Among ccTLDs, .UK is the second largest ccTLD with 8,587,726 registrations as of 30 July. This follows .DE (Germany) with 13,762,500 registrations while the number of .CN (China) domain names registered has slipped dramatically to 8,250,000 (as of 30 April, the latest statistics publicly available) from a peak of 13,680,700 in November 2009 due to changes in registration requirements and the end of promotions with cheaper registration fees.

Among other ccTLDs, the .NL ccTLD is the fourth most popular with 3,975,200 registrations (30 July) and then .EU is fifth with 3,239,400 (30 July).

Key milestones include:

• 1985: First registrations of .UK
• 1996: Nominet set up to manage the .UK domain name space, 26,000 registrations on the register
• February 2000: 1 million registrations
• May 2006: 5 million registrations
• Today: There are now more than 8.5 million .UK domain registrations.

After 25 years, .UK remains a relevant and trusted environment that presents the most appropriate, local information for web users. Research from Nominet shows that 77 per cent of British consumers preferred to use a .UK rather than a .com when searching for information online and that at a small business level, 9 out of 10 companies choose a .UK as the domain for marketing their business.

Lesley Cowley, CEO, Nominet, says, “We are delighted to celebrate 25 years of .UK. In that time, the internet has changed the lives of billions of people around the World. As businesses, we rely on it for buying and selling goods, as governments for interacting with citizens, and as individuals for organising and managing many aspects of our lives, whether that be online banking, shopping or entertainment.

To register your .UK domain name, check out Europe Registry here.

Of other sales, everest.fr was the top ccTLD sale selling for €17,500 ($22,400) while websitedesign.com.au was one of the first .AU names to enter the weekly lists, selling for $19, 360.

Overall, eight of the top 20 sales were .COM names, another eight were ccTLD names and 14 of the top 20 were sold by Sedo.

To see the complete list of Domain Name Journal’s top reported sales, see:
dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2010/20100721.htm

“A cyber criminal can steal your money or your personal data without you even knowing it. Cyber crime doesn’t respect national boundaries,” said Rod Beckstrom, President and CEO of ICANN. “This upgrade will help disrupt the plans of criminals around the world who hope to exploit this crucial part of the Internet infrastructure to steal from unsuspecting people.”

The upgrade aims to protect against online fraud such as certain cybercrimes, cache poisoning and man-in-the-middle attacks. However it is not designed to protect against all attacks.

DNSSEC isn’t an antidote to all Internet security problems. It does not ensure confidentiality of data or protect against denial of service or many other attacks. The best way to protect yourself online is still to use common sense.

“DNSSEC is not a silver bullet to stop every cyber crime. But it will have a real and positive impact on the security of the Internet. This is one important step forward in the fight against cyber crime,” according to Beckstrom.

An ICANN news release on the announcement is posted below.

Global Upgrade Makes Internet More Secure [news release]
Helps defend users against specific types of cyber crime

The security of the global Internet has been bolstered by a historic collaboration between government and the private sector. ICANN has joined the U.S. Department of Commerce and VeriSign Inc. to add security at the top of the domain name system - the technical infrastructure behind the Internet’s “phone book” - to protect Internet users from certain forms of online fraud.

“A cyber criminal can steal your money or your personal data without you even knowing it. Cyber crime doesn’t respect national boundaries,” said Rod Beckstrom, President and CEO of ICANN. “This upgrade will help disrupt the plans of criminals around the world who hope to exploit this crucial part of the Internet infrastructure to steal from unsuspecting people.”

With the Internet’s pervasive role in daily life expanding rapidly, finding viable solutions to cyber crime is imperative. Deployment of Domain Name System Security Extensions, or DNSSEC, at the “root” of the Internet has laid the foundation for a new generation of innovative cyber security solutions by creating a global authentication platform - a common source of trust in the validity of Internet addresses.

Once fully deployed, DNSSEC will help prevent criminals from redirecting users to fake websites that can be used to perpetrate cyber crimes.

The domain name system is where all Internet addresses are stored, and the unique nature of those addresses is fundamental to ensuring that computers around the world can speak to each other. Working silently in the background, the domain name system is consulted up to a trillion times each day by the world’s 1.8 billion Internet users. By using sophisticated public key cryptography, DNSSEC increases trust in the integrity of that process.

Stopping certain cyber crimes
DNSSEC is a powerful tool to combat cyber crimes that have no organizational or national borders. Cyber crime covers a wide range of illegal activities that includes online fraud, money laundering and identity theft. DNSSEC will specifically protect against two types of attack known as “cache poisoning” and “man-in-the-middle attacks” that can be used to distribute malicious software and commit fraud.

