This blog has often been silent for long periods while I’m working hard on something. This time I think it was worth it. With a few good friends, I’ve started Minds + Machines, and from now on most of my posting is happening on the Minds + Machines blog. While I was searching for a re...

A top-level domain idea for indigenous peoples — .indigi. There are many indigenous groups of people — American Indian tribes, for instance, or Australian aboriginal people — who would be great candidates for a new TLD, but can’t afford the steep ICANN fees. To give them a...

As my 350 closest friends are aware, I have been pursuing .NYC hard for over a year, and in fits and starts since 2000, in conjunction with my friend Bill Semich, who manages .NU. dotNYC is the company behind our latest (and now it appears final) effort to get New York City to get behind the .NYC t...

Bart Lieben is an intellectual property attorney who has become the go-to guy for trademark verification for top-level domain Sunrise periods. In my interview with Bart, he talks about how he does his job, with some tantalizing hints about a system he’s developing to make the whole trademark ...

A cranky letter from the NTIA to ICANN (PDF), submitted in late December during ICANN’s comment period for new top-level domains, has encouraged the awkward coalition of those opposed to new TLDs. The NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration), a division of the Depa...

The government of France is asking for bids to run .FR (in French), the ccTLD of France. The incumbent, AFNIC, is the odds-on favorite to win, but there have been grumblings for a while from its customers, especially in francophone Africa and the Caribbean. AFNIC recently lost the business of .H...

As an aid to planning, I put together a PDF timeline of milestones and associated costs. This doesn’t include all costs, for instance rent, staff, travel and so on, but it does capture most of the likely and contingent costs associated with the process of getting a new top-level domain thro...

WARNING - this post will not be interesting to anyone who doesn’t care about ICANN and how it manages the Internet. If you do care, or if you’re an insomniac, it might be worth a read. ICANN commissioned an “Independent Reviewer’s Report,” containing recommendations f...

Both readers of my recent post on the registry-registrar split must have called up ICANN to demand action, because lo and behold ICANN has scheduled two impromptu meetings to discuss the matter. I quote from their page: On 24 October 2008, ICANN posted the CRA International report titled, “Re...

The Nigerian Internet Registration Authority (NIRA) is planning to auction off premium names directly under .ng, as well as under .com.ng, according to Computerworld Kenya. NIRA’s plan is to use the proceeds to keep other prices low. Tags: .ng, dot ng, Nigeria domain names, NIRA ...

ICANN has released to the public a report they commissioned called “Revisiting Vertical Separation of Registries and Registrars,” written by CRA International. It is being referred to as the “CRAI Report.” Readers in the U.S. and the U.K. may not know it, but most top-level...

I’ve put together a permanent page of resources for ICANN new TLD applications. These materials can be hard to locate; I originally put this together for myself because of that problem. I’m also hosting any documents, because of the exasperating slowness of ICANN’s site. All re...

I’ve read through all the ICANN materials twice. If you’re having trouble sleeping…. Overall, the process is understandable, is fairly straightforward, and best of all, it looks as if new TLDs will actually happen. It’s about time. BUT I find four big problems, any one o...

[UPDATE: According to CoCCA, the auction has been delayed for one week from the dates reported below.] From November 12 - 19, 2008, finishing during the TRAFFIC DownUnder conference, Sedo will be conducting an auction of bundled names from CoCCA members. These are cross-TLD “roadblock”...

Just saw this at Tucows News: We decided to take this step because of the uncertainty of overall economic conditions and the fact that our performance has been impacted by a number of unanticipated challenges during the first nine months of the year, including advertising revenues being dampened b...

ICANN has just published a new explanatory memorandum in connection with new gTLD applications, this one called “Morality and Public Order Objection Considerations in New gTLDs.” The issue is difficult; the memo is tortured. The memo (Oct 29, PDF, 6 pages, 130KB) is a twist on the twi...

ICANN staff are building an FAQ about new gTLDs. Here are some questions I think they should answer on that FAQ. 1. Is a geographic TLD by necessity community-based? If not, what is an example of a non-community-based geographic TLD? 2. I want to start a TLD for the 100,000-strong community of ...

Is it just me, or is the ICANN site as slow as treacle for everyone? If so, you can download everything here. All the ICANN TLD application materials are listed on this page, annotated and downloadable. I’ve included a short explanation of each so that you can decide what you need. REMEMB...

ICANN sent out a huge amount of new TLD material late last week, which killed my weekend. On the whole, it’s very thorough, even though important information (e.g., filing dates) is not yet provided. And, despite being quite complicated in parts, for the most part it’s quite clear. ...

Bido.com is a new auction provider, with a twist. Bido.com auctions one domain per day, with no reserve. There’s a self-imposed hiatus at the moment while they fix some bugs in their system, which on the whole I take as a positive sign — better than the endless-Beta mode that Google h...

Kelly Hardy did an interview with me for NameSmash about (what else) new TLDs. We did the interview using instant messenger, which is my new favorite way to do interviews — if both parties can type, that is. Topics include: Is ICANN ready? Is the submission fee too high? The future of the r...

Oversee.net is a sprawling Internet advertising company. Its hydra-headed holdings include DomainSponsor, Low.com, and Revenue.net, but of interest to us are two recently-purchased long-time domain name companies not mentioned on their main site: Moniker, Monte Cahn’s pioneering live-auction...