A top-level domain (TLD), is the last part of an Internet domain name; that is, the letters which follow the final dot of any domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is com (or COM, as domain names are not case-sensitive). Management of top-level domains is handled by the ICANN. Top-level domains are classified into three types: country code top-level domains (ccTLD): Used by a country or a dependent territory. It is two letters long, for example .us for the United States. With some historical exceptions, the code for any territory is the same as its two-letter ISO 3166 code. generic top-level domains (gTLD): Used (at least in theory) by a particular class of organizations (for example, .com for commercial organizations). It is three or more letters long. Most gTLDs are available for use worldwide, but for historical reasons .mil (military) and .gov (governmental) are restricted to use by the respective U.S. authorities. gTLDs are subclassified into sponsored top-level domains (sTLD), e.g. .aero, .coop and .museum, and unsponsored top-level domains (uTLD), e.g. .biz, .info, and .name. infrastructure top-level domains (iTLD): The top-level domain .arpa is the only confirmed one. .root has been known to exist without reason. Read the full background at Top-Level Domains Wikipedia
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»
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»
ICANN's Sydney meeting has come and gone, with the promised flood of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) claimed to be ever closer to reality. Does the world need more TLDs? Well, no. Way back in the mid 1990s, it seemed obvious that Internet users would use the DNS as a directory, particularly once early web browsers started to add .COM to words typed in the address bar. This led to the first Internet land rush, with heavy hitters like Procter and Gamble registering diarrhea.com in 1995... more»
Many software applications rely on validation routines to check the validity of domain names. By validation, I mean here to test the string submitted by the user and see if it matches a pre-defined pattern. A typical example are web forms that need to validate e-mail addresses. This is by new means a new issue. It first appeared with the introduction of the .info Top-Level Domain (TLD). more»
At first blush, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Globally Protected Marks List (GPML) do not seem to have anything in common. The first is a politician of debated repute that is seeking to quell disputes over the legitimacy of his election. The second is a recommendation that seeks to protect trademark owners and consumers from an explosion of infringement and source confusion that could be wrought by the introduction of new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). However, upon a closer analysis, they do share one common flaw: both have arguably failed to appropriately prioritize the right to free speech... more»
.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»
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»
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»
There's been a lot of media attention on the new Top-Level Domain (TLD) process in the last few days, which is a good thing. Unfortunately most of it is badly written, misleading or simply misinformed. Let's look at the reality. To start with, there are currently 20 gTLDs i.e. "global" Top-Level Domains (extensions)... more»
Twenty years ago (Monday) on June 8th, 1989, I did the public launch of ClariNet.com, my electronic newspaper business, which would be delivered using USENET protocols (there was no HTTP yet) over the internet. ClariNet was the first company created to use the internet as its platform for business, and as such this event has a claim at being the birth of the "dot-com" concept which so affected the world in the two intervening decades. There are other definitions and other contenders which I discuss... more»
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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. ›››
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. ›››
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, 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. ›››
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. ›››
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. ›››
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... ›››
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. ›››
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. ›››
dotMobi today announced highlights of a new study on mobile Web trends that shows mobile Web content creation continues to explode. Based on a review of the largest top-level Internet domains, dotMobi has seen a sevenfold growth in the number of mobile Web sites in the past year. ›››
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