ICANN: Reports for Alternate Path to Delegation Published

ICANN has published the Alternate Path to Delegation Reports and lists of Second-Level Domains (SLDs) to block for all eligible proposed new gTLDs. Nearly all of the applied for new gTLD strings have been found eligible to proceed with the Alternate Path to Delegation prior to receiving their Name Collision Occurrence Assessments.

The Alternate Path to Delegation was outlined in the board New gTLD Program Committee document titled “New gTLD Name Collision Occurrence Management Plan” [PDF, 840 KB]. The reports determine whether applicants of a specific applied-for string are eligible to elect the Alternate Path to Delegation. The accompanying lists detail the SLDs that must be blocked for each proposed new gTLD to mitigate the occurrence of name collision. Only proposed new gTLDs that are eligible for the Alternate Path to Delegation have a list of SLDs to block.

Download the Alternate Path to Delegation Reports and Lists of SLDs to block for all proposed new gTLDs [ZIP, 53.9 MB].

The minority of new gTLDs not eligible for the Alternate Path to Delegation (25) will not proceed to delegation until they receive their corresponding Name Collision Occurrence Assessment for their respective new gTLD and ICANN has determined that the new gTLD is eligible for delegation. Mitigation measures required by ICANN as a condition to activation of names in the DNS zone for such new gTLDs may include, without limitation, mitigation measures such as those described in Section 3.2 of the New gTLD Name Collision Occurrence Management Plan. The process for producing these assessments, known as the “Name Collision Occurrence Management Framework,” is currently in development. The Framework will be a joint effort between ICANN and the community. ICANN expects to finalize the Name Collision Occurrence Management Framework by ICANN 49 in Singapore (23-27 March 2014).

ICANN intends to present a development timeline and initial questions for discussion regarding the Framework at ICANN 48 Buenos Aires (17-21 November 2013). Interested parties (e.g., current and prospective Registry Operators, security practitioners, community members) are encouraged to attend the SSR Session on Monday, 18 November 2013 and provide input.

The Alternate Path to Delegation requires blocking the known list of SLDs that have received queries in the “Day in the Life of the Internet” (DITL) and other relevant data. The gTLDs that were considered ineligible were those for which the growth of the number of SLDs queried year over year significantly exceeded the average growth rate for all applied for gTLDs in at least two of the DITL years (2006-2012), and for which one of the years in which this was observed was the most recent year, 2012. The analysis of this data showed that for some strings, the variance of SLDs queried varied so significantly from year to year that the mechanism of blocking SLDs might not be an effective way of addressing the name collision issue.

Per New gTLD Program Committee direction, both home and corp will be deferred for delegation indefinitely and thus were not included in this analysis.

The following 25 proposed gTLDs have been found to be ineligible for the Alternate Path to Delegation:

blog
box
business
casa
cisco
comcast
dev
family
free
google
iinet
mail
network
office
orange
philips
prod
sfr
site
taobao
taxi
web
work
world
zip

(Note: This announcement was updated on 18 November 2013 with the list of the 25 proposed gTLDs found to be ineligible for the Alternate Path to Delegation.)

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/announcement-2-17nov13-en

Musics.com Domain Name Sells for $76,000

Musics.com domain name was sold for $76,000 through GoDaddy. According to whois records,the last owner was Terry James.

Musics.com was first registered in 1997.It will be interesting to see if the sale follows through,as many say that someone is playing a joke or it’s a fraud.The bid went from $5,000 to $50,000 in one day and days before the auction ended.Moreover,there were improbable jumps in the bidding progression from $10,000 straight to $30,000.

We will keep you up to date.

Afilias Research : Social Networks Likely to Lose Grip on Brand/Consumer Conversations in the wake of new “dot Brand” Web Domains

Afilias research revealed that the launch of branded generic Top Level Domains will likely mark the start of a decline in the number of brands using social networks.

You can read the announcement after the jump:

“New research from registry services provider Afilias reveals that the launch of branded generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) will likely mark the start of a decline in the number of brands using social networks.

