ICANN cautions about new TLD pre-registrations-NiceNIC.NET

ICANN weighs in on pre-registrations for new top level domain names.

With more and more domain name registrars offering some sort of pre-registration or pre-reservation service for new top level domain names, ICANN has published a word of caution.

Cyrus Namazi, Vice President of DNS Industry Engagement for ICANN, published a blog post today titled “Pre-Reserve a Domain Name, or Not? ICANN Answers the Question.”

Namazi warns against services that “guarantee” they’ll get the domain name for you:

As responsible Registrars are advising, successful pre-registration of a domain cannot be guaranteed. ICANN seconds that advice, cautioning that registrants should be wary of anyone who claims to be able to guarantee a domain registration on a new gTLD. There are several situations that can impact the availability of a domain name and some domain names may never be available for purchase.

Namazi points out that competition between registrars for a single domain, domains claimed in sunrise, reserved domains, premium domains, and name collision domains make it impossible to guarantee. He also notes that some TLDs may not even end up being delegated.

I haven’t personally seen any offers that guarantee you’ll get a domain you pre-register, although the language and disclaimers are probably unclear to the average internet user.

NiceNIC 2013 RAA ICANN Accredited Registrar

NiceNIC 2013 RAA ICANN Accredited Registrar

NiceNIC 2013 RAA ICANN Accredited Registrar

NiceNIC.NET 2013 RAA ICANN Accredited Registrar is ready to offer new TLD pre-registrations.

GoDaddy to end its Sedo domain sales partnership-NiceNIC.NET

GoDaddy is ending its domain listing syndication partnership with Sedo as of March 31, 2014.

The partnership enabled domain names listed with Sedo to show up on GoDaddy Auctions as well as in the registration path on GoDaddy.com when a customer searched for a domain listed for sale with Sedo.

The decision comes in the wake of GoDaddy’s acquisition of Sedo’s competitor Afternic in September.

“We’re all in with our vision of the aftermarket, which is Afternic as the single hub of all domains and the registrars just tie in,” said Paul Nicks, GoDaddy Director of Product Development – Aftermarket.

“We believe that a fast transfer system through all the registrars provides the security, the customer experience, and the ease of purchase that’s really necessary to grow the aftermarket,” he said.

Fast transfer refers to the ability of customers to buy aftermarket domain names and have them instantly transferred into their account, regardless of where the domain is registered.

Both Sedo and Afternic have fast transfer services, but GoDaddy never integrated the option. That will change for Afternic now that GoDaddy owns it. The current implementation of Sedo and Afternic on GoDaddy.com involves syndicating sales listings, but the actual domain transfer is a manual process.

Although the decision might drive domain name owners to GoDaddy’s own company to list domain names, removing Sedo inventory will result in a short term aftermarket sales hit for GoDaddy. Nicks said domain sales through the Sedo partnership are “meaningful.”

At this point, GoDaddy does not plan to change its relationship with DomainNameSales.com (DNS). DNS also has a syndication agreement with GoDaddy, but Nicks views the arrangement differently. The average sales price of DNS domains through GoDaddy is above $15,000.

“We’re lining those up to be the high touch point, lead gen and brokerage [model],” he said.

That compares to sales through Afternic and its fast transfer system, which typically have fixed prices under $2,000.

PS: NiceNIC.NET is partnering with SEDO.COM!

Yahoo Auctioned Off More Than 100 Premium Domain Names-NiceNIC.NET

If you're in the market for some great domain names, Yahoo has more than 100 of them to sell you. Starting from 2013-11-13, the company started a week-long auction of premium domain names (most of which appear to have been bought in 1997) of everything from Crackers.com to TrueStory.com. "Domainapalooza" starts Nov. 14 and ends on the 21st.

 From Yahoo's Tumblr blog: As we discussed what to do with them, it became obvious that it was time to set them free…back into the wild of the Internet. Surely, creative people, businesses and entrepreneurs could come up with something great to do with them. They could even spark some brand new ideas or companies.

 Yahoo will be using domain marketplace website Sedo for the auctions, which already have some reserve ranges set ahead of the bidding.

Some of the more premium domains come with steep reserve prices. Here's a sampling: 
— sandwich.com: $50,000 - $99,999 
— mym.com: $100,000 - 249,999 
— av.com: $1 million to $1.5 million

 Since you can buy domain names from NiceNIC.NET for $5 or less per year, it looks like Yahoo is going to make an absolute killing off this domain name yard sale. 

You can check out the full listing of domains here:
https://www.sedo.com/search/searchresult.php4?language=us

London gets its own web domain name-NiceNIC.NET

Businesses, organisations and individuals based in the capital will be able to apply for a '.london' top level domain (TLD) in spring next year.

The city is among the world's first to get its own dedicated domain and is already raising interest from thousands of businesses including Selfridges and Carnaby Street.

Official promotional agency London & Partners said it signed a contract with ICANN - the company responsible for overseeing the internet - to operate the domain under a newly-formed subsidiary.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said: "Adopting the .london suffix will enable organisations to more closely associate themselves with our great city's powerful global brand.

"This is also an excellent opportunity to expand London's digital presence, which in turn is set to generate funds to invest back into the city."

Similar effects are also likely to be seen for the introduction of similar doman names for Paris, New York, Berlin and Vienna, so savvy brands around the world will use the introduction of the gTLDs to start thinking about how new domain endings can strengthen their internet presence.

London Mayor Boris Johnson called the announcement 'an excellent opportunity to expand London’s digital presence, which in turn is set to generate funds to invest back into the city.'

NiceNIC.NET as ICANN 2013 RAA Registrar will offer .LONDON domain registration service when it comes available next year!

First new generic top-level web domains released

ICANN says it intends the new addresses, which are in non-Latin script, to create a more globally-inclusive internet

The first four new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) have been approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the body responsible for the allocation of new top level domains onto the internet.

