Deal signed on .com domain future
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The US government rubber stamps a deal that gives .com administrator control over the domain until 2012.
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The U.S. Commerce Department said on  Wednesday it would renew its authority over the company that  manages Internet domain names beyond September 30, when the  U.S. government had been expected to permanently cede control.
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com September 23, 2004, 9:53 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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Two new Internet domain names - ".post" and ".travel" - could appear online as early as next year as the Internet's key oversight board announced preliminary approval on Wednesday.
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The new transfer policy for inter-registrar domain names went into effect on Friday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said.
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com December 16, 2004, 4:00 AM PT. Internet users may soon be required to pay an additional annual fee for each domain name they own, thanks to a virtually unnoticed requirement that will begin to take effect next year.
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Also: Microsoft plans new BizTalk release for this year. [News.com Extra]
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A growing practice known as domain name "tasting," a form of cyber squatting, ties up millions of domain names at a time, keeping them out of the reach of legit buyers. By the Associated Press.
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(InfoWorld) - A contract for VeriSign Â to operate the .com domain should include infrastructure build-out requirements and make the company justify built-in prices increases, a lawyer for the GoDaddy.com registrar said Wednesday. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that oversees the Internetâs technical infrastructure, has not put enough checks in place in a proposed extension of VeriSign's .com contract, said Christine Jones, general counsel for GoDaddy, during a hearing before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. A presumption from ICANN that the .com contract will be renewed when it expires in November 2007 gives VeriSign a "monopoly" on operating the largest generic top-level domain, Jones said. "It's incredible to us that ICANN did not include an infrastructure investment requirement in the proposed .com agreement," she said. "In negotiating that agreement, VeriSign ensured that their revenue would increase, and ICANN ensured that their budget would benefit, but who's going to ensure the benefits of the public interest?" The proposed agreement allows VeriSign to increase wholesale site registration fees by 7 percent in four of the contract's six years. More oversight on pricing is needed, Jones said. "Other legitimate monopolies ... must justify their price increases, and VeriSign, the monopoly provider, should be required to do the same," she said. But VeriSign already spends significant money improving its Internet infrastructure every year, said Ken Silva, VeriSign's chief security officer. The ICANN presumption that it will renew the .com contract encourages VeriSign to continue investing in infrastructure, instead of waiting until it knows it has a new contract, he said. The .com domain has never crashed in the last seven years, but price increases may be necessary as attacks against Internet domains become more complex, Silva added. "We're not talking about commodity hardware here," Silva said. "There's no automatic price increase. What there is, is a possibility of a price increase, based on the security and stability needs we have at the time." ICANN President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Twomey also defended the contract, saying his organization is fostering competition in other ways such as creating more top-level domains. There are also nearly 800 site registrars competing for business, he said. But Senator Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, questioned the .com contract. "The question a lot of people are asking is, what's wrong with bidding out .com?" he said. "Why not let VeriSign win it, if they can, with a competitive bid?" Senators also asked whether the U.S. Department of Commerce should renew its memorandum of understanding with ICANN for the organization to continue oversight of the Internet's technical infrastructure. The memorandum expires at the end of this month. GoDaddy's Jones criticized ICANN for too often conducting business, including the proposed .com agreement, "behind closed doors." She called on Congress to require ICANN to create a plan to increase the Internet community's confidence in it. Even though ICANN needs to improve its transparency and accountability to the Internet community, the memorandum should be extended, said John Kneuer, acting assistant secretary for communications and information at the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration. ICANN is taking steps to improve support from its constituencies, he said.
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Internet users may soon see two new domain name suffixes in their browser window: ".post" to identify the postal community and ".travel" for travel industry associations and organizations.
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Two new Internet domain names â-quot;.post&quot; and &quot;.travel&quot; â -ld appear on-line as early as next year as the Internet&#39;s key oversight board announced preliminary approval on Wednesday.
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com September 30, 2004, 9:28 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) - 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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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.
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ICANN officially retires the .yu domain and assigns .rs to Serbia and .me to Montenegro. In this case the delay was political, not technical.
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Two new Internet domain names â-quot;.post&quot; and &quot;.travel&quot; â -ld appear online as early as next year as the Internet&#39;s key oversight board announced preliminary approval on Wednesday.
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Consumers and businesses may soon find it easier to register an attractive Web site name, now that the nonprofit organization that oversees the global domain name system has agreed to a policy change.