AFNIC Puts Charlie Hebdo Support In Whois Results
Following the tragedy of the terrorist attacks on the offices of the French Charlie Hebdo magazine, the French registry AFNIC has added a message of support in Whois results for .fr domains.
The rallying cry of support “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) has been inserted as text art in a hidden ASCII message in the WHOIS lookup 
result for any .fr domain.
AFNIC also voiced their support via Twitter, saying their “commitment to freedom of speech is total. Our thoughts to the victims and their close family and friends.”
ICANN: Upcoming ICG Conference Calls January 2014
The IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group ( ICG ) has scheduled its tenth, eleventh and twelfth conference calls:
- ICG Call # 10 (draft agenda here [PDF, 29 KB]) – Wednesday, 14 January at 20:00-21:00 UTC (time converter here)1;
- ICG Call # 11 – Wednesday, 21 January at 03:00-04:00 UTC (time converter here); and
- ICG Call # 12 – Wednesday, 28 January at 13:00-14:00 UTC (time converter here).
The community is welcome to attend by way of a listen-only mode Virtual Meeting Room through which audio of the call will be streamed. Translations will be available through relevant Adigo Bridge dial-in numbers and Conference ID codes.
A list of country dial-in numbers can be found here. Should there be no appropriate dial-in number for an interested participant, ICANN will provide a
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to that individual. Correspondingly, language service Conference ID numbers are listed below:
- Français – Conference ID: 75929475
- Español – Conference ID: 68385764
- 中文 – Conference ID: 825702
- Pусский – Conference ID: 345720
- العربية – Conference ID: 82855066
- Português – Conference ID: 759752
Participants who are interested in an English line but are unable to join by way of the Virtual Meeting Room may
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a dial-out service.
For more information about the ICG and the IANA Stewardship Transition, please visit the NTIA IANA Functions’ Stewardship Transition Microsite.
1 Livestreaming translations in Français will be unavailable for this call, however a translation of the transcript will be provided after the meeting.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2015-01-12-en
ICANN: CWG-Stewardship Chairs’ Statement – Weekend Sessions 10-11 January 2015
The Cross Community Working Group (CWG) on Naming Related Functions held an intensive work weekend on 10-11 January 2015. The weekend comprised four, two-hour virtual meetings held over two days, equivalent to one month of full CWG meetings and had a significant focus on input received from public comments on the draft proposal. The CWG is fully aware of the value of the contribution provided by the comprehensive and thoughtful public comments it received.
When originally scheduled, the work weekend was envisaged as a time to finalize the basis of the CWG proposal in order for the proposal to be prepared for submission to the five chartering organizations ( ALAC , ccNSO , GAC , GNSO , and SSAC ) and thereafter, to the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group ( ICG ) as part of the overall IANA Stewardship Transition process. However, considering the diversity of comments received during the public comment period on the draft proposal, it became apparent to the CWG that more work was needed to review and refine the proposal on the back of these. As such, the weekend’s focus was on further processing of the public comment input and identifying areas of commonality within the CWG, using tools such as polls and surveys.
Going into the weekend, the CWG conducted two surveys of the whole group in order to get a high-level sense of the group’s views regarding different suggestions made in the submissions from the public comment period. The surveys were based on suggestions arising from the public comment submissions, as well as additional, related questions. The results of the survey were used to guide the CWG in considering the public comments and continuing its work toward development of a final proposal for submission to the ICG .
Key Developments from the Weekend
Overall, the weekend served to hone a range of details within the CWG proposal and to review the original timeline that the CWG agreed to in October. The group also specifically addressed issues related to accountability in order to best assist in the further development of the related work of the CCWG on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability).
The meetings were recorded and transcribed and are available on the group’s Wiki, along with the documents presented and the survey results. A quick analysis of the survey results was done in preparation for the weekend and a summary of the findings was presented to the CWG and then systematically discussed by the group.