Cache poisoning
When you type an address into your browser, you are sent to that site and the domain name system saves, or caches, the information so your next request for that address will be processed faster. If your request is diverted to a false address, you might end up at a malicious site that infects your computer with viruses, worms, Trojan horses or spyware. These can lead to fraud and the theft of personal or sensitive information. If the request came from a service provider, thousands of people can be affected when the false information is sent on to the provider’s customers. Once the fake information is saved on your machine, your DNS cache information is considered poisoned.

Man-in-the-middle attacks
In a man-in-the-middle attack, a criminal intercepts one-to-one communications then continues to communicate with the second party while masquerading as the first. For instance, a criminal could divert an online communication from a customer to a bank and then, pretending to be the customer, use the information to empty the victim’s bank account.

What DNSSEC does
It will eventually allow Internet users to know with certainty that they have been directed to the website they intended.

What it doesn’t do
DNSSEC isn’t an antidote to all Internet security problems. It does not ensure confidentiality of data or protect against denial of service or many other attacks. The best way to protect yourself online is still to use common sense.

“DNSSEC is not a silver bullet to stop every cyber crime. But it will have a real and positive impact on the security of the Internet. This is one important step forward in the fight against cyber crime,” according to Beckstrom.

Decades of engineering work
The Internet is a global resource and its bottom-up cooperative nature has once again proven key to achieving a significant improvement. “The Internet will be more secure because the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) devoted decades to solving the technical challenges,” stated Steve Crocker, member of the ICANN Board of Directors and chair of ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee.

This ICANN news release is also available from:
icann.org/en/news/releases/release-28jul10-en.pdf

1. Possible confusion with reserved single character ASCII TLD strings
2. Whether special financial considerations should be considered
3. Whether due to the relatively smaller pool of possible names that special allocation methods should be considered
4. Whether due to the relatively shorter string, it may be easier for users to make mistakes, and that special policies should be considered
5. Whether additional criteria should be introduced to qualify a Single Character IDN TLD as an IDN ccTLD or IDN gTLD
6. Whether special policies are required to address usability of Single Character IDN TLDs given existing application environments

To be most helpful you are kindly requested to submit your comments by 9 September 2010 at: http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-201009-en.htm#jig-initial-report

An archive of all comments received will be publicly available.

Background and Next Steps

The ccNSO and GNSO Councils recognized there may be topics and/ or issues related to the introduction of IDN TLDs which are of common interest to both the GNSO and ccNSO, and which are preferably addressed in a collaborative effort through the GNSO and ccNSO. For that matter the Councils established a joint IDN working group. The charter of the working group can be found at: http://ccnso.icann.org/workinggroups/jiwg.htm.

According to its charter the purpose of the joint working group is to identify and explore issues and topics of common interest, if any, and of relevance to both the cNSO and GNSO, report on such an identified issues to the ccNSO and GNSO Councils and propose a methodology to address the issue. To date the JIG identified the following areas of common interest:

1. Single Character IDN TLDs
2. IDN TLD Variants
3. Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs

After closure of the comment period, the working group will finalise the Initial Report taking into account the public comments and input and publish a Final Report to be submitted to the ccNSO and GNSO Councils for their consideration. During the public comment period the Working Group will continue its work on the other topics identified by the working group as of common interest to both the ccNSO and GNSO.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-27jul10-en.htm

The Affirmation of Commitments calls for a periodic review of four key ICANN objectives, namely:

1. Ensuring accountability, transparency and the interests of global Internet users;
2. Preserving security, stability and resiliency of the DNS;
3. Promoting competition, consumer trust and consumer choice;
4. WHOIS policy.

In line with the Affirmation provisions, the Security, Stability and Resiliency of the DNS Review (SSR) is to be objectively performed by a Review Team composed of:

• Volunteer Community Members representing the relevant Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees of ICANN;
• ICANN CEO (or designated nominee);
• GAC Chair (or designated nominee); and
• Independent experts.

The composition of this Review Team 2 shall be jointly determined by the CEO of ICANN – Mr. Rod Beckstrom – and Chair of the GAC – Mrs. Heather Dryden (in consultation with GAC Members).

Whereas a Call for Applicants for volunteer RT Members was launched on June 1, ICANN now invites interested individuals to apply for a position of Independent Expert on the Security, Stability and Resiliency of the DNS Review Team.

Please refer to the Preserving Security, Stability and Resiliency of the DNS Review – Call for Independent Experts, Details [PDF, 91 KB] for further information and instructions on the application process.

