Stephane Van Gelder - Registries

AFNIC exploring new avenues?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:07:04 +0200

The French registry AFNIC sent out a press release late last week to highlight its new partnership with GS1 France, the local chapter of a global network of more than a million companies whose aim is to promote technological standardisation.

GS1 is at the forefront of ONS, the Object Naming System often dubbed "the Internet of things" which uses RFID tags to label products. AFNIC and GS1 France have already started working together on the European ONS root.

While all this ONS talk is fascinating, the real point of interest for me here is the reason why AFNIC is branching out in this way. While obviously linked to DNS, ONS is a different kettle of fish. The reason AFNIC is getting into it is simple: the French registry is giving itself options and planning for the future.

AFNIC is still waiting on the French government to put the management of the French namespace out to tender (expect some kind of announcement early next year). Until that happens, its position as the .FR registry will remain, if not precarious, at least possibly unsafe. So AFNIC General manager Mathieu Weill is exploring new avenues and making sure that the expertise AFNIC has developed over the years is used for other things besides domain names.

A wise business decision I think. Even if some may ask if a not-for-profit registry should be run as a business…

DK Hostmaster replaced?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:50:38 +0200

My good friend Francesco has been following the Danish IT authority's bid to select a new registry for the country very closely. And according to him, the current registry is about to be replaced!

The new registry is a consortium called DotDK inside of which you'll find usual registry back-end operator Afilias. It seems the incumbent registry had grown complacent and was unwilling to move with the times by offering registrars standardized services and systems such as EPP. That may be all about to change.

Why I am interested in this? Because the process is extremely close to what's going on in France at the moment, with the government about to put the .FR registry position out to tender. Just as was the case for .DK, .FR has been managed almost since its inception by the same registry, AFNIC. And just like Hostmaster DK, AFNIC has historically been slow to update its systems and unwilling to work closely with its registrars.

This has changed a lot in recent years, probably in part because AFNIC knew it had to modernize to have a hope of keeping .FR. Will it? No doubt people at the French registry will be following the events unfolding in Denmark very closely…

1 character domains coming to .MOBI and .COOP? – Update.

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:30:38 +0200

ICANN has responded to .MOBI and .COOP's request to release single character domains. A letter written to both registries states that no significant issues were found and that they will therefore now be referred to the ICANN Board for approval.

The letter sent to .COOP also confirms that their request to be able to release 2-character domains has now been approved.

1 character domains coming to .MOBI and .COOP?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:25:51 +0200

They're considered the most precious of all domain commodities: 1-character names.

But they've been unavailable for years in all the major generic extensions (GTLDs). In fact, all 16 gTLD registries are obligated under the terms of their contracts with ICANN to reserve single character names so that they may not be registered.

But there are plans afoot to change that. Last year, ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) recommended that 1 and 2 character domains be released in existing and future gTLDs. ICANN itself controls all but 6 of the possible 144 single character names (letters and numbers) in .COM, .NET, .EDU and .ORG (the exceptions are q.com, x.com, z.com, i.net, q.net, and x.org) and is known to be considering auctioning off the single character .COMs.

Can't say I'm a big fan of registry-run auctions, or auctions run by others with a monopoly over the resource they're selling, which is why I was encouraged to read .MOBI and .COOP's May 29th registry requests to ICANN for the release of single character (and 2 character in .COOP's case) domains.

Continue reading "1 character domains coming to .MOBI and .COOP?"

Bientôt des noms à 1 caractère en .MOBI et .COOP ?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:58:36 +0200

C'est le Sacré Graal des noms de domaine : les noms à un caractère de type "a.com". Considérés comme les plus désirables de tous, ils ont selon certains experts une valeur parfois inestimable. Traditionnellement, ces noms sont néanmoins bloqués par les registres eux-mêmes, ce qui ajoute bien entendu à l'effet spéculatif. C'est une obligation contractuelle entre les 16 registres d'extensions génériques (gTLD) et l'ICANN.

