Recently in newtlds Category

I'm just back from the ICANN meeting in Seoul, South Korea.

I had planned on posting with updates during the week, but, as you can see, that didn't happen.

Why?

Simply put - it was an incredibly busy meeting, both in general and for me personally.

I'm now back in Ireland struggling to get over jetlag and also trying to process all that happened over the course of the week.

If you've been following the mainstream media then you'll probably have heard about the big announcement regarding internationalised domain names ie. domains using non-Latin character sets.

But what else happened?

New TLDs, which ICANN made a big announcement about in Paris, are still delayed. Early in the week it became apparent that the delays were going to become longer and longer. ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom would not provide any concrete answers when asked about deadlines. However some light did appear at the end of the tunnel when the board met on Friday.

Other topics that were getting a lot of attention included DNSSEC and compliance.

On the DNSSEC side two things are obvious:

1. It's going to be introduced
2. Most registrars won't support it immediately or anytime soon

Compliance and more amendments to the registrar agreements with ICANN are "on the cards".

ICANN's compliance team are working hard on removing "bad actors", but there is still a lot of work to be done and there is a lot of pressure to make even more changes to the contracts. Whether all the changes people are asking for are really warranted or not is another matter entirely.

I'll cover the various topics separately in the coming days ....

As an internet business it is only natural that we would be concerned with the development of policies that affect our sector.

Earlier today ICANN's agreement with the US government came to an end. It has been replaced with a new document which paves the way for the future - a bright future which is truly global in nature.

As founder and Managing Director of Blacknight, which is also an ICANN accredited registrar, I welcome the signing of the new document - the Affirmation of Commitments. I welcome ICANN and the US Department of Commerce's commitment to a "multi-stakeholder, private sector led, bottom-up policy development model for DNS technical coordination that acts for the benefit of global Internet users".

This new document severes the close link between ICANN and the US government, while reinforcing and affirming the organisation's role in the development of a truly global organisation that will work in the public interest.

What many people may not realise is that the US government held, until earlier today, an overly important role in the governance and control of the internet. 

The JPA (Joint Project Agreement) did provide for government oversight of ICANN, however it was oversight by one government only - the US government.

While it is only natural that the US government would wish to have a degree of oversight of such an important resource, it is also fundamentally important that such oversight reflect the global nature of the internet.

The new document also strengthen the global and multi-cultural and multi-lingual facet of the internet.

The internet is far too important a resource to have been left in the hands of a single government or cultural ideology.

The recognition of the importance of IDNs underlines this very clearly.

With the wider introduction of non-Latin (ASCII) character sets into the DNS system people of all races, cultures and creeds will be in a much better position to truly participate in what has to be a global community.

We in Ireland are on the outer edges of Europe, but the Internet has allowed businesses, such as ours, to actively compete in global markets.

With the signing of this new agreement we look forward to policy development that reflects the diverse legal and cultural frameworks that need to interact and be respected within ICANN and internet policies.

We look forward to working with a stronger and more transparently accountable ICANN.

This step furthers the innovation and growth of a global internet.

We hope that with the post-JPA agreement in place ICANN, its staff and members of the ICANN community will now be able to focus their energies and resources on the introduction of new TLDs.
It is time for ICANN to "take the bull by the horns" and provide a concrete timeline for their introduction without further delay.

It's probably pretty obvious from previous posts here that we have an interest in the new TLD process. (ICANN's plan to open up the domain market more by allowing organisations to run new domain extensions)

Earlier this week ICANN CEO, Rod Beckstrom, was sent a letter signed by a wide variety of companies, including us, urging ICANN to move forward with the new TLD process NOW.

Why?

Put simply, there's no valid reason to delay, however there are plenty of valid reasons why further delays are a bad thing.

You can read the letter in its entirety here (PDF). There's more coverage here.

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• Rod Beckstrom Announced as New ICANN CEO (blacknight.com)

ICANN have organised a number of public consultation meetings over the coming weeks to discuss the new TLD program.

