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The Registry operator for the ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain) for the Republic of Somalia, .so (dot SO) has announced a launch date to begin registrations. According to the SO Registry, the ccTLD was re-delegated to the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications this past April by ICANN. We first caught a glimpse of the SO Registry at the ICANN International meeting which was held in Brussels, Belgium this past June when GMO Registry promoted the extension.

The SO Registry announced, rather quietly, that it will begin registrations in the name space on November 1st 2010. The launch model will follow the standard protocol; commencing with a “Sunrise” period — a trademark claims period in which trademark holders can claim first rights to their trademarked names. Applications during this 30 day period with multiple legitimate contenders will go to auction.
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ICANN posted a revision of its Proposed Registry Agreement with ICM Registry on its website today for the public to evaluate. ICM Registry, the applicant behind the .xxx top level domain, has been working towards obtaining the TLD since it first applied in 2004 in answer to ICANN’s call for Sponsored New gTLD proposals. The ICANN board rejected previous versions of the Proposed Registry Agreement, but after and independent review panel declared the rejection of the previous proposals as flawed, ICANN began to move forward in negotiating with ICM Registry.
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The IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) ccTLD Fast Track Program was approved October 2009 in order to allow the inclusion of characters other than the traditional ASCII characters used in Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs). The implementation of IDN top-level domains has been in the works for several years, seven in the ICANN community alone. ICANN, the organization which oversees the Internet’s name space calls the implementation of IDN TLDs the biggest change to the underlying structure on the Internet since its inception.
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Interlink Co. Ltd Announces Winner in World Domain Cup

Japanese Internet Service Provider, Interlink Co. Ltd., published the final results of the World Domain Cup (WDC) today.

The World Domain Cup, the only contest of its kind, officially kicked off in June 2009 and throughout the course of the contest over 11,000 entries with nearly 4,000 unique strings were submitted by Internet users from all over the world including Japan, USA, UK, Germany, France, China and South Korea.

The strings submitted by the users were eventually narrowed down to the final 15 by a group of panelists. Once the final cut was made, open voting began and over 7,500 unique votes were received throughout the period.

Internet users around the world were overwhelmingly in favor of .earth, which accounted for around 44% of votes. The runners up were .inc and .free.

The final results are published on the official World Domain Cup site. A copy of the official press release (pdf) is available here in Japanese.

• New gTLD Strings
• World Domain Cup Mid-Contest Results
• World Domain Cup String Results

ICANN’s 38th International Public Meeting held in Brussels, Belgium during the week of June 20th thru 25th was full of a lot of the same; a lot of New gTLD talk related to trademarks and timelines, and the usual WHOIS accuracy meeting. But still, the looming question on everyone’s mind; “When are we going to see New gTLDs?” was not clearly answered.

Well, one new gTLD, or so it would seem, is ready to hit the main stream fairly soon. The ICANN Board of Directors approved .xxx at it’s board meeting on Friday, June 25th 2010. The Board accepted the the findings of the Independent Review Panel and reconsidered the application for .xxx. A review will be done to ensure that no significant changes have taken place and begin contract negotiations. Finally, ICANN will involve the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) to make sure the contract for the new adult TLD is inline with the comment received from the committee.
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After missing the Nairobi meeting due to ICANNs assessment of possible security issues, we were very eager to kick things off with the Welcome Ceremony Monday here in Brussels, Belgium. Unfortunately, we weren’t greeted with the same exciting cultural performances we were able to catch only brief glimpses of during our remote participation and live blogging during the Nairobi meeting.
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As briefly discussed in our blog yesterday, the ICANN New gTLD Applicant Guidebook has been delivered to the public and is open for public comment until the 21st of July, 2010. We weren’t expecting the guidebook to be released for at least another week but the release of the guidebook this early is good for the ICANN community because it allows the community a thorough read before the 38th ICANN Public Meeting in Brussels later this month. Perhaps it sets up ICANN to complete the final draft in early Fall 2010 (just a “glass half full” thought) or delay the final draft in favor of a version 5 (“glass half empty” thought) — I just can’t help it, I’m an optimist.
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The New gTLD Applicant Guidebook, Version 4.0 was released to the public today. Upon first glance, it appears to contain quite a bit of additional material to help guide perspective New gTLD applicants through the application process.

