September 2009 Archives

ICANN CEO, Rod Beckstrom, explains in plain English what the new "arrangement" for ICANN means both for the organisation and for the global internet community:

ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom has signed the new "Affirmation of Commitments" which replaces the JPA.

More details here including full text and some reactions

Further updates to follow ...

The Mayor of Paris was very upbeat about the new TLD project when he spoke during the ICANN meeting in Paris. Not surprisingly Paris is one of the European cities that is pushing hard to get its own tld .paris.

According to news released earlier today the .paris bid is going to be using a combination of AFNIC and CORE.

AFNIC already runs the .fr cctld operations, while CORE runs .cat's operations.

More here

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• Supporting New TLDs (blacknight.com)
• End in site for Yugoslav domains (news.bbc.co.uk)

I mentioned that dotMobi were planning to launch IDNs some time ago, but now they've announced a launch date.

By the looks of things dotMobi are planning for a nice media coup, as the launch of the sunrise period for IDN coincides with the ICANN meeting in Asia on October 19th 2009 at 4am UTC.

Unlike other IDN launches, dotMobi are being very specific about the launch and are only launching Chinese IDN for the Chinese market.

To make matters more "interesting", the entire offering will only be available in a "bundle" which includes a wireless keyboard that supports the IDN character set.

There will be two phases to the launch, a sunrise from October 29th until November 28th and then "general registration".

While the squabble over .eco might not have vanished, it's not as "big" a news item this week..

So how about .green?

Neustar announced earlier today that the organisation running the .green bid has chosen them to run their backend if their bid is successful.

Neustar already runs the registry backend services for .tel, .biz and several ccTLDs.

When .eu launched a couple of years ago all member states were given the chance to put names down on a "reserve list". The idea being that these names should only be registered either by the state or its organs.
Unfortunately some governments didn't take advantage of this, with the end result being that the .eu launch led to domains like cork.eu and dublin.eu being registered to organisations with questionable entitlements.

Later this year Eurid will be launching IDNs in .eu. In simple terms you'll be able to register domain names using characters other than standard ASCII - think accents, Cyrillic etc.,

And again, as .eu is run by the EU, governments were given ample opportunity to get names added to a reserve list.

However, the Irish government seems to have all but dropped the ball - again!

While other governments submitted large numbers of names, the Irish one seems to have restricted itself to IDN versions of "Ireland" and "Irish". What's even more insane is that they didn't even bother putting a block on the word "dáil", which is the Irish parliament!

Here's the list (excuse the formatting, but the copy and paste from a PDF didn't work too well):

1. irlanda
2. irsko
3. irland
4. iirimaa
5. ireland
6. irlande
7. irlanda
8. Īrija
9. Airija
10. Írország
11. L-Irlanda
12. iρλανδία
13. ierland
14. irlandia
15. Írsko
16. irska
17. irlanti
18. irland
19. .irlande
20. Ιρλανδία
21. irlande
22. republicofireland
23. eire
24. irelànd
25. irelánd
26. irelánd
27. irelánd
28. irelând
29. irelãnd
30. ireländ
31. irelånd
32. irelænd
33. irèland
34. iréland
35. irêland
36. irëland
37. ìreland
38. íreland
39. îreland
40. ireland
41. irelan•
42. irelañd
43. irelānd
44. irelănd
45. ireląnd
46. irelanď
47. irelanđ
48. irēland
49. irěland
50. irėland
51. iręland
52. irěland
53. ĩreland
54. īreland
55. ĭreland
56. įreland
57. ıreland
58. irelańd
59. irelaņd
60. irelaňd
61. irelaʼnd
62. irelaŋd
63. iŕeland
64. iŗeland
65. iřeland
66. ирландия

You can download the full PDF here

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• Putting The Accent Back Into Domains - IDNs In EU (blacknight.com)

Bob Parsons, the CEO / founder and owner of GoDaddy, has launched a new business venture.

This time round it has absolutely nothing to do with domains or the internet. He's selling motorbikes!

Check out the interview on Fox Business:



He's got some interesting reflections on how the current economy is going as well, so it makes for an interesting interview.

