April 2009 Archives

One of the things that I love about the guys at dotMobi is their tireless work to promote the mobile internet.

Their latest move is the release of the Wordpress Mobile Pack which is probably the most comprehensive suite of tools to render a CMS powered site "mobile ready" (put another way, it makes mobifying your site dead easy).

So what is included?

Looking at the release notes it's pretty overwhelming:

    * Mobile switcher to detect mobile visitors and provide an appropriate experience
    * Base mobile theme for quick-and-easy XHTML-MP compliance
    * Extended mobile themes so you can unleash your mobile creativity
    * Transcoding and device adaptation to optimise the mobile experience
    * DeviceAtlas integration for world-class adaptation
    * Mobile admin panel for when posts can't wait
    * Mobile ad widget to make you some money (choose between admob or Google adsense)
    * Barcode widget to help users bookmark your blog

The only thing it doesn't do is write your content for you!

Of course this is only the first iteration, so expect to see even more features (and goodies) in future releases

Nice work dotMobi!

A recent post on MarkMonitor's corporate blog, which was also published on Circleid, dealt with the recent issues affecting several prominent .nz domains.

Markmonitor, who describe themselves as:

"the global leader in enterprise brand protection."

are obviously going to have a particular viewpoint when it comes to domains and how they "should" work.

In their post MarkMonitor highlighted potential weaknesses in how domains are handled by registries and registrars. However they are primarily interested in domain names that are "garnering significant traffic".

The problem with this approach is that it could effectively create a multi-tiered system, with some domains being treated differently to others.

Bizarre?

It gets worse:

.....fingers are naturally pointing to Domainz, the registrar of record for these domains, as the party responsible for this lapse in security. While domain name registrars certainly need to ensure the security and stability of their systems, domain name registries must also step up and take responsibility for mitigating risks posed by hackers.

So basically Mark Monitor want the registry to take some level of responsibility for an incident (or potential incident) in a system completely outside their control?

This is supposedly backed up by an incredibly vague assertion:

"Some registries have recognized the risks posed to highly trafficked sites by hackers, disgruntled employees and even erroneous changes, and have implemented a new level of security which prohibits changes to specified domains; unless a manual protocol is first completed by the registrar."

Which registries? The lack of that fundamental detail renders the value of the assertion worthless. I'm not saying that there may not be registry operators that have implemented extra "safeguards", but if you want to change some of the fundamental aspects of how registrar / registry relations are managed on a day to day basis ie. via EPP, then you really should be in a position to provide evidence in support of your claims.

In any case Jay Daley, CEO of the .nz registry, posted a followup comment which highlights some of the issues:

"Let's just work through the implications of that. Yes we registries could introduce a manual process for the registrar to follow on specified domains (presumably specified by the registrar). This manual process is likely to cost around 10 to 20 times the annual cost of the domain, because registry costs are all built around a high degree of automation.

So we now we would have a two tier market where the registrants that can afford to pay a lot more get much better protection.

Let's suppose some of the less well off registrants aren't happy with that and start to kick up a fuss. They want the same level of protection but without the exorbitant cost. Something the consumer protection regulators are likely to sympathise with strongly. What's more, these registrants point out that you can have an automated process which achieves the same result at a fraction of the cost. One where the registry emails the registrant directly to ask them to unlock a domain or accept a specific change.

Do registries reply "no, we only work through registrars and so the two tier system is the best we can do"? Or do we fundamentally change the relationships between registry -> registrar -> registrant?

Or perhaps registrars should raise their game by being transparent on their internal controls, publishing their security audits, developing an industry certification scheme and so on, rather than expecting registries to protect them from themselves? And perhaps registries and regulators should begin to insist on some of that?"

I'd have to wonder if the author of the Mark Monitor piece truly understands how the mechanics of all this works...

The same person who penned the .nz article also posted about how domainers were supposedly abusing companies' IP.:
"One of the issues, which isn’t discussed in the report, is one that is of special interest to brand rights holders. Domainers have been taking advantage of rights holders’ brands by registering domains containing variations of famous marks – and then either directly or indirectly displaying pay-per-click links from advertisers"
Considering that most of the domain monetisation companies won't monetise trademark domains to tar all domainers with that brush is just scaremongering plain and simple.