With regard to the link to the CCWG-Accountability, the CWG worked to develop further input for the CCWG-Accountability ahead of their upcoming meeting in Frankfurt, Germany on 19-20 January 2015. In addition, the group began to identify components of the CWG proposal that are likely to be contingent on key areas of the CCWG-Accountability work.
Looking Ahead
In striving to develop a consensus proposal, the CWG will now need to consider and integrate the outcome of the weekend sessions as well as focus on the critical next steps required. Key next steps include; obtaining legal advice on relevant elements of the proposal and further engagement with the CCWG-Accountability, as well as informing and preparing to seek support from the Chartering Organizations, all of which we recognize will affect the current timeline.
About the CWG
The CWG began its work in October 2014, with regular weekly virtual meetings and a face-to-face meeting at ICANN 51 in Los Angeles, California. In addition to ICANN supported regular weekly CWG virtual meetings, and at the request of the Chairs, ICANN agreed to support a two-full-day face-to-face meeting in Frankfurt, Germany on 19-20 November 2014 to advance the work of the CWG. On 1 December, the CWG published its draft proposal for a 21-day public comment period. Following the publication of the draft proposal [PDF, 1.7 MB], between 4 – 6 December, the CWG hosted 3 public webinars to present the draft proposal and engage with the broader community. The next CWG working meeting is scheduled for 15 January from 14:00-16:00 UTC.
The CWG consists 131 people, organized as 19 members, appointed by and accountable to chartering organizations, and 112 participants, who participate as individuals. The CWG is an open group: anyone interested in the work of the CWG, can join as a participant. Participants may be from a chartering organization, from a stakeholder group or organization not represented in the CWG or currently active within ICANN , or self-appointed.
Of the 131 CWG members and participants, the regional representation is as follows:
- 46 Asia/Asia Pacific
- 35 Europe
- 27 North America
- 12 Latin America
- 11 Africa
Of the 131 CWG members and participants, the stakeholder group representation is as follows:
- 45 (no affiliation)
- 29 GNSO
- 18 ccNSO / ccTLD
- 18 At-Large
- 18 GAC
- 2 SSAC
- 1 ASO
Also, there are 6 ICG members who participate in the CWG.
This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2015-01-12-en
2014 Highest Reported ccTLD Sales
Game.cn was the highest reported ccTLD sale in 2014. The domain name changed hands for $512,307 through .CN Registry Auction in January,2014.
Here are the top 40 biggest cctld sales in 2014:
1. Game.cn 3,098,000 CNY = $512,307
2. Wan.cn 1,502,000 CNY = $247,830
3. LB.cn 1,100,000 CNY = $176,000
4. Autos.de €120,000 = $166,800
5. One.cn 1,004,000 CNY = $160,640
6. Shop.cn 1,002,000 CNY = $160,320
7. ME.cn 920,000 CNY = $147,200
8. Kaffee.de €100,000 = $136,000
9. Chat.fr €99,999 = $133,999
10. AI.cn 816,000 CNY = $130,560
11. Musik.de €99,999 = $128,999
12. UsedCars.ca CAD 126,000 = US$115,920
13. SAT.cn 680,000 CNY = $108,800
14. TV.ae $95,000
15. Chat.de €65,000 = $87,100
16. Wohnung.de €74,000 = $87,320
17. Like.it €55,000 = $75,900
18. Apps.de €49,999 = $64,499
19. MI.co.id $60,000
20. IA.CA 63,000 CAD = $58,590
21. MaiMai.cn $50,000
22. Autoankauf.de €36,000 = $48,600
23. Dieta.it €39,240 = $46,303
24. Schlüsseldienst.de (IDN) €35,000 = $41,300
25. SC.tv $40,000
26. Trucks.ca CAD 42,000 = $38,640
27. Rabatkoder.dk $36,500
28. ShopTheHood.ca CAD 39,550 = $35,200
29. Bitcoin.com.au 39,980 AUD = $35,182
30. Stripe.co.uk £19,999 = $33,198
31. Kingdom.co.uk £18,888 = $31,534
32. Kartor.se €22,500 = $31,050
33. Training.com.au 33,170 AUD = $30,848
34.Tel.fr €22,000 = $30,580
35. Witze.de €22,500 = $30,375
36.tie Angel.in $30,000
36.tie Moda.tv $30,000
36.tie FYI.tv $30,000
39. Umbrella.co.uk £17,500 = $29,050
40. Answers.tv €22,500 = $28,350
SIDN : .NL Domain Name Continued to Grow in 2014
SIDN, the company behind .NL domain name , announced that at the close of 2014, the total number of .NL domain names was 5,531,186.
