As reported by InternetNews.me, PIR, the registry operating the .ORG gTLD has announce a price increase of 10% effective July 1st, 2013. The new price to registrars will be $8.25, an effective increase of $0.55 per domain name year. This makes .ORG more expensive that .COM ($7.85) as of mid next year.

Public Interest Registry

Here are the 30 new gTLDs Afilias Limited of Ireland submitted applications for, including two IDNs. Five of the applications appear to be submitted under separate companies numbered “Afilias Domains No. [1-5] Limited”:

And the remainder of the applications was submitted directly by Afilias:

Earlier today IANA added the .XXX Top Level Domain to the root nameservers. While the registry operator Afilias is still in their setup process for ICM registry, the zone is currently propagating. While a number of registrars have already been taking pre-registrations, the actual timeline for the launch has not yet been published. The Sunrise launch is a three phased approach. After much back and forth and protests against the sTLD the ICANN board had approved the application for the new TLD at their meeting on March 18th of this year.

[Update] As Kevin over at DomainIncite points out in his post on the same topic, the registry website, sex.xxx and porn.xxx (both placeholder pages, safe for work) are now resolving under the new TLD. xxx.xxx is resolving as well.

The delegation record for the new TLD can now also be found on the IANA website.

Below the output of the dig query:

dig ns xxx.

;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER< <- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 22036
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 6, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;xxx.				IN	NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
xxx.			300	IN	NS	a2.xxx.afilias-nst.info.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	a0.xxx.afilias-nst.info.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	b2.xxx.afilias-nst.org.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	b0.xxx.afilias-nst.org.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	c0.xxx.afilias-nst.info.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	d0.xxx.afilias-nst.org.

See the IANA record after the jump
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Afilias just announced that they are accepting proposals for single and double character .INFO domains. Applications have to be submitted with non-refundable $1,000 fee and have to be received before 12:00 UTC on 30 April 2011. The registry operator  reserves the right, to reject proposals that are received after the submission deadline or are deficient or incomplete.

The proposal form and additional details can be found on the Afilias Website.

Afilias had used a similar process for the allocation of unassigned .INFO sunrise domains, however never published the final results of the process. DNN knows of at least two applications that received a rejection from that allocation phase without receiving what the applications consider a proper explanation.

[Update] Afilias has removed the description of the re-allocation process for unassigned .INFO sunrise domains from their site along with the list of domains. DNN archived the information.

[via Blacknight]

The .ORG registry, PIR, announced that it has recently passed the 9 Million Registration Mark, citing a 10.3% growth over 2010.

“Hitting the 9 million registration mark is a testament to both .ORG’s reputation and its impact within the Internet community,” said Brian Cute, CEO of .ORG, The Public Interest Registry. “.ORG remains a community-driven platform and has become the domain of choice for organizations, individuals, and companies to channel their passion toward a shared purpose with their community.”

[via PIR Press Release]

.INFO Registry Afilias Reveals 10 Expert Reviews, Voters have chance to win an Apple iPad

The jury of 7 representing the different regions of the world nominated 10 sites from 130 total submissions from over 20 countries. The public can now pick the top three spots, which in return receive $7,500, $5,000 and $3,000 USD. One of the voters will win an Apply iPad.

Click Here to VOTE NOW for the best .INFO website of 2010 and be entered to win a FREE iPad.

Here are the 10 nominated sites:

• http://www.mailworx.info
• http://www.greentravelclub.info
• http://www.eifel.info
• http://www.hotel.info
• http://www.baden-wuerttemberg.info/
• http://www.biohotels.info
• http://www.glutenfreehelp.info
• http://www.traumpfade.info
• http://www.klimaretter.info
• http://www.slimaway.info

Voting closes November 2nd, 2011.

Disclaimer: Afilias is an advertiser on DNN.

See the full press release after the jump.

(more…)

GoDaddy.com announced with a Press Release that they launched Video.me, a new video sharing site. With the launch of the site, the site, GoDaddy steps beyond their normal operations of a registrar, so it is very interesting to see how they will fair competing with the likes of YouTube. The domain name chosen reconfirms the company’s commitment for the .ME ccTLD, which it operates in partnership with Afilias and MeNet.

From the Press Release:

Video.ME addresses these issues by adding simplicity and flexibility to the upload process, and gives users complete control over their content – whether they simply want to store their videos ‘in the cloud,’ invite specific people to watch them or broadcast to the whole world.

Each video has the option to be password protected, giving the user control over who sees it— even if the clip is added to Facebook or another website.

[...] Videos can be any length, there is just an overall weekly storage limit of 500MB.

Nora Nanayakkara

Nominet announced last week that three new members – Clive Grace, Nora Nanayakkara, and Jonathan Robinson – were added to the board following an electoral vote.

Nora Nanayakkara is a notable member, having served as Sedo‘s Business Development Director since November 2007 as well as being an elected member of Nominet’s Policy Advisory Body (PAB) since June 2008.

Clive Grace has served on a Corporate Governance Audit Committee for the Welsh Assembly Government and has been a member of numerous boards and councils since 1998 when she first chaired the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives.

Jonathan Robinson, the Chief Operating Officer of Netnames, has previously served as a Deputy Chairman on the Internet Council of Registrars (CORE) as well as the Director for NetBenefit. He also currently serves on the Board of Director for Afilias.

Nanayakkara has pledged to help Nominet by focusing on developing a strategy that reflects the realities of the .uk namespace, providing the board with rounded exposure to the wider stakeholder community, and implementing the governance changes needed to ensure that the .uk namespace remains a self-regulated hub for Britain’s online community. For more on Nanayakkara, check out her website at Nanayakkara.co.uk.

In total 455 members voted representing 16.41% of the electorate and 5,754,949 votes were cast which fulfills 63.90% of the possible number of votes.

[via Nominet]

As announced in corresponding press releases, .TEL has just passed the 200,000 domains registered mark. The .ME registry just passed their 250,000 domains milestone.

Afilias has announced that it has expanded its technology with a new Managed DNS Service to help busy organizations manage their web traffic and increase their online presence.

“For most corporations, DNS is critical, but it is not their core competency,” said John Kane, VP of Corporate Services for Afilias. “Afilias’ Managed DNS Service allows organizations to have the peace of mind relying on an expert to ensure that their Web site never goes down.”

Afilias’ Managed DNS Service offers customers a premium web portal to manage their account, receive regular updates with real-time reports and graphs, and prevent account hijacking through enhanced security services. Click here to check out the monthly and annual Managed DNS Service plans that are available today.

[via Afilias]