If you're based in Europe the obvious one to attend is that being held on July 15th in the Royal Institute of British Architects. The day's schedule has now been made available (pdf)

Anyone who has an interest in the domain / internet industry's future should try to attend one of these events, as it's the only opportunity many people will get to let their voices be heard about the upcoming changes

Full details on their site

Although the 35th public ICANN meeting, which is being held in the Sydney Hilton, does not officially open until Monday, registration opened earlier today.

I picked up my delegate bag in the last hour or so and was delighted to see our material had made it in successfully!

The Sydney Hilton has been "invaded" with delegates from the four corners of the globe who will be here for the next few days to discuss a wide range of issues including the new TLD process that I've mentioned in the past.

I'll try to post a bit more on the outcome of the various meetings over the next few days.

There's been a lot of media attention on the new TLD process in the last few days, which is a good thing. Unfortunately most of it is badly written, misleading or simply misinformed.

Let's look at the reality.

To start with, there are currently 20 gTLDs ie. "global" top level domains (extensions). (21 if you include arpa) These are:

1. com
2. net
3. org
4. info
5. biz
6. mobi
7. name
8. museum
9. pro
10. cat
11. aero
12. asia
13. coop
14. jobs
15. tel
16. travel
17. edu
    
18. gov
19. mil
20. int

There are a further 248 ccTLDs (country codes, such as "ie", "im" etc) - I won't list them here!
 
During the ICANN meeting in Paris the new TLD process was officially started (based on community feedback ie. it didn't come out of nowhere).

What that means in plain English is that ICANN said "let's do this", but they didn't say "how", "when" or "how much".

In reality what has happened so far is that there has been a LOT of discussion and debate and disagreement. There will be more to come in the coming weeks and months as the process moves forward.

First off ...

Can anyone get a TLD?

No.
In order to get a TLD you would need to meet criteria on multiple levels, both financial and technical.
A lot of the media coverage seems to suggest that just about anyone who wants to can run their own domain extension - the reality is that they can't.

How much will it cost?

The application fee is currently set at $185k, however you would really need to have a couple of million in the coffers if you wanted to actually launch a TLD. (As was pointed out to me the costs would be lower for a non-commercial TLD)
The application fee does not cover any legal costs, backend costs, marketing, staff, PR etc., Depending on the TLD you are interested in setting up you might also need to have lobbyists working with you..

When will the new TLDs be available?

At the moment there is no exact date.
ICANN are pushing for opening the application process in Q1 of 2010.
Bearing in mind that applications won't be accepted immediately and that any new TLD operator would need a "ramp up" period, I doubt if there would be any launched until 2011 at the earliest.

What about trademark holders? Will people be able to "squat" on brand names easily?

Trademark holders have been engaged in the process and the IRT report was published recently. In essence TM holders' concerns will need to be addressed as part of the process, though other parties rights should not be ignored.

Who is planning on launching new TLDs?

Nobody knows exactly who will be applying, as some people are in "stealth" mode, but there is a partial list of possible TLDs here.

The applicants fall into several categories:

• cultural / special interest groups - like the Basques or Breton
  
• city domains - New York, Berlin, Paris are all pitching for their own tlds (.nyc, .berlin, .paris)
  
• commercial - too many to even begin naming
  
• other - single registrant type applications for example if BMW were to get .bmw
  

How much will registering one of these new domains cost?

The cost for registering a domain name will depend on the registry operator.

What about IDNs?

Some organisations are trying to launch IDN TLDs (ie. domain extensions that not only support non-Latin characters, but are actually made up of non-Latin characters)

Should small businesses owners be concerned?

In short - no.

Without knowing which new TLDs will launch it's impossible to give sage advice to small business owners at the moment, I would, however, encourage them to "keep an eye open". If a New York based business doesn't register the corresponding .nyc domain, for example, they could end up missing out on a fantastic opportunity. However the same business wouldn't gain much from registering a .paris ...

What about privacy?

This is still a matter that is being debated. If new registry operators were to adopt a whois policy similar to that of .tel (Telnic) which protects private individuals it would be ideal.

What about spam? What about phishing?

Nobody is going to be able to setup a TLD for the sole purpose of abuse. Anyone who tells you otherwise is seriously misinformed. Spam and phishing isn't a TLD specific problem anyway.

If anyone has any other questions or queries they feel need addressing please let us know via the comments and I will do my best to respond.