As I was skimming the text I came to a dead halt at section 1.2.1 on eligibility (also see the Draft New gTLD Agreement page 5: Use of Registrars) when I realized that what we had expected to arrive had indeed arrived. The section of interest reads as follows:

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Just a few short weeks after ICANN approved the first IDN top-level domain name delegations at its Meeting of the Board on April 22nd, the first strings, Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia have been entered into the DNS root zone. The three strings were added to the root today (May 5th PST / May 6th JST), making the IDN strings officially operational.

The strings entered into the DNS root zone are:

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Exciting buzz among IDN advocates and watchers was created this week when ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom Tweeted the following from the special ICANN Meeting of the Board on April 22nd (PST): “ICANN board approves Internet top level int’l domain name (IDN) delegations for Russia, Egypt, UAE & Saudi Arabia.”

Since ccTLD IDNs were approved at the ICANN Board meeting in Seoul, South Korea in October of last year, government agencies interested in securing their own Internationalized Top-Level domain have been adding their requests. You can see a list of all prior requests in a previous blog entry. ICANN only makes public strings which have passed String Evaluation. The full list of all strings made public by ICANN can be found here:
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Many prospective New gTLD applicants have, or are currently in the process of building up or outsourcing out a registry system in preparation for application launch planned to happen sometime within the next year or two.

Although there is a lot to be covered on registry systems, I’ve chosen to focus on the critical business decisions that need to be made when outsourcing your new gTLD to a third-party vendor. Questions that are not covered in this article are; “Who’s out there, What solutions are they offering, and what are their prices”? Answers to these questions can be found on names@work in an article titled, ”Speed-dating the new gTLD registry providers – Intro”

Here are some questions that we have been asking ourselves when choosing our Registry system provider, and think that these are questions that you may want to ask before choosing yours.

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Planning for the new top-level domain? Looking for a string that’s going to make you rich beyond the dreams of avarice? …

Well, here is a list of 310 TLD strings, some old, some new, compiled from various sources on the Internet that you may want to keep in mind. It is likely that several of these gTLD strings will end up in contention, public disapproval, or violation of the string requirements.

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Earlier this year, ICANN announced the first four strings which had passed the String Evaluation phase — Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Russia (Russian Federation). Now, as of March 24th, a total of eight (8) strings have passed string evaluation and are awaiting approval for delegation. The strings that are awaiting a decision on delegation are listed below.

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As we look ahead to the next ICANN International Public Meeting this June in Brussels, we thought it would be a good opportunity to take a look at some of the topics that are on the the table for public comment.

The public comment process is a crucial element in ICANN’s overall goal for transparency. Through public comment the internet community can raise issues or give consent to policies before they are decided on by the ICANN board. We encourage all perspective New gTLD applicants to let their voices be heard on these key issues.

A full list of items up for public comment can be found here. Current issues related to the New gTLD Program are which are open for public comment are listed below.
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The 37th ICANN Meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya concluded in usual fashion today with the meeting of the ICANN Board. Today’s meeting of the Board was of exceptional importance to both the ICANN Board and the ICANN community. The Board met in total transparency as the community waited to see how the Board would be accountable for issues related to not executing the .xxx contract. Likewise, perspective New gTLD applicants anxiously awaited the Board’s decision on the EOI/Pre-Registration Process.

In total, the Board voted on eight (8) resolutions related to the implementation of New gTLDs. This could be an indication that the ball is rolling again, and perhaps ICANN is reaching consensus on a lot of key issues relating to the launch of New gTLDs.

Here is a breakdown of the chief issues discussed and the decisions that were made at Friday’s board meeting:
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