ICANN announces 10 new top level domain name finalists
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican said on Wednesday an unknown buyer had snapped up the
internet address vatican.xxx, a domain combining its name with an extension reserved for pornographic
content.
"This domain is not available because it has been acquired by someone else, but not the Vatican,"
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said on Vatican radio. It was not clear from his statement if the
Vatican had tried to acquire the domain in order to prevent future misuse and had been beaten to the punch
by
the unknown buyer. Lombardi denied Italian media reports that the Vatican had, like many other organizations
including companies, universities and museums, registered the xxx domain to prevent its misuse. The xxx
domains are being launched this month for pornographic content and many organizations have preemptively
acquired them so others cannot.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45753545
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 18:00:09 -0500
To: politech@politechbot.com
From: Declan McCullagh
Wow. I think I started writing about this process back in 1996, and we're finally seeing it come close to a (temporary) end. Now let's see if the Clinton administration agrees to add 'em. :) --Declan]
http://www.wired.com/News/politics/0,1283,40228,00.html
ICANN: The Winners Are ... by Oscar S. Cisneros
2:00 p.m. Nov. 16, 2000 PST
MARINA DEL REY, California -- The number of new top level domains that will be used on the World Wide Web
was
narrowed from 44 to 10 on Thursday. Among those still in the race to join dot-com, dot-org and dot-net are
dot-biz, dot-i, dot-museum and dot-info.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the Internet's managing authority, took the
next
step in what has been a years-long process to create new name spaces in the Domain Name System by picking
the
following 10 finalists and the names of the groups sponsoring the applications at its board meeting Thursday
afternoon:
* Dot-info by Afilias, LLC
* Dot-biz by JVTeam, LLC, which is comprised of Neustar and Melbourn T
* Dot-i Sarnoff Corporation and JVTeam, LLC
* Dot-name, dot-nom, dot-san, dot-xing by the Global Name Registry,Limited
* Dot-pro by RegistryPro, Ltd, which is comprised of register.com, Virtual Internet and Baltimore
Tech.
* Dot-co-op by the Cooperative League of the USA
* Dot-museum
* Dot-Air by the Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques
* Dot-geo by SRI International
* Dot-coop by Cooperative League of the USA.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/la2000/archive/new-tld-res.html
RESOLVED [00.___], the Board selects the following proposals for negotiations toward appropriate agreements
between ICANN and the registry operator or sponsoring organization, or both:
JVTeam (.biz), Afilias (.info), Global Name Registry (.name), RegistryPro (.pro), MDMA (.museum),
SITA (.aero), NCBA (.coop);
There were many complaints about which TLDs ICANN selected and the process it used to do so (including the fact that five newly elected At-Large board members could not take part in the decision.) Yet it certainly is a welcome step to have a set of diverse additions to the congested gTLD space. ICANN is changing the landscape of cyberspace -- all the more reason why it needs to do more to ensure that the broad range of affected stakeholders have a voice in its decisions (and that the now-threatened nine At-Large Director seats need to be preserved.)
Best,
Alan
[I know this story was written while ICANN was in the midst of its final deliberation, but the headline and
its continued circulation are a bit misleading.]
Alan Davidson, Staff Counsel 202.637.9800 (v)
Center for Democracy and Technology 202.637.0968 (f)
1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 1100 <abd@cdt.org>
Washington, DC 20006 http://www.cdt.org
------------
ICAAN't seem to do anything right:: Good Morning Silicon Valley Thu Nov 16 12:00:12 EST 2000
ICAAN't seem to do anything right: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been meeting throughout this week in the hopes of approving the first new generic top-level Internet domains since the advent of .com, .net and .org more than a decade ago. The agency is expected to announce today just which new top level domains it plans to approve. Many are convinced it will add fewer than 10 of the 44 that have been proposed, which include .kids, .travel, .web. Regardless of what sort of announcement is made today, one thing is certain: it's likely to be a contentious one. Indeed, on Tuesday of this week two members of the House of Representatives -- Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Lois Capps, D-Calif. -- asked the Commerce Department to delay its implementation of new generic TLDs until after the government reviewed the level of competition in the domain registration sector and in particular VeriSign Registry Services' (formerly Network Solutions -- the agency that long held a monopoly over the domain registration market) position in it. Markey and Capps described ICANN's decision to move ahead with the approval of new domains as one that appears "to be at odds with the fundamental rationale for which the Commerce Department granted ICANN authority over these matters, namely, that ICANN would move the Internet domain-name system away from its monopolistic antecedents and would effectively implement the goal of ensuring competition in the domain-name marketplace. Their missive concluded with a caustic assessment of ICAAN's review process and the ill will and frustration it might foster in the public. "In addition, ICANN's own independent expert analysis of the potential new TLDs was not made available for timely public review and comment...Such a closed process leads to public frustration, speculation about motives and allegations that ICANN's decisions are arbitrary or will stifle any serious competition to NSI."