An extensive expertise in the subject under review as well as an ability to remain fully independent and objective constitute highly desired requirements for a valid application.

Interested candidates, please submit your CV, letter of motivation to rtcandidatures@icann.org by 6 September 2010 – 23:59 UTC. Relevant experience should be clearly stated.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-26jul10-en.htm

The Affirmation of Commitments calls for a periodic review of four key ICANN objectives, namely:

1. Ensuring accountability, transparency and the interests of global Internet users;
2. Preserving security, stability and resiliency of the DNS;
3. Promoting competition, consumer trust and consumer choice;
4. WHOIS policy.

In line with the Affirmation provisions, the WHOIS Policy Review (WIR) is to be objectively performed by a Review Team composed of:

• Volunteer Community Members representing the relevant Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees of ICANN;
• ICANN CEO (or designated nominee);
• GAC Chair (or designated nominee);
• Representatives of Law Enforcement
• Global Policy Experts; and
• Independent experts.

The composition of this Review Team shall be jointly determined by the CEO of ICANN – Mr. Rod Beckstrom – and Chair of the GAC – Mrs. Heather Dryden (in consultation with GAC Members).

Whereas a Call for Applicants for volunteer RT Members was launched on June 1, ICANN now invites interested individuals to apply for a position of Independent Expert, Law Enforcement Representative or Global Policy Expert on the WHOIS Policy Review Team.

Please refer to the WHOIS Policy Review – Call for Independent Experts, Law Enforcement Representatives and Global Policy Experts, Details [PDF, 92 KB] for further information and instructions on the application process.

An extensive expertise in the subject under review as well as an ability to remain fully independent and objective constitute highly desired requirements for a valid application.

Interested candidates, please submit your CV, letter of motivation to rtcandidatures@icann.org by 6 September 2010 – 23:59 UTC. Relevant experience should be clearly stated.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-26jul10-en.htm

The termination came about following a serious breach of its obligations under the Registrar Agreement by Bottle Domains.

In February 2009, auDA was notified by the Australian Federal Police that there had been a security incident which affected customers of Bottle Domains. Refer to auDA Announcement 10/02/09.

auDA subsequently discovered that Bottle Domains was the subject of an earlier security incident in April 2007, which auDA believes may have caused or contributed to the security incident in February 2009.

Bottle Domains failed to notify auDA at the time of the April 2007 security incident, which was a breach of its obligations under the Registrar Agreement. Bottle Domains also failed to take appropriate remedial security action and alert customers of the incident.

These failures led to auDA’s decision to terminate Bottle Domains’ registrar accreditation on 15 April 2009, however the termination had been suspended pending the conclusion of legal proceedings.

Following Friday’s decision in its favour, auDA has today re-initiated the termination process. Approximately 8,900 domain names registered by Bottle Domains have been transferred to auDA, and the registrants of these names will be sent instructions on how to transfer to another auDA accredited registrar.

“The domain names of Bottle Domains’ customers are NOT at risk. auDA is in the process of contacting all those whose domain name is registered through Bottle Domains to provide them with all the information they need” said auDA CEO, Chris Disspain.

In its decision, the Court of Appeal recognised the importance of the system governing domain name allocation and use in Australia and that “protecting the system against unauthorised entry is therefore of paramount concern”.

The Court also endorsed the actions of auDA, and its CEO, Chris Disspain: “Given the importance of the .au domain name system as a public resource to be administered in the public interest, it is in my opinion appropriate that this Court say clearly that it endorses the approach taken by Mr Disspain.”

In his judgement, Justice Harper also said Bottle Domains “sought to persuade the trial judge that what on careful examination was clearly one thing, was actually another. His Honour was not persuaded.”

However despite the damning judgement, Bottle Domains is claiming there are no problems anymore and the company sought to have their registrar accreditation reinstated in a statement they issued late Friday according to IT News.

A spokesman claimed the company was “now operating at or above industry standards for internet security following a series of system improvements in line with auDA requirements,” reported IT News.

“We have complied with auDA’s requirements and remedied all of the problems that had concerned the authority,” the spokesman said.

He also claimed auDA-appointed security auditors had reviewed Bottle Domains’ security environment and “had been satisfied with their findings.”

“Given [our] commitment to the highest possible security standards, [we call] on auDA to now remove any doubt about the future of the registrar agreement which allows Bottle Domains to operate,” the spokesman said.

The full court decision is available from:
www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2010/184.html

Please note: The Working Group is working under an extremely aggressive schedule in order to meet the requirements that have been placed on it by the GNSO Council and the ICANN Board. The Working Group is planning to continue its analysis throughout the public comment period. Reviewers are encouraged to submit comments early to provide the group as much time as possible to consider them.

