Deal signed on .com domain's future
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Also: AOL launches Latino portal. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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(InfoWorld) - VeriSign plans to invest $100 million over three years to expand tenfold the DNS (domain name system) infrastructure it operates for the .com and .net top-level domains. The DNS is a multitier system that translates the names given to Internet hosts, such as www.infoworld.com, into numerical addresses. The part VeriSign plans to expand, the top tier, indicates where to find answers for addresses in the .com and .net domains. If it fails, or slows, many Internet services break or falter. This happened on Tuesday, whenÂ attackers disruptedÂ the operations of root DNS servers operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the U.S. Department of Defense. "We're going to make that kind of attack harder against our services," said Ken Silva, VeriSign's chief security officer, on Thursday. Although VeriSign's investment will make the DNS more resistant to such attacks, "This isn't just about the attacks, this is about keeping ahead of the pace of network growth," he added. Services such as Internet telephony or video delivery rely heavily on the DNS infrastructure, and are more susceptible to variations in its performance than applications such as Web browsing. An additional 40 millisecond delay in providing an address might not be noticeable to Web surfers, but it can have a big effect on VOIP (voice over Internet Protcol) operators, Silva said. Through a project known as Titan, VeriSign will reinforce its DNS infrastructure in two ways. The first will be to increase server and bandwidth capacity tenfold at around 20 existing sites, taking bandwidth from 20GbpsÂ to over 200Gbps. The changes will allow VeriSign to respond to over 4 trillion DNS queries a day, from 400 billion today. VeriSign will also expand the number of sites where it operates DNS servers to around 100, Silva said. Those extra sites will bring the DNS closer to regional network operators in countries such as Ireland, one of the trial sites for VeriSign's new infrastructure. There, it has peered with many of the local network operators, so the DNS requests of Irish Internet users don't have to travel halfway across Europe to be resolved: they are dealt with on the spot. VeriSign already operates regional sites in Brazil, China, Egypt, Kenya and South Korea, and plans to open sites in Chile, Germany, India and South Africa, among others. In addition to improving performance, these changes will make the system more secure by restricting the effects of attacks such as the one seen Tuesday to a smaller geographic area, Silva said. VeriSign expects the number of attacks launched over the Internet to increase in size and scope by 50 percent a year over the next two years. Even without an increase in the number of attacks, VeriSign faces a significant challenge in keeping all its DNS servers up to date and in step with one another. Much of the theoretical work on that was begun in another project, Atlas, in 2002, Silva said. "It has gotten to the point where we can now go for scalability," he added. VeriSign has developed new "zone push" techniques to distribute database changes, and will use a VPN (virtual private network) and dedicated data connections to ensure server updates are not disrupted, Silva said. Stratton Sclavos, VeriSign's CEO, is due to provide more details on the company's Titan project in a keynote address at theÂ RSA ConferenceÂ in San Francisco at 2 p.m. Pacific Time on Thursday. Â
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ICANN said late Thursday that it had signed an agreement with DotAsia Organization, Ltd. to run the ".asia" domain, approved by the organization in October.
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Company will focus on Web properties such as Sourceforge.net and Slashdot.
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Hoping to bring some order to an increasingly unmanageable web, the Department of Commerce turns over the business of running the domain-name system to a new, private nonprofit.
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NEW YORK Dec 13, 2004 - The Internet&#39;s key oversight agency gave a preliminary nod Monday to new domain names targeting mobile services and the jobs market.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. _ VeriSign, the largest of the companies that manage Internet domain names, is putting its money on predictions that the Internet of the future will expand far beyond the one billion people and hundreds of millions of devices now connected to the Web.
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A VeriSign Inc. official defended its contract to operate the .com domain Monday, after Network Solutions accused the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) of not requiring adequate security safeguards in its registry agreements.
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ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, on Friday flipped the switch on a new URL transfer policy, which aims to simplify the way domain names can be moved between registrars.
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Google has entered into the domain registration game via a partnership with eNom and GoDaddy, wherein Google is only offering the registration of .com, .net, .biz and .info domain extensions. $10 a year is a bit more expensive than some of the other registrars on the market (by a dollar or so) and I find it [...]
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Source says travel and real estate giant is close to reaching agreement to acquire travel Web site. PHILADELPHIA  - Travel and real estate company Cendant Corp.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has approved an agreement for VeriSign Inc. to continue to operate the .com domain for six more years,Â despite objections about pricing and security. TheÂ department has approved the .com agreement submitted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that oversees the Internetâs technical infrastructure, VeriSign announced Thursday. The current .com contract expires in late 2007. The approval comes even though domain-name registrarÂ GoDaddy.com criticized the dealÂ in September, saying it should include infrastructure build-out requirements and make the company justify built-in price increases. Also in September, registrar Network Solutions releasedÂ a report saying ICANN has failed to address securityÂ in its latest proposals for the .com, .biz, .info and .org top-level domains. But VeriSign officials noted that the .com domain has never crashed under its control during the last seven years. The ICANN agreement "strengthens the security and stability of the Internet relied on by hundreds of millions of people around the globe," Mark McLaughlin, executive vice president and general manager for VeriSign Information Services, said in a statement. The agreement "holds operators accountable for their performance [and] promotes the continued investment of tens of millions of dollars in the infrastructure." A Network Solutions official said the company was disappointed that the DOC approved the agreement "in the face of widespread opposition." "Unfortunately, the Commerce Department has endorsed an agreement that creates a perpetual de facto monopoly, fails to provide sufficient checks and balances through competition and adequate oversight, and is fundamentally flawed from a national cyber-security perspective," Jon Nevett, the company's vice president for policy, said in a statement. ICANN approved the agreement in February. But GoDaddy.com and Network Solutions criticized the deal for allowing VeriSign to raise prices by 7 percent in four of the contract's six years. The deal also doesn't include enough infrastructure build-out and security requirements, the two companies said. Other critics called for the .com contract to be put up for competitive bids, but VeriSign and ICANN officials argued no other company was in a position to take over the massive .com domain. NetChoice, a coalition of trade associations and e-Commerce businesses, praised the DOC's approval of the contract extension. The approval shows the DOC respects ICANN's decisions even as other countries have criticized the U.S. control of ICANN, said NetChoice, with members including VeriSign itself as well as eBay Inc. and Yahoo Inc. Combined with a September agreement that moves ICANN to independence in three years, the .com approval "should also quell international criticism of the U.S for its oversight role over ICANN," Steve DelBianco, NetChoice's executive director, said in an e-mail. The agreement will also "ensure the long-term availability and integrity of the Internet," he said.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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com September 17, 2004, 9:32 AM PT. There&#39;s no doubt the Internet will continue to make its mark in the world of business and technology.
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com September 20, 2004, 7:32 AM PT. There&#39;s no doubt the Internet will continue to make its mark in the world of business and technology.
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(InfoWorld) - Google announced on Thursday evening that a domain name search and registration service will be added to its Google Apps for Your Domain offering. Google will partner with GoDaddy and eNom, two domain registration companies to offer the service. Registration fees are a nominal $10 per year, which will include private registration to protect personal information and will support .com, .org, .net, .biz, and .info domains. Besides search and registration, the service also includes the creation of an administrative account for managing the site and a configurator to ensure the Google Apps are immediately available on the new site. Google Apps for Your Domain includes Gmail, calendar, shared calendaring, Google Talk instant messaging, Google Page Creator, and the Start Page for creating a home page. The domain name service is available now.
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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved two new sponsored Internet domains, .post and .travel, specifically for the post and travel industries.
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December 16, 2004 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers  said earlier this week that it has moved its commercial and technical negotiations with the .