The Intellectual Property Constituency's draft report on trademark issues is now available for comment.

The draft report was put together behind closed doors, which would appear to go against the normal policy development process at ICANN, which is quite worrying.

Its contents, however, are even more disturbing.

While reading the 48 page document, which is littered with acronyms and terminology that would make your head hurt, it is a worthwhile exercise if you have any interest in the development of new TLDs.

From a registrant perspective the most disturbing part of their report is that dealing with WHOIS. The IP people seem to have zero interest in registrants' right to privacy. Under EU law, for example, I can register a domain as a private individual in most European ccTLDs (including .eu) and have some level of privacy. Not so the case with the IRT's proposals:

After carefully consideration, the IRT believes that the provision of WHOIS information at the

registry level under the Thick WHOIS model is essential to the cost‐effective protection of

consumers and intellectual property owners. For this reason, the IRT recommends that ICANN

amend the proposed Registry Agreement to include an obligation that all registry operators for

new gTLDs must provide registry‐level WHOIS under the Thick WHOIS model currently in place

in the .info and .biz registries.

And if that wasn't enough, they also want to centralise whois:

In addition, the IRT recommends that ICANN immediately begin to explore the establishment of a central, universal WHOIS database to be maintained by ICANN

While that may not have much impact on registrants at one level it could have an interesting impact at various other levels of the system eg. syncing of data.

The timelines surrounding the draft report are also a bit confusing.

The comment period was opened on a Friday 24 April 2009 and closes one month later, but you only have until May 6th to submit comments for inclusion in the final report! So you don't really have the full 30 day comment period you'd be expecting and with the May bank holiday affecting most countries, the period is even more reduced.

George Kirikos, in an email submission to the comment forum, goes into some detail on the issues surrounding both the IRT's composition, behaviour and the timeline for comments:

We object to the extremely short comment period for this report, and the method by which it was drafted.

It was released at the end of the day on April 24, 2009 (a Friday) We are told that "those wishing to have the IRT consider their comments in connection with its final report should submit comments by 6 May, 2009." Given that May 1st is a holiday in a large number of countries, this leaves many people with only 7 (seven) or at best 8 (eight) business days in which to read the report, consult with colleagues, and write a coherent response to a lengthy document.

Given the IRT's extreme lack of transparency and its very narrow representation of interests (i.e. it was not an open GNSO workgroup or task force where any stakeholder could join; there was no public mailing list archive or MP3 recordings/transcripts of meetings), it is unclear whether any responses submitted by the May 6 deadline will even be considered, especially given that detailed comments and recommendations made to the DAG v1 and v2 reports did not receive any apparent consideration by the committee in this draft report. There is no public audit-trail of any discussions leading up to this report, but it instead appears to be a rehashing of certain "wish list" items by a narrow few in the community, instead of a balanced proposal representative of all stakeholders.

The IRT is working within artificial deadlines imposed by the ICANN Board in its March 6th resolution. We recommend that the IRT go back to the Board to advocate that these artificial deadlines need to be rethought. Given the comments overwhelmingly opposed to new gTLDs both in the first and second versions of the DAG (with the 2nd comment period ending only last week), ICANN has not justified that the gTLD program should go forward in any form, and not justified the colossal misuse of time that could be better spent on important issues such as DNSSEC, IPv6 and IDN ccTLDs, and fixing problems in existing gTLDs. It is our hope that the NTIA/DOC/DOJ will provide ICANN with far clearer and direct guidance in this regard, as it is clear to us that certain minority interests have captured the agenda at ICANN and are setting its plans to the detriment of the public.

There is no "pressing need" that a final report be delivered by May 24, 2009, especially given that the Sydney meeting begins on June 21, 2009. A rushed job will not lead to a solution that has consensus support, and forming consensus is ICANN's mission. If a consensus cannot be reached, ICANN has to realize that the matter might be a threshold issue that must lead to continued study and work, rather than proceeding with half-baked solutions over the objections of a large number of stakeholders.

