Domains (country code) -- ccTLDs

And why that's good news for the DNS industry

Insurance company Chartis is the latest company to withdrawal from a namesake new Internet extension (dot-chartis), claiming back $130,000 of its $185,000 application fee.

The news comes just days after the new gTLD program run by ICANN was dealt a blow with the withdrawal of five applications from General Motors (the car industry has embraced the program) and with toy-maker Hasbro dropping its dot-transformers application, despite having a savvy Net audience thanks to recent blockbuster movies featuring the camouflaging robots.

In the case of Chartis, however, the withdrawal - and recent changes announced to its application - are good news for the program since they highlight the far greater importance that new gTLDs are going to have in the global economy starting next year.

CENTR released the latest issue of its domain name "Stat Report", focusing on country-code top-level domains within Europe. The report showed that Germany continues to lead the ccTLD market with over 15 million dot-de domains, followed by the UK with just over 10 million. Meanwhile, dot-co showed the fastest growth of any ccTLD over the past 12 months, growing by an extraordinary 48 percent (compared to 15-17 percent for the four next largest growth registries). Around 78 percent of domains registered under ccTLDs are renewed each year, compared to 73 percent for dot-coms, the report noted.

DotCYM Ltd, a group established to work with the Welsh government to apply for a new TLD for the country, will no longer apply for dot-cymru after Welsh ministers stopped supporting the bid.

DotCYM technical director Maredudd ap Gwyndaf told .Nxt that the group has been working on a TLD for Wales and the Welsh community worldwide for six years and were ready to apply for a top-level domain years ago.

"We had chosen CORE as our registry operators in a tender process a few years ago," said ap Gwyndaf.

Under ICANN's rules, any applications for geographic names will need the explicit support of the relevant country's government. "The minister at the time wanted to work with us and whichever registry operator we chose," said ap Gwyndaf. DotCYM was even given £20,000 in government seed funding for its plans.

"Cymru" means "Wales" in Welsh (or literally "Land of the Cymry"). Use of the Welsh language has faded over the past century but has recently seen a resurgence with just under a quarter of the Welsh population now able to speak the language.

Series of ‘informal background papers’ promote online power grab

An extraordinary series of policy papers drawn up by the European Commission and published today by .Nxt have called for greater governmental control over the Internet’s domain name system.

Among a long series of measures promoted in no less than six papers by the EC’s Information Society and Media Directorate-General are:

• A government veto over any new Internet extensions
• The creation of a list of names, drawn up by governments, that would be banned from registration
• Significant structural changes at overseeing organization ICANN, including at Board level and in the crucial IANA contract
• An obligation for ICANN to follow governments’ advice unless deemed illegal or damaging to the Internet’s stability
• Two new bodies to oversee ICANN decision-making and finances

A top-level meeting between Russian Premier Vladimir Putin and ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré in Geneva earlier today spent a significant amount of time focussing on making the international organization more relevant to the Internet.

A press release from the ITU identified global access to ICT as the main discussion topic. However, discussion of Internet governance and how to increase the ITU’s role within it was added to the agenda at Touré’s request, we understand, most likely in response to the G8 Declaration in Paris last month that saw no mention of the ITU in a long text about the Internet.

According to the press release, “Mr Putin referred to the importance of information technologies, in particular Internet services, which have a key position on the international agenda.”

ICANN’s 40th meeting starts next week in San Francisco. Here is a guide to the most important topics, listed in order of importance, with added commentary, background and links to relevant resources.

1. New generic top-level domains (gTLDs)

New gTLDs will yet again be the dominant topic for an ICANN meeting, as the Board continues its efforts to bring this five-year process to a close.

The San Francisco meeting will be dominated by discussions between the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and Board, continuing on from a two-day meeting in Brussels earlier this month.