.co still in high demand
One year after the global launch, the .CO is seeing a renewal rate of 66%. As late renewals still have to be counted, the final renewal rate might be around 68-69%.
According to Crystal Peterson, newly appointed Director of Channel Marketing at .CO, the top-level domain is seeing "above average first year results compared not only to other new TLD launches, but also compared to more mature domains like .com, .net and .org."
"From Google (G.CO), to Amazon (A.CO, K.CO, Z.CO and Cloud.CO), to Twitter (T.CO), to Joan Rivers (Joan.CO), to Overstock (O.CO), to everyday people and businesses like you and me – people from around the world in over 200 countries are getting excited about the possibilities and dreams they can realize with their .CO and are building great websites to prove it. We’re eager for everyone that not only wants a .CO, but needs a .CO, get their own opportunity and we plan to keep offering new and improved tools and resources to our partners to help make that a reality," says Crystal Peterson.
Advertising industry vs. ICANN
The Interactive Advertising Bureau, said to be representing over 500 companies including Facebook, Google, eBay and Microsoft, demands ICANN to stop its new gTLD program.
A few weeks ago, the same request came from the Association of National Advertisers, which threatened to lobby Congress and to take ICANN to court over the same matter. The situation is a bit different this time: ANA represents brand owners, while IAB’s members are said to be responsible for selling over 80% of online advertising in the US. Among its members are AOL, Digg, Amazon, the BBC, Bebo, CNN, Ziff Davis, LinkedIn, Time Warner, Slate, Thomson-Reuters, IDG, the Huffington Post and many others.
“ICANN’s potentially momentous change seems to have been made in a top-down star chamber. There appears to have been no economic impact research, no full and open stakeholder discussions, and little concern for the delicate balance of the Internet ecosystem”, says Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the IAB.
At the moment, five associations related to advertising and marketing demand pretty much the same from ICANN: to prevent new top-level domains from going live. They are ANA, IAB, as well as World Federation of Advertisers, Association of American Advertising Agencies and UK-based Direct Marketing Association. ICANN, on the other hand, still holds its cards — probably because no association took the matter to court yet.
European Commission wants total control
A leak spotted by .nxt (dot-nxt.com) lists six informal documents that describe European Commission’s wish for stronger government powers over new top-level domain approval process. The documents also cover various mechanisms that would let governments affect the gTLD applications directly.
At the moment, the governments have three ways to object against any given gTLD application according to Applicant Guidebook rules: GAC early warning (Governmental Advisory Committee could issue a notice to the applicant), formal GAC advice (GAC could object to any gTLD application in six months), and having the domain in the list of restricted words. According to the leaked documents, European Commission plans to tighten the requirements for two of these objection methods.
As far as the Applicant Guidebook is now finalized, the only available method for governments to secure their wishes regarding new gTLD program is the IANA contract with US Department of Commerce, which is to be renewed in March. The leaked documents directly point to the need of changes in the said contract:
“The IANA contract should include a provision requiring applicants to positively demonstrate the support of the relevant Internet community in advance of formal consultation of the GAC (and other supporting organisations and advisory committees), in cases where there are prima facie grounds to believe that the application may raise a public policy concern.”
This means, as said further in the paper, that “in other words, if the GAC issues an early warning, the applicant would be automatically required to demonstrate the support of the relevant Internet community”. At the moment, only community applications have to include some proof of community support; the mechanisms of evaluating this evidence are still unclear.
Other changes according to leaked documents include making formal GAC advice compulsory:
“The ICANN by-laws should be amended to ensure that consensus GAC advice is accepted as reflecting the global public interest, and should ICANN wish to reject such advice, it would bear the burden of demonstrating that the GAC advice would conflict with ICANN’s legal obligations or create problems for the stability or security of the Domain name System.”
Also, the European Commission is eager to have governments have their right to shut any domain down. In case such right existed, during Egypt riots, for example, Egyptian government could have used it to shut Facebook or Twitter worldwide.
Overall, European Commission’s total control is unlikely to exist in its ultimate form: the leaked documents do not bear any official status, and even in case the EC steps up with its suggestions, it’s still up to US Department of Commerce to put all this into IANA contract — or not.
IPv4 trading worries ARIN
Total IPv6 awareness seems to be still not enough for certain companies: different organizations are interested in buying IPv4 addresses as the address pool expires. Correspondingly, marketplaces emerge where companies can buy themselves some addresses or sell a bunch of unneeded ones. The “black market” of IPv4 addresses is no breaking news, as the first attempts have been made over half a year ago, but the scale is somewhat bigger now. For example, Microsoft recently bought Nortel’s 666,000 IPv4 addresses for $11 each, resulting in 7,5 million deal.
The situation worries the organizations that have control over the address space. Paul Vixie, the chairman of ARIN, says that the initiative could “end in tears”. “Any proposal for a competing Whois registry model is as doomed by design and destiny as every alternative DNS system. Even if it succeeds at first, it would fail after copycatting occurred”, Vixie adds. Another trouble that may arise is the fragmentation of address blocks: it would be hard to identify who really “owns” the addresses, so spammers and other cybercriminals could use this situation to ensure they remain anonymous.