The public comment period ends on 12 August 2010.

Background:

The GNSO Council has commenced a policy development process (PDP) on the topic of vertical integration between registrars and registries. The GNSO Council formed a working group to evaluate whether any policy recommendations should be developed on the topic of vertical integration between registrars and registries affecting both new gTLDs and existing gTLDs.

ICANN is currently in the process of finalizing the implementation details for the launch of new gTLDs. ICANN has posted four draft applicant guidebooks and a series of topic papers for public comment describing the manner in which ICANN proposes to implement this program. These documents include proposals on the topic of vertical integration and whether cross-ownership restrictions or other rules related to vertical integration should be adopted to apply to the New gTLD Program.

The Initial Report describes several proposals regarding vertical integration that have been developed and analyzed by the VI Working Group. No proposal has achieved consensus support within the VI Working Group. These proposals are included for the purpose of seeking public comment and will be subject to further analysis and debate as the VI Working Group continues to strive to develop a consensus position to recommend to the GNSO Council on an expedited basis.

The Initial Report published for public comment is a “snapshot” of a living document that will be revised several times during the public comment period. Reviewers are encouraged to check on the working-group wiki for the latest version of this Initial Report.

This public comment forum is an opportunity to comment on any of the proposed vertical integration models that are described the Initial Report. The Initial Report will be posted for a public comment period that closes on 12 August 2010. Comments can be sent to vi-pdp-initial-report@icann.org and reviewed at forum.icann.org/lists/vi-pdp-initial-report/.

Additional Information:

To review the Issues Report on Vertical Integration Between Registries and Registrars, please refer to gnso.icann.org/issues/vertical-integration/report-04dec09-en.pdf [PDF, 254 KB].

The ICANN Board resolution on Vertical Integration is posted at icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-12mar10-en.htm#5.

To review the charter describing the policy work undertaken by the Vertical Integration Working Group, please refer to: gnso.icann.org/issues/vertical-integration/vi-chartered-objectives-10mar10-en.pdf [PDF, 41 KB].

For information on the details of the implementation planning activities for new gTLDs, please refer to the documents posted at icann.org/en/topics/new-gtld-program.htm

To review updates to the Initial Report that may be developed by the VI Working Group during the public comment period, please refer to the archive of Initial Report snapshots posted at https://st.icann.org/vert-integration-pdp/index.cgi?initial_report_snapshots.

This ICANN announcement was sourced from:
icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-23jul10-en.htm

OnlineCasino.dk was sold was sold on 19 July and also becomes the second biggest ccTLD sale of the year, according to the figures compiled by Domain Name Journal on top reported sales.

For Domain Name Journal’s complete list of reported domain name sales, see:
dnjournal.com/ytd-sales-charts.htm

The proposed meetings are:

• the 40th meeting to be held 13-18 March 2011 in North America
• the 41st meeting to be held 19-24 June 2011 in Asia Pacific
• the 42nd meeting to be held 23-28 October 2011 in Africa.

For the North American meeting, Kevin Murphy, writing on his Domain Incite, says ICANN should consider Las Vegas.

“ICANN is now almost 12 years old, it’s held almost 40 public meetings in diverse cities all over the planet, and it’s never been to Vegas. Not once.

“That’s got to change.”

Murphy reasons that ICANN “has got to be the only industry organization in the world to never convene there” and that “Vegas is the conference center of North America, if not the world.”

With rooms subsidised by hotels eager to get punters into the casinos, he reasons it should be cheaper than other options. Looking for a host, Murphy says “a domain name company with deep pockets, something to sell, and no particular queasiness about sponsoring a Sin City event” would be ideal. ICM Registry springs to Murphy’s mind given that it “will very likely be in the pre-launch stages of the .xxx TLD.”

But I am not sure that having “strippers at the Gala Event” would be a big seller given the political issues around an ICANN meeting. Would governments around the world be happy sending their staff to a function with strippers? It might not look good back home.

ICANN advises interested parties to review the Meeting Selection Criteria, which will be used to guide the evaluation of both community-recommended and ICANN-identified meeting locations. Elements such as cost of the meeting for ICANN and the community, convenience to international airports, availability of sufficient hotel guest rooms in or near the venue, meeting facilities, network infrastructure, personal safety of meeting participants, and total level of financial support will be considered by ICANN in making its final selection of a meeting site.

More information is available from:
icann.org/en/announcements/

And the Domain Incite report is available from:
domainincite.com/isnt-it-about-time-for-icann-las-vegas/