Four new gTLDs were set to go live on the web after receiving approval, and include words in Chinese, Cyrillic and Arabic script that translate to ‘.online,’ ‘.games,’ ‘.site,’ and ‘.web.’

There are around 1.7 billion Arabic, Chinese and Russian speakers, making up more than one seventh of the world’s population. Allowing organisations to register web addresses in Arabic, Chinese and Russian script will therefore open up a way for new markets to brand themselves online.

ICANN says the gTLDs demonstrate its efforts to create a more globally-inclusive internet, and that these are the ‘first of many’ gTLDs in non-Latin scripts including Greek and Hindi.

NiceNIC.NET - ICANN 2013 RAA domain Registrar in China can now sell new gTLDs.

‘We are already starting to see the emergence of registry sites in Latin script… and a full Arabic script domain going live,’ said Ben Anderson, head of the new gTLDs at NetNames – a company that manages domain names.

Up until now there have been only 22 approved gTLDs worldwide, including .com, .org, .biz, .info and .net.

Yesterday’s announcement marks the first phase of opening up the internet to a possible 1,4000 proposed new domains or ‘strings.’

It took eight years for ICANN to approve the first four domains through a rigorous process of evaluation and consultation.

Over 1,900 applicants came forward to register their suggestions since the application window opened in January 2012.

The new tags could potentially allow organisations to further customise their online brands, with private companies allowed to apply for their own branded gTLDs.

Organisations would have to pay a minimum of $25,000 a year for the use of their equivalent to a .org or .com address – Google made 101 requests including .google and .youtube, and the BBC applied for .bbc.

But the process of issuing new gTLDs is complicated by concerns such as protection of intellectual property and DNS stability.

ICANN rejected Google’s application for ‘dotless’ domains on ‘security’ grounds, and several of Amazon’s applications have come under fire from rival publishing groups competitive grounds for wishing to register and take strict control of ‘.book, ‘.read,’and ‘.author.’            

ICANN’s generic domains division president Akram Atallah described the launch of the first new domains as ‘the biggest change to the Internet since its inception,’ ‘In the weeks and months ahead, we will see new domain names coming online from all corners of the world, bringing people, communities and businesses together in ways we never imagined,’ he said in a statement, ‘It's this type of innovation that will continue to drive our global society’.

.Gay Objector Strikes Out-NiceNIC.NET

International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) has lost three community objections, it brought against applicants for the .gay top level domain name. The objections were filed against Top Level Design, Top Level Domain Holdings, and United TLD (Demand Media).

ILGA is backing a rival .gay bid by dotgay LLC.

Panelist Dr. Bernhard Schlink ruled that the gay community is a clearly delineated community, and that ILGA had standing to bring the objection. However, he determined that ILGA did not prove that .gay going to the applicants would cause material detriment to the gay community.

Schlink agreed that the “gay community” might lose the chance to operate the .gay string as a result of the three companies’ applications. But he pointed to section 3.5.4 of the applicant guidebook, which states “an allegation of detriment that consists only of the applicant being delegated the string instead of the objector will not be sufficient for a finding of material detriment.”

He also ruled against ILGA in its objection to Afilias’ application for .LGBT.

Schlink is the same panelist that found against Metroplex Republicans of Dallas in its own objection against dotgay LLC (the group ILGA is backing). In that case, he ruled that the objector didn’t have standing.

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Tea.CN on TOP triggered Chinese Domain RUSH-NicNIC.NET

November 19th, "Chinese .CN Domain Contest" sponsored by Domain.CN came to an end, Chinese character .CN domain name of "茶.CN" (Tea.CN in English) overwhelmingly come out on top - just a simple word, but with strong connotations of Chinese characteristics, potential commercial value for the domain name industry.

Under current trend of short alphabetic .COM, .CN being sold for whopping price, we can still see such a good short domain name, which makes "Chinese. CN" the domain name industry's attention and Chinese domain's awareness greatly improved. More remarkable, it triggered a Chinese Domain RUSH.

It is understood that the domain name contest with theme of "Chinese Dream + Chinese Red + I Love 'Chinese .CN'" aims to drive the whole domain industry's attention, publicize Chinese .CN domain name and let more end-users know Chinese.CN.

Only 244 Chinese .CN domain names were selected and proved to be qualified for final round. Each domain of 244 has its own Chinese features, such as "金玉满堂.CN", "招财.CN", "俺.CN", "早教.CN", "巴萨.CN", "京唐港.CN" etc.

After several rounds of online voting, "茶.CN"(Tea.CN), "彩票.CN" and "特产.CN" won the top three.

Owner of "茶.CN"(Tea.CN) expressed: Chinese is our mother tongue, in the highly condensed context of domain name, Chinese domain name is application-oriented and more suitable to be developed to a website. I hope domain lovers will give more concern about "Chinese.CN" domain name and in return, earn serious bucks in the Chinese Domain Rush. 

The statistic data by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) show that as of the end of October 2013, .CN domain quantity already broke through 8.8 million. "Chinese.CN" domain represents not only Chinese international influence but also the advantage of intuitive, specific, profound Chinese characters.

At present, abundant Chinese resources guarantee that both domestic and international companies would have chance to find their brand image and product positioning matched domain name.
 
In the Internet field, with growing international influence of Chinese, rates of "Chinese .CN" domain awareness and application rockets simultaneously.

That a large number of domain name lovers participate, vote and promote in "Chinese .CN Domain Contest" shows public are full of expectations and confidence in the future of Chinese domain name. The promotion and application of "Chinese.CN" domain names will be more conducive in helping build up "pure Chinese internet", more convenient for Chinese to get access to internet, and easier for enterprises to launch positioning online marketing.

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