Public Interest Registry Announces Sunrise Period For New Internationalised Domain Names

[news release] Public Interest Registry – the not-for-profit operator of the .org domain – today (22/4) launched the first registration phase, known as the Sunrise Period, for its three new Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). Qualified domain trademark holders can now submit applications for each of these three new domains which translate to “organisation” or “institution” in non-Latin-based scripts – one in Devanagari (.संगठन), one in Cyrillic (.орг), and one in simplified Chinese (.机构). Registration will open to all interested parties beginning May 27.

By allowing organisations to brand their website addresses in localized scripts, Public Interest Registry is providing opportunities for organisations to better communicate their mission, activities and accomplishments to audiences who speak and write in these widely used scripts. These new domains further demonstrate Public Interest Registry’s commitment to helping organisations maximize their audience reach on a global scale.

“The launch of these international domain names allows us to continue expanding upon our ongoing mission of making the Internet a global, accessible place for organisations worldwide,” said Brian Cute, CEO of Public Interest Registry. “Now more than ever, organisations will have the opportunity to heighten communication with native users of Devanagari, Cyrillic and Chinese scripts, all while advancing their missions and causes.”

Currently, there are approximately:

• 143.5 million people in Russia using Russian Cyrillic as the official alphabet for their national language
• 497 million people speaking Hindi as a first language and 120 million as a second language
• 1.4 billion people speaking and writing in some form of Chinese

In recent years, Public Interest Registry has emerged at the forefront of support for use of alternative scripts, having worked closely with standards-setting bodies and members of the engineering community to create and launch a number of alternative scripts for second-level names associated with .org. To date, the registrar supports 11 IDNs available for user adoption with .org in languages that include Danish, German, Hungarian, Polish, Spanish and Swedish, among others.

For more information about Public Interest Registry or for the full list of registrars offering the new IDNs, please visit www.pir.org.

About Public Interest Registry
Public Interest Registry is a nonprofit corporation that operates the .org top-level domain — the world’s third largest “generic” top-level domain with more than 10 million domain names registered worldwide. As an advocate for collaboration, safety and security on the Internet, Public Interest Registry’s mission is to empower the global noncommercial community to use the Internet more effectively, and to take a leadership position among Internet stakeholders on policy and other issues relating to the domain naming system. Public Interest Registry was founded by the Internet Society (www.internetsociety.org ) in 2002 and is based in Reston, Virginia, USA.

DomainSkate Protects Businesss and Brands in New Internet Landscape

[news release] DomainSkate LLC, pioneers in the domain name security space, today (21 April) announced the launch of its online brand and protection service for small and mid-sized businesses. As the world ushers in more than a thousand new domains in 2014, cyber-squatters have more opportunities than ever to misuse brand likenesses to siphon customer bases and tarnish brand recognition. The first of its kind, DomainSkate protects small and mid-size businesses and brands from these infringing domain names with proactive, active and reactive services to constantly monitor business names and patrol the web.

 As an official Trademark Clearinghouse agent, DomainSkate informs customers of their trademark rights and protections while providing the opportunity to claim domains before being offered to the public. DomainSkate alerts companies of opportunities as new Top Level Domains are released to purchase new relevant domain names. Such domains as .Hotel, .Art and .NYC are being added regularly and if they are not claimed by the proper companies, cyber thieves have the opportunity to take control, causing brand confusion and traffic theft.

“A large number of businesses are surprised that new domains are appearing on the Internet and don’t realize they are giving cyber-squatters more opportunities to take advantage of the uninformed,” explained David Mitnick, an attorney and founder & CEO of DomainSkate. “As defenders of the domain, we want our customers to feel safe from cyber-squatters and other third-parties looking to damage and defame their brands.”

Mitnick, with more than a decade of experience as an intellectual property lawyer at Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein LLP, represented clients such as Macy’s, Panasonic, JVC and other Fortune 500 companies in copyright, trademark and patent litigation. Having honed in on his abilities in Internet law, Mitnick embarked on developing DomainSkate as the premiere service to protect online brands of smaller businesses that did not have the deep pockets his former clients had.

DomainSkate provides 24-hour active protection and alerts customers when someone registers a domain similar to their brand trademark or name. If an external user latches onto a similar domain name, DomainSkate will help the original company retrieve the domain or suspend the impostor swiftly. DomainSkate assists customers in creating complaints, so their customer can submit it to the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution and Uniform Rapid Suspension system, ensuring prompt action against offenders.

