Domain Registries

A domain name registry, also called Network Information Centre (NIC), is part of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet which converts domain names to IP addresses. It is an organization that manages the registration of Domain names within the top-level domains (such as .com or .org) for which it is responsible, controls the policies of domain name allocation, and technically operates its top-level domain. It is potentially distinct from a domain name registrar (retailers of domain names). Domain names are managed under a hierarchy headed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which manages the top of the DNS tree by administrating the data in the root nameservers. National domain name registries manage country code top-level domains (ccTLD) such DENIC in Germany (.de), or Nominet in the United Kingdom (for .uk), or CIRA in Canada (for .ca). Read the full background at Domain Registries Wikipedia

Featured Blogs

What are TLDs Good For?

Yesterday I said that the original motivations for adding new TLDs were to break VeriSign's monopoly on .COM, and to use domain names as directories. Competitive registrars broke the monopoly more effectively than any new domains, and the new domains that tried to be directories have failed. So what could a new TLD do? more»

Presenting a Way Forward: Step-by-Step and ICANN's New gTLD Process

I read this to the ICANN Board Thursday morning, in Sydney, after more prep work than I care to recall. If you don't know that the DAGv3 is delayed, or what the IRT is, this is a good time to bush up on current ICANN state. "Good morning. My name is Eric Brunner-Williams, and I am speaking to you on behalf of the initial signatories of the Step-by-Step proposal. I represent one of the signatories as the principal of the native, aboriginal, and indigenous cultural and linguistic Top-Level Domain (TLD) project, one of many similar efforts to preserve living languages and cultures..." more»

Advocating for Domain Name Registry-Registrar Separation

.ORG, The Public Interest Registry has, since its inception, advocated for policies designed to reflect the public interest, namely of fair and open competition that benefits not only .ORG, but all Internet users. ICANN is now faced with a critically important decision on whether to remove the trusted and proven safeguards that prevent domain name registrars from owning and operating domain name registries. Because of its concern for end users, support for the success for new Top-Level Domains (TLDs), and strong belief in the benefits of fair competition, .ORG vigorously opposes removing these critical safeguards and strongly supports registry-registrar separation... more»

Most Popular Invalid TLDs Should Be Reserved

Some of the root server operators post public statistics for their domain name traffic at the top-level. For example, the graph (which can take a bit of time to generate, given ICANN's slow servers) for the L-root server's most popular Top-Level Domain (TLD) queries demonstrates, to no one's surprise, that .com is king. What's more interesting, though, especially given the new generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) debate, is to look at the most popular invalid (non-existent) TLDs. more»

ICANN 35: What's Going Down, Down Under (Want the Low Down?)

As I've been getting ready to catch my plane for ICANN 35 (Sydney), I can't help but thinking that there are a lot of things going down these days that will dramatically affect makeup of the Internet for years to come. Next year at this time, the root could be a very, very different place. A few of the items that will be getting deconstructed, discussed, debated Down Under are outlined below... more»

Appeals Court Revives the CFIT Anti-Trust Suit Against VeriSign

Back in 2005 an organization called the Coalition for Internet Transparency (CFIT) burst upon the scene at the Vancouver ICANN meeting, and filed an anti-trust suit against VeriSign for their monopoly control of the .COM registry and of the market in expiring .COM domains. They didn't do very well in the trial court, which granted Verisign's motion to dismiss the case. But yesterday the Ninth Circuit reversed the trial court and put the suit back on track. more»

IRT Final Report on Trademark Protection in New Top-Level Domains - Part 1: Uniform Rapid Suspension

The ICANN Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) working group has published its final report, which I decided to analyze a bit further. I already made a few comments last month, both in the At-Large Advisory Council framework and on my own. There are several issues raised by the recommendations of this report. The Uniform Rapid Suspension system (URS) is one. more»

New Top-Level Domains Emerging

With all the buzz surrounding new Top-Level Domain (nTLDs) at the last ICANN meeting in Mexico, I am sure many of you have already encountered or read information regarding the latest applications. For those who haven't been staying abreast of the latest, here is a quick review... There are two different general types of TLDs -- gTLDs and ccTLDs. ICANN is now opening the possibility of adding further TLD extensions, which can virtually be anything... more»

10,000 Domain Names Pre-Ordered Daily for Likely New Top-Level Domains

Last month Pool.com and Quintaris started a joint project to let consumers pre-order – without cost – domain names in new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) for which ICANN will likely get an application. Latest stats released from the group is showing strong demand -- about 10,000 per day in the first month of the program... more»

