Recently in ccTLDs Category

Nominet, the registry operator that manages *.uk, is planning on releasing both single and two character domain names.

In common with a lot of other ccTLD registry operators, Nominet had blocked single and two character domain names from being registered. However they are now planning on releasing them to the public in a phased plan.

The exact details of "how" the domains will become available have not been decided, which is why the registry is now conducting a consultation period with the public.

The current proposal is not drastically different to the kind of methodology used by several of the gTLD registry operators to handle similar scenarios, although there are a few extra twists. To start with Nominet is speaking of the entire project in terms of "cost recovery", whereas other registries have used this kind of release as a revenue generator. The other thing which is quite interesting is how they plan to differentiate based on the second level ie. org.uk domains, according to their proposal, should be given to charities and not for profits, while co.uk should go to business users. While this is very logical it's still interesting to note that they've "gone back to basics" in some respects.

You can view full details of what Nominet are planning on their site and share your thoughts.

It will be interesting to see how the Nominet registrars and the public react to this news.

SIDN, the registry operator for .nl (Netherlands) have launched their new site.

The new look site gives the registry a complete visual facelift.

You can find it here.

The IEDR, which runs the registry for the .ie ccTLD, has announced an upcoming change to its registration processes.

As of April 8th 2010 pending updates and registrations will be valid for 27 days instead of the previous 30.

What this means for registrants is that they will have 3 days less to provide the supporting documentation for a .ie registration.

In any case the change is not that significant, as even 27 days is more than enough time for most people to organise the paperwork

The only problem at present, however, is that the Irish companies' office is, in common with most of the civil service, involved in an industrial dispute. This may lead to delays in processing new company and business regisrations.

Nominet held an EGM yesterday.

The EGM was called to make changes to Nominet's constitution.

Members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the changes, so it will be now a matter of seeing what Nominet plans to do with these new powers.

One of the areas that would be of particular to both registrars and registrants involves pricing. While the cost per annum of a co.uk domain is not at issue, the previous version of the registry's constitution meant that it could not easily introduce multi-year registrations for terms from 1 year to 10.

From a registrar perspective it would make a lot of sense to be able to offer domain name registrations for the same period across multiple TLDs ie. if a registrant wanted the .com and the co.uk then they could choose to register both domains for the same registration period.

More information on the EGM is available on the Nominet site

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nominet consultation on .UK (crookedtimber.org)
• Nominet to debate the future of .uk (v3.co.uk)
• Co.uk Registry Breaks The 8 Million Mark (isquattedyour.eu)
• Digital Britain Uses Stone Age References (isquattedyour.eu)
• Nominet Goes Social (isquattedyour.eu)

SIDN, the registry operator for .nl, has announced the introduction of a new service for its registrars. The new phishing alert service harnesses data provided by Netcraft and will automatically email the registrar of record of any .nl domain name that is flagged as being used in a phishing attack.

Every five minutes or so, SIDN checks Netcraft's suspect URL database,
which is constantly being updated. Every time a .nl URL is added to the
database, an e-mail message is automatically sent to the relevant
registrar's administrative contact e-mail address. In other words, the
system does not rely on periodic reporting, but on almost immediate
individualised e-mail contact. It therefore provides a basis for very
rapid intervention. The service is due to enter use on February 15,
2010.

Message content
The e-mail sent to draw a registrar's attention to the fact that a
client is running a website that may be fraudulent will include the
following information:

- Suspected phishing site URL
- Host: the IP address of the system running the website
- Country: the country of origin of the IP address
- Date: the date and time that the suspect site was detected
- Target: the name of the company that seems to be targeted

SIDN are conscious of the danger of such a service and warn registrars that there may be false alarms.

It will be interesting to see how registrars and the wider internet community react to the introduction of this service.

The relaunch of Colombia's ccTLD got underway within the last couple of hours and the new registry operator is already reporting several hundred domains registered. According to a "tweet" from their official account 322 domains were registered in the first few minutes.

While the full launch of .co is still a few weeks away today's launch is probably a good "warm up" for the new registry operator.

You can currently register com.co via a limited number of registrars, while there will be only ten registrars offering the .co domain when it the launch takes place in March

In common with most launch phases, trademark holders will be able to register names prior to the general launch.

More information on the .co site

Domain Pulse, which is the biggest German speaking domain industry event of the year, kicks off in Lucerne, Switzerland on Monday.

