and timelines.

Why would you want to register a .asia domain?

If you are trademark holder then you should do so to protect your brand.

If you are not a trademark holder but are serious about doing business in the Asia Pacific region, then .asia is the domain for you.

I'll be posting more information on this new domain name in the coming days and weeks, so please keep an eye on this site!