Nominet Publishes List of 6323 Premium Domains for .Wales and .Cymru

Nominet has published today the list of 6323 premium domain names for .Cymru and .Wales.You can buy some of these domain names starting December 29,2014.

Starting December 29,2014, anyone can apply for a .Wales and .Cymru domain name from the list. The list has 6323 premium .Wales and .Cymru domain names, including domain names like Travel.wales and Visit.cymru .

The domain names will be up for sale with a £50 reserve price plus registration and application fees.

Some other interesting domain names included on the list are:

Agency.cymru
Bar.wales
Bid.Wales
Bingo.wales
Art.cymru
Autos.cymru
Brides.wales
Brie.wales
Broker.wales
Accommodation.wales
Heritage.wales
Cheap.cymru

You can see the entire list here.

Afnic Expands Its Internet & Domain Name Consultancy and Expertise Activities

Afnic, the company behind .FR extension,announced today that it will expand its internet & domain name consultancy and expertise activities.

You can read the press release after the jump :

“As the leading registry for French Internet addresses, for over 15 years Afnic has built up a unique level of experience in domain name management in France. Afnic is a non-profit association, and the government-appointed Registry for the management of .fr domain names. It also manages the overseas TLDs for .re (Reunion Island), .pm (St. Pierre and Miquelon), .tf (French Southern and Antarctic Territories), .wf (Wallis and Futuna) and .yt (Mayotte). Those six ccTLDs represent a portfolio of more than 2.8 million domain names and make Afnic the leading French operator of Internet Registry Services.

Afnic carries out its assignments in the public interest by involving all the relevant stakeholders in its decisions (scientists, the public authorities, and representatives of private sector involved in the Internet in France).

Its time-tested processes in DNS management and ability to secure a large portfolio of domain names are now proving their value in other businesses and organizations. Since 2011, Afnic has supported the deployment of 17 new registries for new Internet TLDs, including .paris and .bzh, as well as .sncf, .ovh and .leclerc.

In line with these developments, starting from December 1, 2014, Afnic will be expanding its technical consultancy and expertise offering.

The offering now includes two components: support for the implementation and deployment of new registries on the one hand, and technical expertise in DNS and secure management of domain name portfolios on the other.

Consultancy

In the first category of services, Afnic teams can support a business, brand or local authority wishing to create their own Internet TLD, throughout all the phases of the implementation of a new registry, from upstream discussions to maintaining the registry after it has been launched. The support can cover either one of those aspects or the project as a whole.
Expertise

The second category of services is backed by the widely recognized technical knowledge of Afnic engineers. It is designed for registries, ISPs and businesses alike, and helps them implement or improve an operational infrastructure and deploy DNS, DNSSEC (secure DNS) and IPv6 protocols.

“Afnic has over 15 years of experience in the Internet and domain name industry. We are putting that experience to the service of businesses and local authorities in line with our mission, which consists in helping French stakeholders play a leading role on the Internet”, said Mathieu Weill, CEO of Afnic.”

Check out EuroDNS here to register your .FR domain name.

IANA Stewardship Transition Cross Community Working Group on Naming Related Functions – Chairs’ Statement on Frankfurt Face-to-Face Meeting: Lise Fuhr & Jonathan Robinson

The Cross Community Working Group (CWG) on Naming Related Functions met for a face-to-face in Frankfurt, Germany on 19 – 20 November 2014. The highly diverse CWG is one of the three groups submitting a proposal to the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group ( ICG ) as part of the overall IANA Stewardship Transition process. As noted in the CWG Charter [ DOC , 132 KB], the IANA stewardship transition process is taking place alongside a parallel and related process on enhancing ICANN accountability.

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- day face-to-face meeting to advance the work of the CWG. The CWG will produce a proposal for the ICG in response to the ICG Request for Proposals [PDF, 84 KB]. The Frankfurt face-to-face meeting was an essential step towards finalizing a consensus-based draft proposal to be issued for Public Comment on 1 December.

The CWG has structured its work in eight subgroups based on sections of the ICG Request for Proposals. Going into the Frankfurt face-to-face meeting, 5/8 subgroups had begun drafting and developing their sections of the Draft Proposal. 18 members (or their alternates) and 12 participants, collectively deriving from within and outside the ICANN community, attended the meeting. In addition, there was significant online participation. The meeting was conducted over two full days, including an evening session. Discussions were intense and substantial, as people shared different perspectives and proposals. The issues covered, including the diversity of views on them, are considered to be complex and challenging but, nonetheless, were addressed in a collegial and constructive manner.

Key Developments from the Frankfurt Meeting

The meeting focused on responding to the ICG RFP, broken down into its constituent parts or sections, inline with the approach the CWG has taken to date. These sections were further developed during the meeting, and will now be synthesized into a preliminary draft proposal for further review by the full CWG.

The first three components, which are the basis for the preliminary draft, are nearly complete and are available on the CWG Wiki.

Given the progress, the CWG concluded with reasonable optimism that the proposal will be developed sufficiently close to the ICG ‘s target deadline.

The 19 – 20 November meeting was fully recorded and transcribed, as are all meetings of the CWG. To view the material from the meeting, including the publically archived mailing lists, please see the CWG Wiki meeting pages.

The CWG will conduct webinars on the Draft Proposal following its posting on 1 December.

Upcoming Dates & Opportunities for Engagement

Below is a list of upcoming dates for public engagement with the CWG and its work:

1 December: expected publication date for Draft Proposal for Public Comment
1 – 23 December: given the short timeframe ahead, the CWG developed a timeline with the minimum 21-day Public Comment period, and hope that interested parties will endeavor to submit comments on the Draft Proposal within the designated period
4 – 6 December: the CWG will host 3 public webinars to present the Draft Proposal and engage with broader community about progress to date
19 January: submission of CWG Final Proposal to chartering organizations
31 January: CWG planned submission of Final Proposal to ICG

About the CWG

The CWG consists of 119 people, organized as 19 members, appointed by and accountable to chartering organizations, and 100 participants who do so 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 119 CWG members and participants, there are 41 countries represented. The regional representation is as follows:

38 Asia/Asia Pacific
34 Europe
26 North America
11 Latin America
10 Africa

Of the 119 CWG members and participants, the stakeholder group representation is as follows:

40 (no affiliation)
27 GNSO
18 ccNSO / ccTLD
17 At-Large
15 GAC
2 SSAC

In addition, there are 6 ICG members who participate in the CWG.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2014-11-20-en

Invest.com Sells for Over $ 5 Million

The domain name Invest.com has been sold for more than $5 million ,according to forexmagnates.com .The domain name was sold to a company called Singulariteam.

Singulariteam is a company heandquarted in Tel Aviv, Israel .

According to whois records, the domain name Invest.com was first registered in 1998.

Invest.com was previously sold for over $1 million ,six years ago, in 2008, according to DNJournal.This was also the seventh biggest domain name sale of 2008.

Congratulations to both the seller and the buyer.

Google Files Complaint for Google-Domain.com and DomainsGoogle.net Domain Names

The American multinational Corporation,Google,has recently filed a complaint against the owner of Google-Domain.com and DomainsGoogle.net domain names,seeking control of it.

Google filed the complaint with the National Arbitration Forum on November 25,2014.

According to whois records, the domain names were first registered on 24 and 25 June,2014.

The National Arbitration Forum will examine over the next days if the domain names are confusingly similar to Google’s trademark,if the current owner has rights over it and if the domains are being used in bad faith .The two disputed domain names will be passed over to Google if it falls under all three of these stipulations.

At the time of writing this article, the case is still pending compliance checks with the National Arbitration Forum.