By polling participants at the recent London-based Digital Marketing and gTLD Strategy Congress, hosted by the Momentum Event Group, Afilias found that 83 percent of gTLD applicants and industry experts believe that branded domain extensions (like .NIKE or .TIFFANY) will be a more effective way to engage customers online than social networks or other third-party sites. As a result, 41 percent of attendees believe that businesses will reduce their reliance on social media marketing once their new domains have launched.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that the first top-level domains from its new gTLD program were delegated in October 2013. That means the shift to corporate use of branded gTLDs is coming very quickly.

“Brand pages on social networks may enable brand/consumer dialogue, but third-party sites — whether Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest — also own that interaction and information. One of the key advantages of a ‘dot Brand’ gTLD is that businesses will be able to take back control of their online presence and reduce reliance on social networks for online conversations,” said Roland LaPlante, CMO at Afilias.

The new gTLDs also present a threat to “heritage” Web extensions such as .com and .net. Seventy-one percent of event attendees polled stated that they intend to sunset their heritage domain names with a more relevant gTLD once their branded domain is available for use.

“Our survey shows that businesses across industries are finally ‘getting it’ about the benefits of new gTLDs. The program represents the largest expansion of the Internet’s naming system since it began, and many brands are putting all hands on deck to take full advantage of the branding and security benefits the changes bring,” LaPlante added. “Businesses like Google and Amazon, which applied for their own domains in this preliminary round, are now working on how they will integrate their new gTLDs into online strategies and communicate the benefits to consumers. Businesses that did not apply for a new domain in the initial round must prepare for the competitive impact of these launches and begin planning to apply for their own gTLDs in ICANN’s next round.”

Internet Governance Takes Center Stage at ICANN’s Buenos Aires Meeting

[ICANN news release] The future of Internet governance took on a new priority at the opening of ICANN’s 48th Public Meeting, ahead of an April conference on Internet governance in Brazil. More than 1,700 people from around the world are attending the ICANN meeting in Buenos Aires.

“ICANN is part of an ecosystem, and the environment around us affects us” said ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé. “We have to be engaged. It doesn’t mean we leave behind our responsibilities. It doesn’t mean we increase our responsibilities, but we have to also be active participants in the ecosystem, this is central to the multistakeholder success on a global level.”

Communications Secretary and Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers of Argentina, Juan Manuel Abal Medina, Jr., stressed the importance of keeping up with a rapidly growing network. “We have a human resource deficit. We must design public policies that will help us overcome these obstacles in terms of growth.”
During the Annual General Meeting, ICANN Board Chair Dr. Stephen Crocker remarked on the groundbreaking work of the community of Internet organizations in bringing the issue of governance to the forefront through the Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation.

“We have to have a more inclusive framework. We have to have the participation from everybody – civil society, academia, business, et cetera,” said Crocker. “And if we don’t preserve that and we don’t preserve that inclusiveness, then we will redefine – which is a very polite word for ‘do enormous damage to’ – the most inclusive communications system that man has ever devised.”

During the Buenos Aires Meeting, which is also ICANN’s Annual General Meeting, Chehadé outlined the organization’s accomplishments over the past year and also praised the success of the New generic Top-Level Domain (gTLDs) Program. So far, 24 new top-level domains have been delegated into the Domain Name System (DNS).

“Today, we can celebrate the success. The gTLD program is off the ground,” remarked Chehadé. “In fact, we have added more new gTLDs to the root today than all the gTLDs in the history of ICANN.”
ICANN also announced that Lesley Cowley, the CEO at the U.K. registry Nominet, is the winner of the first Leadership Award. The organization also announced plans to create a new award to honor community members called the Multistakeholder Ethos Award. The first Ethos award will be presented at the next ICANN meeting in Singapore.

Also during the Buenos Aires meeting, the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA) and ICANN announced that they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Under the memorandum, ICANN and KISA will closely collaborate on engagement efforts in Korea and implement a pilot project to promote language localization efforts in the region.

ICANN’s 48th Public Meeting in Buenos Aires will continue through Thursday.

Sedo To Host Premium .ME Auction in December

Sedo will host a premium .ME auction from December 12,2013 to December 19,2013.The auction features 87 premium .ME domain names, at different price points.