DomainSkate customers receive a free one-month trial; service starts as low as $9.99 per month or $95 per year. The company will protect up to five business names for $19.99 per month, and for $34.99 per month, up to 15 business names are guarded by DomainSkate’s alert system. There are additional discounts for annual plans. Larger businesses with more than 15 names to protect can also receive a custom quote from a DomainSkate representative. Trademark Clearinghouse submissions are an additional fee.

“We’re in uncharted territory with the record amount of new domains coming out in 2014,” said Mitnick. “We know how hard businesses work to become well respected in their industry and to be found by consumers via search, and we want to ensure their brand isn’t tarnished nor are they losing revenue because they’re simply not aware of these fast-moving changes to the Internet.”

About DomainSkate

David K. Mitnick, an intellectual property attorney and Internet law veteran, founded DomainSkate in 2011. David’s vision: a company whose cost-effective and hassle-free technology protects and recovers precious domain names. DomainSkate provide insights into the new net landscape for small and mid-sized companies.

DomainSkate’s unique brand protection and monitoring software actively alerts a user within 24 hours of a similar domain being registered. Small and medium-sized businesses achieve support with professional grade brand protection at an affordable cost. For more information and a free month of service, please log on to DomainSkate.com.

This DomainSkate news release was sourced from:
domainskate.com/domainskate-protects-businesss-brands-new-internet-landscape

New gTLD Registrations Soar Past Half Million As .GURU Passes 50,000

The total number of domain names registered across all new gTLDs roared past 500,000 on 15 April, jumping 46,349 registrations in one day according nTLDstats.com. The number of domains registered across all of the new gTLDs stood at 558,051 as of 21 April.

And .guru has become the first of the new gTLDs to pass the 50,000 registrations mark, reaching 51,390 with a market share of 9.21 percent, and widening the gap in recent weeks to .berlin which now has 46,405 registrations, and a 8.32 percent market share. In third place is still .photography that now has 32,832 registrations.

The number of registrations has grown consistently, with registrations being in part driven by the progressive General Availability of new gTLDs, and the more successful driving bumps in total figures. One bump coming soon will be the launch of .london. Anyone with an interest in a .london domain can apply from 29 April. Preferences are given to applicants as follows:

those with trademarks verified with ICANN’s Trademark Clearinghouse database
Londoners (those with a physical address in the City of London or its 32 boroughs) with rights to a name (such as proof of business or trading name)
Londoners (those with a physical address in the City of London or its 32 boroughs)
non-Londoners.
During August 2014, Dot London will allocate names according to priority ranking and where there is more than one applicant in the same priority ranking for the same domain name, an auction will decide who will get the name.

On the registrar front, GoDaddy still reigns supreme with three times as many registrations as the registrar with the second most registrations, eNom. GoDaddy now has 149,578 domains under management and a market share of 26.80 percent. This has been progressively declining and a few weeks ago was around 30 percent.

ICANN Releases New gTLD Contracting Statistics To 18 April

Below are the key Contracting statistics, as of 18 April 2014:

ICANN: Pre-Delegation Testing Documents Have Been Updated

ICANN has made minor changes to the test resources to clarify the existing requirements. The majority of the changes are to the input templates, designed to improve the accuracy of the data submitted for testing and the applications success rate. Additionally, in response to applicant feedback, we have added the capacity to test the EPP service using the host name. The updated materials should not require any material changes for the applicants that have successfully completed PDT.

• View Current Resources

Customer Portal User Guide Created to Help Applicants Transition to Delegation

Learn how to navigate through Pre-Delegation Testing functionality in the New gTLD Customer Portal.

• Read the Announcement
• Download the User Guide [PDF, 2.18 MB]

Understanding Pre-Delegation Testing

Overview

Pre-Delegation Testing ensures that an applicant has the capacity to operate a new generic Top-Level Domain in a stable, secure manner. Every new Registry must demonstrate that it has established operations in accordance with the technical and operational criteria described in the Applicant Guidebook (Module 5: Transition to Delegation). Only after passing PDT can a Registry’s gTLD be introduced into the root zone of the Internet.

Pre-Delegation Testing elements address DNS server operational infrastructure and registry system operations, including:

• DNS
• Whois
• EPP
• IDN
• Data Escrow
• Documentation

This ICANN update was sourced from:

newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/pdt