While a large part of the domain industry gathers at the 46th ICANN meeting in Beijing this week, big news are being made in the country of Mali in Africa. As reported by The Guardian, .ML domains will be available for free in July 2013. The registry will be operated by Freedom Registry, the same company that currently operated .TK (ccTLD for Tokelau). .TK currently has over 16 million active domain names according to the registry operator.

Sunrise starts on the 1st of May 2013 and will last for one month until May 31st. Landrush will begin the following day and will end on July 14th 2013. General Availability starts on July 15th at the ICANN meeting in Durban, South Africa.  There will be no restrictions to registrations of free domains and anyone can register their own .ML domain. Free .ML domains work exactly like any other extension and can be renewed each registration period at no charge.

[via The Guardian, Press Release (PDF)]

• Most businesses use .co.uk, and 93% of UK names are .co.uk
• [...] these [second level] names will not be offered to the owners of .co.uk (e.g. the BBC would not automatically get BBC.uk)
• Instead priority will be given to trademark holders. Sounds fair to you? Read here why this is a bad idea.
• Existing domain owners will have to prove that they are entitled to the matching .uk domain name, or buy it at auction (if it hasn’t already been taken by a trademark holder)
• This will cause uncertainty and confusion, and risks damaging trust in .co.uk and hurting UK businesses
• [Due to the higher proposed annual registration fees] the direct cost to UK businesses will be at least £50,000,000 per year, and associated adjustment costs could run to £billions. This estimate does not account for auction income from domain names that several parties are interested in.
• Other countries went about the same process quite differently. In every previous case, existing domain owners were given priority ahead of other interests.

If Nominet still decides to go ahead with the release of second level domains, Hawyward is proposing a process (“Proposal for the Equitable Allocation of .uk Domain Names” as of page 8 (PDF)) where the existing registrants of the .co.uk equivalent of the names get priority in a sunrise procedure for registering the .uk counter part.

The phases of the counterproposal are:

1. Domain Owner Sunrise (60-90 days): Sunrise phase for existing domain owners, also taking trademarks (from current domain owners) into account
2. Trademark Sunrise (120 days): Sunrise period for trademark owners without existing domains.
3. Landrush (60 days application + 30 day auction): Expression of interest available to everyone
4. General Availability (first come first served): Domains available to everyone, normal registration fees

What do you think, who should get priority rights for the release of .UK names? Should they be released at all? What do you think of Edwin’s proposal?

The operator for the German .DE ccTLD announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Swedish based Netnod, adding Netnods 35+ worldwide DNS locations to their own network.

“We have chosen Netnod for their outstanding technical expertise and fully trust their competence to meet the high level demands associated with the operation of our supplementary name service for .de, which is by far the biggest ccTLD worldwide. Also, both Netnod and DENIC are not-for-profit, neutral, and independent basic infrastructure-providing organisations and share similar strategic positions and views. Therefore, this partnership ideally matches with DENIC’s commitment to provide services of utmost reliability, on a self-regulatory basis,” said Dr. Jörg Schweiger, Member of the Board and CTO of DENIC.

See the full press release after the jump.

(more…)

As per a press release sent out by DENIC, the German .DE registry operator, the 15th million .DE domain was registered today at 12:56pm central European time. The domain was “floristennetzwerk.de” (which translates to FloristNetwork.de).

See the full press release after the jump.

(more…)

The .FR registry AFNIC, is celebrating their 25th anniversary today. As a birthday present to itself, the company has updated its logo, webdesign, anniversary magazine  and is launching a contest “The French Connection” that rewards five .FR websites to “showcase the best Internet experiences in .fr domain names“.

The highlight of the program will be a special event held on 11 October on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower with the French internet community to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the .fr namespace. There will an award ceremony for the winners of the contest, at which more than 300 guests are expected.

[via Press Release]

ICANN announced the successful completion of String Evaluation on proposed IDN ccTLD string for Yemen, ????? (xn--mgb2ddes).

With this announcement, a total of 27 countries/territories requests have successfully passed through the String Evaluation. Of these, 17 countries/territories (represented by 27 IDN ccTLDs) are delegated in the DNS root zone; with the remainder either readying to apply, or actively applying for, delegation of the string.

ICANN is looking forward to enabling the availability of non-Latin country-code domains for countries that qualify. ICANN will continue to accept applications for new requests in the Fast Track process, as well as processing requests through the String Delegation function. Staff support is available to help all countries and territories interested in participating in the Fast Track Process. Please email idncctldrequests@icann.org for any inquiries for participation.

auDA, the Australian Domain Name Administrator, announced today that the registry had passed the 2 million registration mark last night.

“The .au domain has the highest penetration rate in the world for regulated namespaces with restricted eligibility when you take into account our population. The .au domain has become part of the fabric of doing business in Australia. We have seen continual strong growth in the namespace despite the global financial crisis and other market factors. .au is Australia’s domain namespace of choice and the only place to show that you are a trusted Australian,” Mr Kinderis, AusRegistry’s CEO, said.

The Austrian Registry just crossed the 1,000,000 domain registration mark this morning as reported by DVmag [German]. The registry has run promotions such as the free registration of IDN domains in 2006 or a reduced rate for registrars for new registrations in months of their choice. The registry also is hosting this year’s DomainPulse conference in Vienna in February.

According to DomainQuadrat [German] the 1 millionth domain name registered was welpenparadies.at (= dog-puppy paradise in German) at 4:28pm CET. The official press release was published here by NIC.at.

[via DVmag.de (German)]

On January 12, 2011 at 10:00 CET (4am EST), the German Network Information Center, DENIC, will release nine domains for registration:

• dw.de,
• e.de,
• f.de,
• g.de,
• hr.de,
• sr.de,
• x.de,
• y.de,
• z.de

The domains are being released following the lifting of a cease and desist that resulted in a temporary injunction.

Requests will be accepted on a first come, first serve basis and only via fax. All requests must be submitted using a request form specific to the domain. The form must be faxed to a fax number designated for each domain. Each fax number will be available for a limited 30-minute period. Request forms, fax numbers, and a schedule of fax times are available from DENIC’s Web site.

Each request must be completed accurately and signed properly for it to be accepted. Those requests not completed properly and signed will be rejected. Domains will be released to the first respondents who accurately complete and fax their request.

A limit of one page per fax transmission will be accepted. Respondents should refrain from using a cover page as this will result in a loss of all transmitted pages beyond the first page. A line will be available for test faxes 24 hours prior to the domain release. The number for this test line is: +49 69 24248559

Those respondents with successful domain requests will receive written notification by letter or fax. Respondents must communicate with the DENIC Cooperative administrator by January 26, 2011 who will transfer the domain to the registrant’s registrar of choice. otherwise the domain will be managed by DENICdirect.

DNN previously reported on the first release of short .DE domains in 2009.

Despite the limitation of registrations to the 3rd level, it appears that the ccTLD registry (NIRA – Nigeria Internet Registration Association) for the Nigerian .NG TLD has made an exception and allowed for the registration of ThisDay.ng by the publisher of the local newspaper that has used ThisDayOnline.info to date. The site states under the new domain states that it will be launched on January 3rd, 2011.

[via OoTheNigerian]