Holiday.com Domain Could Sell for £21 Million

Holiday.com could soon become the world’s most expensive domain name when it will be auctioned off at the World Travel Market.

Holiday.com is described by the experts as the “Holy Grail” of the travel industry.Moreover, “Holiday” is one of the most popular search terms on the Internet nowadays.

According to whois records, the domain name was first registered in November, 1998.The current owner owns the domain name for 16 years and recently decided to sell it.Holiday.com owner is Breathe Luxury Limited.

Experts say that the price paid for Holiday.com could easily surpass the £21.5 million paid four years ago for Insurance.com.

The domain name will be auctioned off at the World Travel Market, a conference held on November 5 at London Excel.

ICANN CEO: US Not Giving Up Control Of Open Internet. Because It Doesn’t Have Control.

“No single person, organisation or government has control of the global, decentralised internet,” writes ICANN CEO and President Fadi Chehadé on the ICANN blog. “The United States is not giving up control of the open internet. How can I be sure?” Chehadé asks. “Because the U.S. does not have control of the Internet.”

Chehadé’s blog post is in response to numerous inaccurate media reports on the impact of the US government’s decision “to transition its stewardship of a narrow set of technical functions performed by ICANN within the Internet’s infrastructure (the IANA functions) to you, as part of the global multistakeholder community. The IANA functions include the allocation and maintenance of the unique codes and numbering systems of the Internet (such as Internet Protocol addresses).”

“The U.S. Government’s announcement of this transition in March 2014 set into motion two open, public processes. One is for the global Internet community to develop a process for this stewardship transition. Consistent with the criteria laid out by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), this proposal must have broad community support and must not seek to replace NTIA’s role with a government-led or inter-governmental solution. The second effort is to enhance ICANN’s governance and accountability mechanisms in light of the US Government’s transition away from its stewardship role. Both of these open and transparent processes involve people and organizations from around the world that have reiterated their conviction that the coordination of these narrow technical functions remains with a private-sector led multistakeholder community, not under control of one or more governments.”

To read Chehadé’s blog post in full, go to:
https://www.icann.org/news/blog/internet-governance-is-in-your-hands

Bumper Month For New gTLD Launches In September

It seems to be a bumper month for General Availability launches of new gTLDs in September with 16 happening by my count, along with 18 Sunrise launches.

OK, keeping count of these things is difficult, but my tally of new gTLD launches for September is below.

September New gTLD Sunrise Launches

.restaurant 2 September
.gifts 2 September
.sarl 2 September
.place 13 September
.direct 13 September
.saarland 15 September
.deals 20 September
.soy 24 September
.melbourne 27 September
.attorney 27 September
.lawyer 27 September
.pizza 30 September
.immo 30 September
.business 30 September
.network 30 September
.brussels 1 October
.vlaanderen 1 October
.ovh 1 October

September New gTLD General Availability Launches

.digital 3 September
.accountants 3 September
.finance 3 September
.insure 3 September
.gratis 3 September
.koeln 5 September
.paris 9 September
.loans 10 September
.life 10 September
.guide 10 September
.church 10 September
.fishing 15 September
.cooking 15 September
.horse 15 September
.vodka 15 September
.vegas 15 September
.country 15 September
.rodeo 15 September
.organic 15 September
.press 17 September
.host 17 September
.republican 17 September
.direct 17 September
.place 17 September
.scot 23 September
.deals 24 September
.beer 25 September
.surf 25 September
.date 27 September
.faith 27 September
.science 27 September
.review 27 September
.city 1 October

Cabs.com Domain Name Sells for $50,000 via Sedo

The domain name Cabs.com changed hands for $50,000 on Sedo. The seller was Enterprise Solutions Holdings Inc, of Alpharetta Georgia.

According to whois records, the domain name was first registered in 1995.

The buyer is William Berry of London.

Congratulations to both the seller and the buyer.

ICANN: Alan Greenberg Selected as Next ALAC Chair

Alan Greenberg, a long-time member of the At-Large Advisory Committee ( ALAC ), has been selected as the next ALAC Chair.

Greenberg replaces Olivier Crépin-Leblond, who has served as ALAC Chair since December 2010. He will begin a one-year, renewable term on October 16, 2014 during the ICANN51 Meeting in Los Angeles.

” ALAC represents the interests of Internet users,” said Greenberg. “We do that through identifying people around the world who have an interest in ICANN , the Internet, and the user perspective… and the challenge is then to make that really work.”

Greenberg was appointed to the ALAC by the Nominating Committee for the terms 2006-2008, 2008-2010, 2012-2014 and will begin a fourth two-year term at ICANN 51.

In addition to serving on the ALAC , Greenberg has served as the ALAC Liaison to the GNSO between 2006 through 2014.

In addition to his experience with At-Large, Greenberg recently served on the second Accountability Transparency Review Team (ATRT2), representing the ALAC perspective on ICANN ‘s overall accountability and transparency.

Greenberg has more than 45 years of experience with computing and networking technologies. For much of his career, he worked for McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Over the years, this included software design and development, education technology support, management and policy development. He was one of a handful of people who brought the Internet and its predecessor networks to Canada and worked on a variety of Canadian and international networking initiatives. He has taught courses in computer architecture and design, as well as managed the Internet Society ( ISOC ) workshops which taught personnel from 150 developing countries how to build, support, manage and use the Internet in their countries. He was also an elected member of the ISOC Board of Trustees from 2001-2004.

After his retirement from McGill, he continued to focus on the effective use of technology in developing countries. Projects included how to effectively spread the use of technology to benefit the country and its people; and a study of the linkages between technology and poverty, and how technologies can be effectively used for poverty alleviation, and how web and specifically mobile technologies can benefit developing populations.

Throughout his career, he has focused on how technology can be made accessible to the widest possible audience and the empowerment of people through the use of technology.

Greenberg holds a BSc degree in Mathematics and Physics, and an MSc in Computer Science, both from McGill University.

To watch a video interview of Alan Greenberg, go here: http://youtu.be/ZWzPYJ1DNjY

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2014-09-15-en