Domains: April 2007 Archives

Demand Media and Verisign have joined forces to promote the .tv name space. The media company, which now owns both eNom and Bulk Register, will be joining forces with Verisign to promote the usage of the .tv namespace for multimedia and user generated content (alla web 2.0) The campaign will be kicking off towards the beginning of May. Further info

So you register a .eu domain OR you want to register a .eu domain that someone else already has.... Should be relatively simple to see when the domain in question is up for renewal, shouldn't it? Well you would think so, but you'd be wrong. Let's take this domain as an example: Domain: isquattedyour Status: REGISTERED Registered: Mon Apr 24 2006 So we know we registered it. That's a start. But when is it due for renewal? Was it registered for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years? There's no easy way to find out, unless you are the registrant and actually know that you only registered it for a year. Of course you'd have to wonder why the registry isn't putting the data into the whois output. It's not exactly a privacy issue. .ie, for example, gives the following info:blacknight@sicilia:~$ whois isquattedyour.ie % Rights restricted by copyright; http://www.domainregistry.ie/copyright.html % Do not remove this notice domain: isquattedyour.ie descr: Michele Neylon descr: Natural Person descr: Discretionary Name admin-c: ABG182-IEDR tech-c: AAM456-IEDR renewal: 22-May-2007 status: Active nserver: ns.blacknightsolutions.com nserver: ns1.pendingrenewaldeletion.ie source: IEDR person: Michele Neylon nic-hdl: ABG182-IEDR source: IEDR person: Blacknight.ie Hostmaster nic-hdl: AAM456-IEDR source: IEDR You can clearly see the renewal date. It's unfortunate that the registration date isn't visible, but that's not a big issue. Other European ccTLDs don't have an issue with making that information available: whois cheaphostingdirectory.co.uk Relevant dates: Registered on: 28-Feb-2007 Renewal date: 28-Feb-2009 Registration status: Registered until renewal date. (slightly cutdown due to its verbosity - I also needed to edit a bit of it !) So what's going on with EUrid?

I mentioned on my main blog some of the shenanigans at the EUrid session at ICANN in Lisbon. What I failed to mention was the much talked about code of conduct. (The temptation to make snide remarks about the choice of domain is strong, but I shall resist!) I would apologise for that oversight, however that would be hypocritical. I'm not sorry that I didn't mention it sooner, as I think it is laughable. You can download the full documents from the EUrid code of conduct site which include the charter and the accompanying procedural document. Why do I find it laughable? Well pretty much every item in the code of conduct charter is either covered by European law, industry best practice or most registrar contracts that I've seen ie. if the registrars aren't following those guidelines shouldn't they lose their accreditation anyway?