Matias Vangsnes

A British-based community project has emerged with the aim of applying to run “.app” as a new top-level internet domain. But the budding organisation, which currently has about 75 paid-up members, faces a funding challenge if it wants to win what is expected to be a highly competitive bidding process. Article source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/27/grassroots_project_plans_dot_app/

UNION, N.J., July 22, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today computer hacker Daniel Goncalves was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing the domain name P2P.com from Internet entrepreneur Marc Ostrofsky and selling it on eBay.com for $121,000 to former NBA basketball player Mark Madsen. Goncalves is the first domain thief in history to be [...]

The .app Project is a community effort to obtain the rights to the .app generic top-level domain (gTLD) next year. If successful, developers that produce mobile and desktop apps will be able to have their own “.app” domain for the product. For example, a company that produces an app called “Foobar” will be able to [...]

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) present a good online branding opportunity for Asia’s businesses, but regional companies may not understand its value and, in turn, be slow to apply for them, industry insiders noted. DotAsia Organisation CEO Edmon Chung, for one, said the introduction of new gTLDs beyond the existing 22, which include .com, .org and [...]

Google has acquired G.co to use as the exclusive domain for shortened URLs of its sites, following in the footsteps of other major Internet companies that have bought .co domains recently and bypassing the crowded field of .com sites. Article source: http://www.cio.com/article/686335/Google_Acquires_G.Co_Domain_for_Its_Shortened_URLs?taxonomyId=1375

RIGHT OF THE DOT, a domain name strategy consulting group for new gTLD applicants and existing TLDs, announced today that it has entered into a marketing and referral arrangement with VeriSign, Inc. (“Verisign”), a provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world. Under the arrangement, Verisign will refer gTLD applicants seeking premium domain consulting [...]

As announced yesterday Peter Dengate Thrush, former Chairman of the Board of Directors of ICANN has been appointed Executive Chairman of Top Level Domain Holdings, the parent company of Minds+Machines. Thrush lead the ICANN board when it approved the new gTLD program during its board meeting in June 2011. His term ended in June 2011. [...]

This week, I wrote an article for Forbes.com about what retail brands need to know about new gTLDs. All brands will have to adapt their digital strategies to the new gTLD space, but global retail brands will face particular challenges and opportunities. Article source: http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/new-gtlds-and-online-retailers-044700

The gates are opening, but it’s unclear if a flood of applicants will rush to register the name of their corporate or municipal website for a potentially longer “dot-anything” suffix, starting in January, for a whopping price tag. The rigorous process requires applicants to spend $185,000 to complete a lengthy form that will prevent cybersquatters [...]

Following the approval from ICANN for the implementation of the new gTLD (Generic Top-Level Domain) program, DotAsia today announces its plans to support new gTLDs from Asia, including its own IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) TLDs and applications from other Asian new gTLD applicants. Article source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dotasia-to-support-asian-new-gtlds-125400353.html

Google has removed over 11 million .co.cc websites from its search engine results pages on the basis that most of them are far too “spammy”. The .co.cc space is not an officially authorised second-level domain like .co.uk or .com.au. Rather, it’s offered independently by a Korean company (http://co.cc/) that just happens to own the domain [...]

A plan to populate the internet with hundreds or thousands of new top-level domains has security researchers pondering some of the unintended consequences that could be exploited by online criminals. Some of the scenarios aren’t pretty. Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/04/dotless_domain_security/

Often associated with porn, the letters “xxx” wouldn’t seem right next to Disney, as in Disney.xxx. Until now, Internet addresses generally have ended with .com, .net or .org. Approved in March, the newest web suffix — .xxx — may result in companies lining up to protect themselves. And Disney, Microsoft and Fox may feel they [...]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The parent company of GoDaddy.com, a top registrar of Internet domain names, has been sold to a group of private investment firms for $2.25 billion, a person familiar with the transaction told The Associated Press. Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Go-Daddy-an-Internet-domain-apf-3979996540.html?x=0

The future of the Internet will become clearer when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) meets in Singapore June 19-24 to review the latest developments in domain names, website registration and the technical aspects of coordinating IP addresses. Among the more intriguing capabilities to be presented at the conference is “domain dialing”, [...]