This means that .NL registrations grew by 2,7 percent than at the end of 2013.
You can read the announcement after the jump :
“At the close of 2014, the total number of .nl domain names was 5,531,186. That made the .nl domain 2.7 per cent larger than at the end of 2013. Of the 5.5 million-plus .nl domain names, more than 40 per cent are now signed using DNSSEC. In both absolute and percentage terms, the .nl domain has more signed names than any other domain in the world. Although the rate of growth in the .nl domain has eased since 2011, .nl remains by far the most popular extension on the Dutch domain name market, with a share of 73.7 per cent. The plateauing of .nl’s growth in recent years mirrors the trend apparent in all European country-code domains.
Development of .nl
After years of linear growth, the number of .nl domain names has been increasing less rapidly since 2011. By the end of 2014, the number of .nl domain names was 5,531,186. In percentage terms, .nl’s year-on-year growth in 2014 was 2.7 per cent. That compares with growth of 5.3 per cent in 2013.
Strong decline in net growth
A net total of 142,822 names was added to the .nl domain in 2014. That figure represents a substantial 47.6 per cent drop on the net numeric growth in 2013. The trend of declining net growth has been established for several years.
Slight fall in the number of new registrations
In 2014, nearly 900,000 new .nl domain names were registered. That is only 7.4 per cent fewer than in 2013 (971,304). Despite the slower growth, interest in .nl domain names remains strong.
More .nl domain names cancelled
The slowdown in net growth was due mainly to an increase in the number of domain names that were cancelled. Cancellations in 2014 were 9 per cent up on 2013. Every year, more domain names are cancelled than the year before. While the upward cancellation trend cannot be attributed to any one cause, it is certainly the case that registrants with multiple domain names are tending to look critically at their portfolios. In addition, people are nowadays quicker to cancel unused domain names than in the past.
.nl leads the world on DNSSEC
The number of DNSSEC-secured .nl domain names grew substantially in 2014. By the end of the year, there were 2,251,993 signed .nl domain names. That figure represents a rise of more than 34 per cent on 2013. In both absolute and percentage terms, the .nl domain now has more signed names than any other domain in the world. The growth in the number of DNSSEC domain names was due mainly to the active implementation support that SIDN gave to a number of large registrars.
Aantal met DNSSEC gesignde .nl-domeinnamen
.nl is the most popular extension in the Netherlands
Relative to other extensions, the .nl domain performed very well in 2014. It remained the largest and most popular extension in the Netherlands. The national domain’s share of the domestic market has been stable for some years. Its main ‘rivals’, .com and .eu, saw their shares contract slightly in 2014. So far, the new gTLDs have secured a very small share of the Dutch domain name market.
Global context
With a growth of 2.7 per cent, .nl performed quite well by international standards. Comparable European country-code domains recorded weaker growth in 2014. Germany’s .de domain grew by just 1.1 per cent in 2014, for example. In 2014, the global market for domain names was buoyed mainly by the explosive growth of the .tk domain, which offers free registrations. Other drivers of numeric growth were the market introduction of new generic top-level domains and increasing demand outside Europe.
Check out EuroDNS here to register your .NL domain name.
