News Briefs

U.S. Senators Criticizing Current .com Arrangement

Senator Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, questioned why VeriSign should have what critics have called a guaranteed perpetual income stream from .com domain registrations. The company currently receives $6 per domain, or about $323.4 million a year, from .com fees alone.  more

DOC Says it Would Renew Relationship With ICANN

The U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday it would renew its relationship with ICANN, the company that manages the Internet domain name system, beyond September 30, the date at which a separation had been expected.

"We are working with ICANN to negotiate the next phase of our continued partnership," John Kneuer, acting assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in prepared testimony at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the future of ICANN. more

New .EU Domain "Warehousers" Holding Back

Companies owning thousands of common names for Internet use will hold back the spread of .eu, Europe's attempt to rival .com, campaigners said on Tuesday. ...campaigners and European Parliament members say a few firms bought 200,000 to 300,000 generic names that people often use to search for information on the Web. more

Two Congressional Hearings This Week on ICANN

Congress has turned its attention to ICANN again, holding two hearings, on opposite sides of the Capitol Building, in one week. The Senate Commerce Committee starts things off on Wednesday, September 20th with a hearing titled Internet Governance: The Future of ICANN. The House Commerce Committee follows on Thusday, September 21st with ICANN Internet Goverance: Is It Working? ICANN CEO Paul Twomey and the Department of Commerce's John Kneuer will be testifying at both hearings. more

DNS Wildcard Proposed for .travel

Operators of the ".travel" domain name are proposing a new search service to help guide people who mistype Web addresses or seek nonexistent ones, reviving a debate over how much control such organizations should have in directing Internet traffic. more

VeriSign, Critics Gear Up for ICANN Hearing

A VeriSign Inc. official defended its contract to operate the .com domain Monday, after Network Solutions accused the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) of not requiring adequate security safeguards in its registry agreements. Network Solutions, a domain-name registrar, released a report last week saying ICANN has "failed" to address security in its latest proposals for the .com, .biz, .info and .org top-level domains. more

Analysis Report Recommends Key Security Changes to ICANN's Pending Registry Proposals

A report released today ("DNS - A System in Crisis," commissioned by Network Solutions) has concluded that in proposals for the .com, .biz, .info and .org registries, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has failed to ensure adequate security safeguards. The report, written by security technology expert Jerry Archer, recommends that oversight, planning and testing provisions be implemented in the proposals to run these registries before they are finalized. more

U.S. Likely to Keep Control of DNS

A U.S. State Department official on Wednesday said that the United States should retain control of the Internet domain naming system and not relinquish it at the end of September when the current agreement ends.

"It won't happen on my watch," said Ambassador David Gross of the State Department's Bureau of Economic Affairs. more

Company Claims Right to SEX.EU Under Unusual Legal Interpretation

Yellow was the first company with a prior right to the term 'sex' to apply for the domain, which is usually enough to be successful in being awarded it. Yellow had a registered trade mark for the term 'sex'. Topeu on the other hand claimed it had a greater right to the domain because it had registered a trademark for the entire phrase 'sex.eu'... more

Phishing Reaching Record Numbers in 2006

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) is reporting a record number of legitimate "brands" were hijacked in July 2006. ...They also report to have found 23,670 total phishing websites used to commit identity theft, fraud and other malicious activity in July 2006. This number is second only to the record 28,571 phishing sites found in June 2006, and is nearly double the 14,135 phishing sites found in July 2005. more

EarthLink Criticized for Redirecting Nonexistent Domains

Internet service provider EarthLink is drawing fire from customers after launching a test program in which it redirects nonexistent domains to a company-provided error page containing suggestions, a search box and advertisements. ...EarthLink responded in a company blog posting on the issue, saying it was listening to the feedback and was working to resolve any problems. However, it does not intend to disable the DNS redirection. more

If You Adopt Vista, Your DNS Traffic is Going to Double

Microsoft's launch of Windows Vista could slow down or stall traffic on the Net, said Paul Mockapetris, who is widely credited with inventing the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS). Mockapetris believes Vista's introduction will cause a surge in DNS traffic because the operating system supports two versions of the Internet Protocol, a technology standard used to send information over computer networks. ""It is going to be mud season on the Internet, where things will just be kind of slow and gooey.""It is going to be mud season on the Internet, where things will just be kind of slow and gooey." more

Software Error at .ES Registry Knocks Thousands of Spanish Websites Offline

A botched software update at Spain's central domain registry knocked as many as 400,000 sites offline for several hours Tuesday, according to the Esnic registry. The error left Internet users unable to access domains using .es, the country code top-level domain for Spain. more

ICANN Names DNS Security Experts

The Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers yesterday named the 25 domain name system security experts that will be responsible for deciding whether proposed domain registry services could cause internet security and stability problems. The 25 people, who hail from all over the world, would be selected in five-person panels to decide on a case-by-case basis whether services proposed by the likes of .com registry VeriSign Inc or .biz registry NeuStar Inc constitute a problem to the internet. more

With Tropical Strom Ernesto Comes the Domain Storm

With tropical storm Ernesto now blowing off the coast of Florida, Internet security experts are warning that fraudsters may be hard at work claiming Ernesto-related Web site domains. On Tuesday, 18 domains related to the storm became live, said Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer at the SANS Institute. They include such names as Ernestoinsurance.com, Ernestomoney.com and Ernestodamage.com. more