We note the comment period for version 1 of the DAG closed on January 7, 2009 (after 76 days), and allowed for translation into multiple languages before the end of the comment period. Analysis and summary of those comments by ICANN staff were released to the public on February 18, 2009, namely 42 days later (at which time version 2 of the DAG was also released). We would expect the IRT, if it's to even have a remote possibility of reaching a global consensus, would need similar time periods. At a minimum, the time periods should be shifted so that public comments are due 2 weeks before Sydney, with analysis of those comments to be released just before Sydney, and discussion to take place during Sydney. A final report would then be released a few weeks after Sydney, with a further comment period on that final report.

In conclusion, we look forward to the IRT's realization that the current schedule is needlessly rushed, and requires adjustment. We expect that the IRT will make in the immediate future a clarifying announcement with a reasonable time frame for comments if it expects to maintain the goodwill of the community in its ongoing efforts to reach a consensus. We also expect that they will positively respond to the request for public archives of mailing lists and MP3 recordings/transcripts in order to improve transparency.

So what are the options for members of the ICANN community?
How is it possible that a report with as much impact as this could be prepared in practical secrecy? (The IRT states clearly that its members were forbidden to discuss the proceedings)

Rick Latona has made available the list of domains that will be on auction during TRAFFIC Silicon Valley.

The list is pretty impressive, but so are the reserve prices!

Names on the list include

• Seoul.com
• Shows.com (no reserve)
• Belgium.com
• French.com
• Sofas.com
• Houses.co.uk
• Palermo.com
• archers.net

The reserve prices vary wildly, from nothing through to over $1 million.

The full list with reserves is on the Rick Latona site

The GeoDomain auction over on Aftermarket.com had some interesting inventory, with names like toweroflondon.com on the table. However the inventory got a lot more interesting in the last 24 hours with the addition of several high value names:

• ticket.com (starting bids will need to be over $3.3 million)
• miss.com
• mundo.com
• frenchkissing.net

and several others ...

If you're planning on bidding make sure your account is validated with Aftermarket.com in advance.

Nominet are holding a number of registrar information days across the UK in the coming months

At present there are dates listed for:

• Leeds - 29 April 2009
• London - 30 June 2009
• Birmingham - 16 September 2009

Full information and booking details on their site

While I may not be in a position to attend ...

The 8th Toronto Domainer Dinner is being held this Thursday.

Full details and booking here

Nominet has published the results of the Independent Governance Review.

The salient points are that the report recognises Nominet's position and how it is held in high regard, however there is room for improvement in terms of engaging with members and other stakeholders:

".... .... whilst the world has moved on,neither Nominet’s membership structure, nor its constitution, has kept up with these external changes. Therefore, both its membership composition, voting processes and governance system are now in need of major reconsideration and rebalancing to cope with its changed external environment. I feel it important to stress that only the membership can resolve these issues, not the Board of Directors who ultimately are agents of the member/owners"

The report also makes clear reference to some of the "squabbles" surrounding the registry in recent months:

.... it is essential for the membership as a whole to focus its energies away from their recent publicly-aired micro-politics and to face up to their relationship with the major changes in its environment which are already shaping Nominet’s future...

The report makes several recommendations that it is felt would improve matters for the registry operator, however if the members of Nominet themselves are not interested in policy development and change I suspect that getting any real changes made is going to be awkward.

The PAB, for example, is mentioned specifically:

To reconsider the role and processes of the Policy Advisory Body so that it becomes more an ‘outward facing’ part of the membership’s connection and sensitivity to the external stakeholders and the public good.

However the level of apathy among the Nominet membership is hard to ignore. This year's PAB election did not take place, as there was no actual contest!

Needless to say Nominet has already issued a public response to the review, but whether or not they'll be able to affect any real and substantive change in their membership's level of involvement in the organisation's policies and future role is another matter.

BRS Media, which is the company behind the .am and .fm domain extensions, will be  announcing later today that it will be applying for the new TLD ".radio" domain extension with ICANN.