Update: Bob Parsons replying to me on Twitter provided some more information as well as a link to the site:
"I own several dealerships. Ducati, BMW, Triumph, Honda, Vespa, Piaggio. Expanded into new facilities. www.goaz.com"

AFNIC's latest online and TV campaign to promote .fr may not be the most amusing thing you'll ever see, but it's still amusing to a point.

Here's the long version of their advert:



In French - sorry ! Subtitles available!

The "go live" for .cm has been announced (again!)

This time round the date and time are:

September 18, 2009 at 08:00am UTC

According to an email sent out earlier this morning Netcom, who run .cm, have moved the registry platform outside COCCA and are running their own version. Whether they have managed to resolve the stability issues that were of concern to COCCA is not clear.

ICANN has opened a public comment period on the "Inter Registrar Transfer Policy" (IRTP)

You can read more about the announcement here

What makes this comment period a bit different is that the request for comments has been published in the 6 UN languages ie. English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Russian.

I know I'm a bit late to the game with this one, but here's the Telnic promo video with the alternate ending:

Ah the joy of it all.

First we had the quite public squabbling over .eco that I mentioned recently, now it looks like we're going to have a full on "food fight".

If nothing else the new TLD process is going to be great fun for anyone who likes a bit of word play!

So what's happening this time?

Remember Wolfgang Puck joining forces with Minds and Machines to launch .food? Well it obviously wasn't exactly a marriage made in heaven and if the filings are anything to go by "too many cooks spoil the broth".

In the last few days lawyers representing the Pucks sent a nastygram to Minds and Machines, Top Level Domain Holdings and Fred Krueger. In the letter Puck claimed that M + M were in breach of contract, however this is strongly opposed by M + M.

Of course if it was just a simple matter of a contract dispute it wouldn't be that colourful, but with celebrity chefs and new TLDs in the mix there's a lot more to it.

The Minds and Machines' filing goes into great detail, not only refuting any and all claims being made by Puck, but also going on the offensive. According to Minds and Machines Puck's wife caused them no end of trouble, insulting clients, potential clients and business partners.

To quote a couple of choice slices:

"For example, Gelila publicly and personally insulted an agent for
professional football player Dhani Jones, with whom Minds+Machines was working in
connection with <.LOVE>.
55. Gelila also publicly insulted an associate of Shaquille O'Neal, with whom
Minds+Machines had been working in connection with <.BASKETBALL>. Gelila
publicly attacked Shaquille O'Neal by claiming that Mr. O'Neal is "not a brand. He may
be rich, but he's not a brand like Wolfgang Puck Worldwide."
56. During the ICANN meeting in Sydney, Australia, Gelila Puck shouted
within earshot of dozens of ICANN participants, that Minds+Machines should not
proceed with its application for <.ZULU>, which had already been approved by the King
of the Zulu nation with assistance of the daughter of the President of the Republic of
South Africa."

It also appears as if Mrs Puck likes to have certain creature comforts, but doesn't seem to want to pay for them:

Gelila Puck also spent Minds+Machines' money without permission,
costing it a substantial amount of money. For example, Gelila Puck flew two of Wolfgang Puck's sous chefs to Sydney to prepare food for the <.FOOD> launch party.
Also for the <.FOOD> launch party, Gelila Puck booked the most expensive hotel suite
in Sydney when Minds+Machines had already arranged for more reasonable, but still
luxurious, venue.

The document also talks of how Mrs Puck also interfered in the day to day business of Minds and Machines!

So what now?

The new TLDs haven't even launched, yet we've already had two public spats, while others are continuing in other circles (some of the exchanges surrounding the registrar - registry split are beginning to move into areas that are bordering on legal actions).

We can be pretty sure that the .food fight is just one of many to come. Maybe someone could launch a reality TV show? It might be better entertainment than Big Brother!

More coverage over here (who got the story from here) and it's now taking the celebrity angle over here.

Update: Here's the actual filing from Minds and Machines:
puck.pdf

The June 2010 ICANN public meeting will be held in Brussels (via)

Brussels has a lot to offer from what I recall. Lots of really nice Belgian beers, great food and plenty of other things to keep people amused. Of course anyone going to an ICANN meeting does so for serious work *cough*