Mais il y a depuis quelques temps un courant vers leur déblocage. Ainsi en mai 2007, le Comité de Soutien Générique de l'ICANN (GNSO) avait-il conseillé au Conseil d'administration d'autoriser le déblocage des noms à un et deux caractères (généralement également bloqués) pour les gTLDs actuels et futurs. L'ICANN étudie d'ailleurs un projet d'enchères sur les noms mono-caractère en .COM puisque 138 des 144 noms de ce type possibles (lettre ou chiffre) pour chacune des extensions .COM, .NET, .EDU et .ORG sont directement sous son contrôle (les six exceptions étant : q.com, x.com, z.com, i.net, q.net, and x.org).

C'est dans ce contexte que les registres du .MOBI et du .COOP viennent (le 29 mai) de demander à l'ICANN l'autorisation de commercialiser les noms mono- caractère (la demande du .COOP porte également sur les noms à 2 caractères). Et pour quelqu'un qui n'apprécie pas les enchères organisées par les registres, j'ai été très agréablement surpris par les méthodes d'attribution proposées.

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Can auctions be a good thing sometimes?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:08:57 +0100

As I've stated before, I don't like registry-run auctions. To me, there's something simply not kosher about the guys that have a monopoly over a given resource, be it domain names or anything else, getting prospective buyers to bid instead of making sure everyone has equal access at equal pricing.

It's a little like the water company basing its prices on people's needs: the thirstier you are, the more you pay…

But as usual, I'm ready to be proved wrong. And I wonder if Edmon, Leona and the rest of the guys at .ASIA haven't just done that by showing there's at least one case where registry-run auctions make sense.

That thought entered my mind while reading through their latest press release, celebrating the "historical smooth completion" (sic) of the first of the .ASIA Sunrise auctions. The release gives some indication of how the auctions went : "The average winning price for the first batch of contended auctions netted over US$1500.00 per domain, with high bids for domain names reaching beyond a few ten-thousand dollars."

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No Front Running at .AERO either...

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:38:56 +0100

Well that's a relief! SITA, the sponsor for .AERO, have publicly stated that they've never sold any search data and do not support Front Running.

SITA's announcement closely resembles the one put out by Afilias a few days ago and there's a perfectly good reason for that: Afilias is the registry operator for .AERO.

Still, reading SITA's announcement, I couldn't help but think: "who cares?". I mean who would even want to Front Run on an extension that's as specific as .AERO? That's one of the strength of sponsored domains like .AERO: they focus on one community, sector or culture (in .AERO's case, the aviation industry), and have little impact outside that.

And although that means such domains tend to remain small in terms of overall volume. They also tend to be abuse-free.

"Greed is good." Really?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:24:35 +0100

Michael Douglas coined the motto "greed is good" as financier Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's 1987 film "Wall Street".

Those of you who have been following the .MOBI launch know that as part of that process, a number of "premium" names were put on auction rather than simply released by the registry like all the other names.

What are premium names? "dotMobi premium names are a set of more than 5,000 commonly used words that dotMobi set aside during its formation," is your answer, straight from the registry's mouth.

Three auctions have been held, each one organised in conjunction with Sedo, the second-hand domain specialists. And according to mTLD (dotMobi's official name), the first two raised more than USD 1.6 million in revenue.

Continue reading ""Greed is good." Really?"

Afilias: We don't, and we never have!

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:07:18 +0100

.INFO registry Afilias published an interesting media advisory yesterday which I thought I'd share with you.

It's about the subject of the month: Front Running. "

"This action keeps domains out of the hands of those who were originally interested, and is enabled by the Add Grace Period. The Add Grace Period allows registrars to delete a name within 5 days of its initial registration without financial impact, and was originally intended to correct errors or problems in the initial registration process."

Recent industry discussions have centered on a new phenomenon termed Domain Name Front Running. This occurs when someone conducts a search for a domain name and, shortly thereafter, someone else using some form of insider information preemptively registers the name."
Continue reading "Afilias: We don't, and we never have!"