Another Attack, Another Reason for the Urgency of DNSSEC Adoption

News broke this week about an attack in Puerto Rico that caused the local websites of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Coca-Cola, PayPal, Nike, Dell and Nokia to be redirected for a few hours to a phony website. The website was all black except for a taunting message from the computer hacker responsible for the attack... more»

News Briefs

Companies Trademarking Possible Future Top-Level Domains

SPECIAL: Updates from the ICANN Meetings in Sydney

New Research Finds Over 80% of Domain Names Used by Phishers Are Legitimate Domains

Domain Name Registries Scrambling to Patch Newly Discovered DNS Bug

Google Blames DNS for Website Defacements in Uganda, Morocco and Kenya This Week

CIRA Launches Strategy to Block Conficker Worm from Canada's .ca Domain

Latest Cybersquatting Stats from WIPO

National Domain Registry Nominet Launches UK ENUM

Al Gore Backs Creation of New .eco Domain Name, Calls It Truly Exciting Opportunity

VeriSign: .Com, .Net to Adopt DNSSEC by 2011

Another Look at the Latest Domain Name Numbers and Trends

24 Million Domain Names Registered in 2008, Total Reaching 177 Million Worldwide

European Domain .EU Reaches 3 Million Registrations

New .tel Top-Level Domain Goes on Sale

Phishers Expand Number of Top Level Domains Abused, Policy Changes Found Effective in Prevention

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Industry Updates

A Seemingly Overwhelming Number of Important Documents Released by ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has recently released a number of important documents. This post includes brief synopses of these newly released documents. ›››

.ORG First Open Top-Level Domain to be Signed with DNSSEC

Today, .ORG, The Public Interest Registry, the company behind the .ORG domain name, is the first open generic Top-Level Domain to successfully sign the .ORG zone file with Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC). To date, the .ORG zone is the largest domain registry to implement the security measure. ›››

DNSSEC Industry Coalition Symposium is Announced

The DNSSEC Industry Coalition Symposium is announced today in collaboration with Google, Nominum, Inc. and ICANN and will be held June 11-12, 2009, in Washington, DC. The purpose will be to discuss and identify potential and perceived issues with the Domain Name System (DNS) and DNSSEC deployment due to signing the DNS root zone. ›››

dotMobi Names AutoTrader.mobi as Millionth Site Tested by Acclaimed mobiReady Tool

dotMobi, the company behind the .mobi Internet domain for finding mobile-friendly Web content as well as the mobiForge mobile Web developers forum, today announced that AutoTrader.mobi was the millionth site tested by the mobiReady tool for checking the mobile-readiness of Web content. ›››

Mobile Banking Benchmarks Now Available

If you’ve been following our news on the mobile benchmarks we’ve developed with our friends at Gomez, you’ll be interested in seeing our mobile banking benchmarks that American Banker just ran. ›››

Perspectives from a Nonprofit Domain Name Registry on Navigating the Social Media Frontier

At .ORG, we are big fans of using and managing multiple social media vehicles to promote engagement and interactivity within our global community. In our experience, there are many advantages to this approach... We're currently using Twitter, Flickr, our Blog, YouTube, and Facebook as the major ways to reach out to and engage our .ORG community on an ongoing basis. ›››

Flawed Economic Analysis of New gTLDs

During the last ICANN meeting in Mexico City, ICANN identified four overarching issues with respect to the new introduction of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). One of the issues identified was the economic impact of new gTLDs... ›››

Benchmarks that Measure Five Critical Dimensions of Success for Mobile Websites

Gomez, Inc. and dotMobi annouce the launch of the world’s first comprehensive benchmarks to compare and rank the mobile Web experience provided by the top businesses in the airline, banking and search industries. ›››

MarkMonitor AntiFraud Solutions, Combining Proven Antiphishing and Expert Antimalware Capabilities

MarkMonitor announces AntiFraud Solutions, offering patented technology to enable brand owners to prevent, detect and respond to phishing and malware attacks. Service leverages the extensive MarkMonitor network of relationships and technology designed to thwart phishing attacks in order to combat the rapidly expanding problem of malware targeting brands. ›››

Go Daddy Launches Instant Mobilizer from dotMobi

Instant Mobilizer is a patent-pending service designed to help small and medium sized businesses around the world reach their customers quickly and affordably through the mobile Web by seamlessly transforming existing PC-based Web sites for use on all mobile phones, on all networks. ›››