BRS' George T Bundy is obviously excited by the move:

"The future for Internet Radio is vibrant, with the largest growth in mobile listening. From cell phone streaming applications to new In Car and In Flight Wi-Fi access, Internet Radio is now being consumed literally everywhere! DotRadio will allow us to offer the most complete selection of domain extensions to interactive media companies worldwide."

BRS' promotion of dotFM and dotAM has proven successful, with many media properties choosing to use the extensions to reinforce their brand's online presence. (Think of Last.fm, Ping.fm to name but two)

More information on the proposed dotRadio TLD can be found on their site

Of course, in common with any other gTLD application, BRS' success is not guaranteed, however with their proven track record you would expect them to have better odds than a company starting from nowhere.

DNS.be has announced that the 900th thousandth .be domain has gone live. So how long before they break the magic million?

Full release below:

900,000th .be domain name activated

Today 16 April 2009, saw the 900,000th .be domain name registered with DNS BE.

The 900,000th domain name is artchaud.be, owned by a Flemish artist creating lithographs and silk-screen prints for expositions. He is the lucky winner of 10 XL promotion stickers, which he can use to promote his website.

At the turn of the year, there were 860,000 domain names registered, a net growth of more than 16,7%. The 900,000th domain name being clocked already today clearly shows that the financial and economic crisis does not withhold the Belgians from registering their domain names. From all the holders of a .be website 70% is effectively situated in Belgium. Meaning that hundreds of thousands of Belgians are clearly familiar with .be domain names.

This year is the tenth anniversary of DNS BE. Its task is to manage and register all .be domain names: register who registered which domain name, control transfers, but mainly to ensure that all domain names are accessible. To put it in an easy way: it is the 'telephone exchange' of Belgium's Internet services.

A short history: Professor Pierre Verbaeten of the Computer Science department of the Catholic University of Leuven started registering .be domain names in Belgium in 1989. Up to 1994, 129 names were registered. Since then, the number has risen sharply. At the request of Pierre Verbaeten, the responsibility for the registration of the domain names for .be was transferred to DNS Belgium, a non-profit association, which was established for this purpose on 2 February 1999 by ISPA, Agoria and Beltug.

Popular domain forum ccTLDs.com is inaccessible this morning.

Any attempt to reach the site is met with the default Apache 509 error:

"The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later. "

Now the forum may have been popular, but I honestly don't think it was that popular, so why on earth is it "out of bandwidth"?

Why is it even hosted on a server with a low bandwidth limit?

What about the paying sponsors and advertisers on ccTLDs.com?

Update: The site became accessible earlier today, though no explanation as to the issue has been posted on the forum (or if it was I can't see it!)

ICANN has been holding a public comment period on the second draft of the new gTLD handbook. This period was due to close yesterday.

Prior to yesterday afternoon there was a healthy number of comments, but in the past 24 hours a significant number of new comments have been submitted.

The tone and content of the comments vary considerably.

While some commentators are not overly enamoured with some of the concepts being pushed around, the general consensus would appear to be in favour of new TLDs.

That being said, the intellectual property contingent have quite a large number of reservations and want various safeguards and concessions to be made in order to make the process more palatable to them.

If you're a Perl coder then you may find a new Perl module of some interest to you.

Net::Lookup::DotTel gives you access to looking up a variety of records (information) associated with a .tel domain name.

Pretty cool!

Whenever I hear the misinformed harping on about how "anyone will be able to get their own TLD" I sigh deeply.

If only it was that simple.

The most recent assault on the new gTLDs comes from the Olympics - the International Olympic Committee to be precise.

You can read the full text of their nastygram over here

The closing line of the letter is particularly unpleasant:

The IOC reserves its right to take action against ICANN for damages resulting to the IOC or the Olympic Movement from the implementation of the gTLD proposal.

As Stephane points out, while any trademark holder has unique rights only a few would have the clout to actually make a serious threat.