This year's event is hosted by Switch, the Swiss domain registry.

The event's programme includes topics such as DNS SEC, registrar accreditation, legal issues and IDNs.

Nominet has joined the ranks of those registry operators who have embraced the much vaunted and possibly hyped, "social media".

In the last few weeks the UK registry operator has started using two Twitter accounts and its Facebook page to interact with its members (and other interested parties).

Based on member feedback they have also started sending out technical notifications via email to supplement their existing RSS feeds.

On Twitter they are using:

@Nominet - seems to be general Nominet news and interaction
@NominetTech - technical service announcements

You can find their facebook presence here.

Obviously both the Facebook and Twitter presences are accessible to both Nominet members and members of the public, while other fora, such as the private member forum, are not.

Hopefully these new efforts towards public engagement will have a positive impact on the registry.

Nominet, the registry that handled the UK namespace, has announced that the 8 millionth domain has been registered.

The domain in question was lambethsuperhomes.org.uk, which was registered for a company in London.

Impressive growth figures!

However all of this positive news could be overshadowed by the "elephant in the room" - the Digital Economy Bill.

The Digital Britain report and the legislation which is now before the UK parliament (Digital Economy Bill) makes for very scary reading.

The implications of the legislation are far reaching - and not just within the UK

What about the sections of the legislation that refer to domain registries? Note the plural

There is an entire section of the legislation dedicated to "internet domain registries", which is "nicely" divided into sub-sections:

• Powers in relation to internet domain registries
  
• Appointment of manager of internet domain registry
• Application to court to alter constitution of internet domain registry
  
  

What is worrying is how they "plan" to enact their powers in the case of "registry failure":

"3)  There is a relevant failure in relation to an internet domain registry if --

(a)  the registry, or any of its registrars or end-users, engages in prescribed practices that are unfair or involve the misuse of internet domain names,
or
(b) the arrangements made by the registry for dealing with complaints in connection with internet domain names do not comply with prescribed requirements."

Note the choice of language. Not only is failure deemed to have happened if the registry messes up, but it also gets triggered if a registrar OR a registrant does something that they don't like.

Now if you examine some of the supporting documents that they used while preparing the legislation you are going to be in for a shock.

In common with other pieces of legislation, this one was not drafted overnight. It comes after a long period of supposed planning and research. I say "supposed", as the document covering the "impact assessment" is horrendously misinformed.

Taking just one or two choice paragraphs from that document as examples:

Cyber-squatting - members apply to register domain names which are of economic value to other people and then charge then high prices to buy them.
Drop-catching - members wait until the expiry date for an existing registered domain name has just passed and the exploit the few seconds between the expiry of the registration and the effecting of the original owner's automatic registration in order to snatch the name and then charge for them to buy it back
Phishing - a member uses the domain name that is confusingly similar to another one (usually of a well known brand) in order to dupe members of the public to enter the site.

Why are they referring to "members"? Only Nominet and its members would ever refer to themselves using such terminology.
Does this mean that the British government views all Nominet members as being phishers?
I'd certainly hope not, but their choice of that term is interesting to say the least. I won't even bother addressing their definitions. Suffice to say, the definitions are flawed to the extreme.

If they are basing the concept of failure around those sorts of concepts then it may be time for Nominet registrars to look more closely at .eu!

So let's return to the "registries" once more.

As things stand at present there is more than one "registry" in the UK.
While the biggest and best known of them is obviously Nominet, there is also both Telnic and Centralnic.
While Centralnic's may be best known for domain extensions such as gb.com, it also handles the registry services for .la - Laos or Los Angeles (depending on who you ask!)
Telnic has already expressed its concern at the permutations of such legislation

And what of those organisations that were planning on getting new TLDs? What of the likes of .scot or .cym? Or any other company that was interested in applying for a new TLD with ICANN.
Has the UK government overlooked the fact that ICANN already exists?
Did they consult with ICANN prior to this?

Other parts of the bill, which deal with copyright protection (they're hailing it as progress - any normal person would view it as a denial of their right to fair process.. ) and plenty of other things that will render the UK the most internet unfriendly country in Europe.

Is this the swan song for the failing Labour government in Britain?

Do they want to be remembered for introducing draconian legislation that will effectively force internet companies in the UK to move?

I for one am scared