London becomes the latest city to get its own top-level domain

Not to be outdone by New York City, London is set to follow its transatlantic cousin in getting its very own domain name. ICANN, regulator of all things domain related, today gave the British capital the go-ahead to offer .london addresses to “businesses, organisations and individuals”. While it gives Londoners the chance to show a bit of hometown love, the domain has already attracted the attention of “tens of thousands of businesses,” which will each do their bit to help to boost London’s online identity. Like the city’s house prices, expect to pay a little extra to secure your own little piece of .london when registration opens in Spring 2014.

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Via: GigaOm

Source: London and Partners, MyDotLondon

ICANN kills Google’s dotless domain search dreams

DNP ICANN blocks Google's dotless domain dreams

We’d like to imagine that somewhere in Mountain View, a group of high-level tech execs are giving ICANN the stink eye. After all, the organization has recently passed a resolution that prohibits dotless domains, effectively squashing Google’s dreams to own and operate http://search. This development follows a study ICANN published a few days ago, detailing how hard it’ll be to mitigate security and stability risks that could come with the unusual domains. Google had big plans to turn http://search into a service where users could choose among a number of search websites that registered to be a part of it. Now that the one-word wonder is no longer an option for Page and Co., the company has to make do with .search (with a dot), assuming its bidding spree for a pile of gTLDs pays off.

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Source: Domain Name Wire, Domain Incite

First batch of new generic top-level domains born, Amazon looking unlikely to snag .amazon

First batch of new generic toplevel domains born, Amazon looking unlikely to snag amazon

After spending over a year thumbing through applications, ICANN has inked agreements for establishing the first new generic top-level domains (gTLDs). Those that made the cut this round were the Arabic word for web or network (.شبكة), game in Chinese (.戏), and the Russian for online (.онлайн), as well as website (.сайт) — as ICANN notes, these gTLDs will be the first to use non-Latin characters. Also coming out of the ICANN47 meeting for internet overlords is a bit of bad news for Amazon. A committee recommended that the retailer should not be given control of the .amazon domain, likely due to confusion the suffix could create with the Amazon region in South America. ICANN may see fit to go against the recommendation, but if Amazon’s history with objectionable applications is anything to go by, it’s looking like yet another $185,000 down the drain.

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Via: The Verge

Source: ICANN, Wall Street Journal

Department of Commerce renews VeriSign control of .com registry, demands price freeze

Department of Commerce renews VeriSign control of com registrations, demands a price freeze

In many ways, VeriSign has been one of the internet’s true arbiters. It’s ICANN’s official registry operator for .com domains, which lets it determine how (and how much) we pay to get a particularly coveted address. As we’re learning, the US Department of Commerce is only comfortable with that state of affairs to a certain point. It just approved a deal renewal that will let VeriSign watch over .com between December 1st this year and November 30th, 2018, but it’s requiring that the company drop a previous right to hike registration prices as many as four times, at up to 7 percent, over the length of the term. The current $7.85 price will last unless VeriSign either faces exceptional circumstances or can prove that the market is healthy enough to lift the ceiling. We’re sure the business isn’t happy when the DOC move dictates how much money it can make, but compulsive domain hunters will enjoy the extra dollars in their pockets.

Continue reading Department of Commerce renews VeriSign control of .com registry, demands price freeze

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Source: The Next Web

Early objections over generic TLDs throw the .book at Amazon, Google

Early objections over generic TLDs throw the book at Amazon, Google

Technology companies went wild bidding on generic top-level domains (gTLDs) once the opportunity presented itself. That seemingly impulsive behavior hasn’t sat well with the Government Advisory Committee, which just posted a list of its member countries’ initial 250 objections over the internet gold rush. While the list is broad, Amazon and Google (under a Charleston Road Registry proxy) have received a disproportionate amount of the flak: Australia, for example, isn’t happy that far-reaching terms like .book and .search might be owned by individual companies. The resistance automatically puts the perceived offenders’ backs to the wall — they have to either make a good case as to why they need a disputed gTLD or risk losing both the domain as well as 20 percent of the refunded claiming fee. ICANN remains optimistic that the first gTLDs will still go into use by May, but it’s entirely possible that the final list will be much thinner than what we saw in June.

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Via: BBC, The Next Web

Source: ICANN

Nominet proposes more secure .UK domain for British websites

Nominet proposes more secure, UK domain for British websites

Nominet is considering a .uk internet domain for users who can’t bear to type the extra three characters necessary for .co.uk. The body is lobbying for the new domain in time for ICANN’s next TLD expansion, which includes new entries like .shop, .play and .home. Nominet has promised tough entry requirements for the system, with only businesses (or persons) that can prove a UK presence being eligible to register. It’ll also be around four times more expensive, with the extra charges going to pay for daily malware scanning to prevent domain spoofing and a donation to a trust to improve web security. If you’re an interested party, you can offer your tuppence-worth at the organization’s official public consultation which runs until January 7th 2013.

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Nominet proposes more secure .UK domain for British websites originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Oct 2012 05:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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