Related articles by Zemanta

• New gTLDs and Trademark Issues: Implementation... (domainmacher.com)
• ICANN: cybersquatting complaints soar to highest level ever (arstechnica.com)
• ICANN supremo opens escape hatch (theregister.co.uk)
• Big biz slams brakes on new domains (theregister.co.uk)

Domain auctions can be fascinating to watch and predict - though they can be a little dangerous to get involved with.

Last night Rick Latona held a live auction with an adult theme. Going under the hammer were a very wide range of not only domain names, but also services (hosting, video editing etc.,) for people working in the adult internet industry. What made this auction a bit more interesting was the fact that it also included several ccTLD names.

As seems to happen all too often at domain auctions, some of the more interesting lots did not reach their reserve, so domains like xxx.com did not sell (it had a reserve described as "millions and millions").

So what sold? In short a mixed bag. Some lots had no reserve, others had a "ballpark" reserve, while others had a very clear highball reserve.

stripclubs.com went for $101k

At the low end domains went for a few dollars a pop - in some cases as low as $8 / domain (in a lot of 25)

Based on the post-auction list, here are the results in lot order:

Pornczars.com $1 (?)

ChicBars.com $50

GayMaleWebcam.com pass

GayManMasturbating.com pass

ScottsdaleStripClubs.com pass

ToplessWomen.com pass

HugeCockPorn.com pass

Girls.info pass

HispanicPornos.com $75

BoyCollege.com pass

HispanicCouples.com $100

Jiz.com pass

Boned.com $4750

HornyChicks.co.uk $350

Paysite.tv pass

StudFinder.com pass

BigDickPornos.com $175

Wet.co.uk pass

TranssexualPornos.com $150

SexMuseums.com $300

MenModeling.com pass

Posing.com pass

CyberPorn.com pass

ExtraSmallCondoms.com pass

GirlOnGirl.com pass

FirstDates.com pass

XXXMPegs.com pass

HispanicCoeds.com $100

Novelties.com pass

AmateurShowGirls.com pass

Boys247.com $50

Pornos.com.br pass

SinglesListings.com $125

PublicSquirting.com pass

Porno.co.uk pass

Sadistic.com pass

Milf.info pass

Lot of 25 Adult Domains $200

FU2.com pass

GroupOrgies.net $10

NiceLegs.com pass

NicheTube.com pass

LiveVoyeur.net $20

BangedUp.com pass

XXX.com pass

StripClubs.com $101,000

CamGirls.com pass

Webcam.com pass

EmailTraffic.com pass

SwingerHousewives.com $30

Fingering.com pass

AnalKissing.com pass

NudieBars.com $500

SexShows.com pass

Tits.info pass

Coed.com pass

BigCockPornos.com $80

StreamingSexShows.com

TubeGratis.com $125

LocalBoi.com pass

AdultWebsites.co.uk $275

VoyeurCams.net $75

NightClubPromoter.com pass

EroticShowers.com pass

RibbedDildo.com, RibbedDildos.com, RibbedVibrator.com, & RibbedVibrators.com $75

NaughtyHusband.com & NaughtyHusbands.com $75

FirstPornoMovie.com $30

Related articles by Zemanta

• Rick Latona's Live Auction at Phoenix Forum (domainmacher.com)

Telnic, which recently launched .tel to general registration, has set up a ".tel of the week"

The first domain they've chosen is removals.tel

To have your .tel domain considered you should contact Telnic directly: community@telnic.org


The registry operator reported that they had registered over 100,000 .tel domain names in the first 24 hours and had also got some serious "buy in" from  MySpace.

More information on .tel may be found on their site, while a full list of registrars may be found here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Telnic Launches Multilingual Website - PR Newswire (domainmacher.com)
• .Tel Domains Opening to All Next Week (appscout.com)
• Getting To Grips With DotTel (isquattedyour.eu)
• MySpace, BT Among First to Offer .Tel Domains - PC Magazine (domainmacher.com)
• Dottel Domains Go Live Today (blacknight.com)
• Telnic releases .tel domain for general use (vnunet.com)
• Telnic Whois Service Now Available (isquattedyour.eu)
• MySpace, BT to offer Web contact domains to users - Forbes (domainmacher.com)