Most countries have top-level domain names which end with their countries’ designated suffix, such as .ca(Canada), .uk(United Kingdom), etc. Finally, after many years of prodding, the U.S. government will allow individuals to register their own .us domain name. On Monday March 4th, 2002, the U.S. government will allow companies to register their trademark name with a .us suffix. After April 9th, anyone can register their name. The 35 registrars who have signed-up to sell the .us TLDs can do so to anyone who has a business in the United States or does business here. The U.S. Commerce Department selected the Washington D.C. company, NeuStar, to operate the name last year. NeuStar also works with the Australian company NeuLevel to operate the .biz TLD. Neustar will charge the 35 registrars US $35 per name and the registrars will charge us somewhere between $15-$30. Although 100,000 names have already been issued, they are mostly owned by state and local government agencies. When .us was first released, it wasn’t very popular because the name looked like software.lex.ky.us. However, now Neustar says that they will allow people to register their names which look like software.us. What a change! Lastly, Neustar promises that they can register and have your domain name operational in less than 15 minutes.
http://www.WebProWire.com/summaries/24141.html The Restructuring Of ICANN’s Board Members
Stuart Lynn, the president of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has his hands full with his board members and would like to change the structure of the membership. President Clinton created the governing body of domain names in 1998 so that they could take responsibility of coordinating the Internet’s addressing policies, including those for domain names from the U.S. government. Initially, the organization was afraid of government takeover and therefore opted for a completely private model. This, according to Lynn, has led to some problems that must now be resolved. He feels that ICANN’s private model is unworkable “because it leaves ICANN isolated from the real-world institutions — governments whose backing and support are essential.” Additionally, ICANN has always faced problems regarding its legitimacy from long time Internet users who felt that it was pandering to corporate interests. Furthermore, many administrators around the world refuse to recognize ICANN’s authority and will not pay their yearly dues. Therefore Lynn feels that a major restructuring of its members is necessary at this time. What is the new restructuring proposal?
Right now, we, the general Internet community, elect five of ICANN’s 19 board members. Lynn wants the new board to consist of only 15 members; five nominated by governments, five through a committee president, and the last five would be ICANN’s president and four appointments by various policy and technical groups. This restructuring of the membership has caused a backlash from various groups and individuals. http://www.WebProWire.com/summaries/23132.html
ICANN is Looking For A New Operator of .org VeriSign, which bought the Top Level Domain (TLD) Name Registrar, NetworkSolutions, is the private company responsible for the backend management of .com, .org, and .net (not to be confused with Microsoft’s .Net XML services). Historically, .org has been used for non-profit organizations. Under an agreement made with ICANN, VeriSign has to give back control of .org at the end of this year (December 31st). In its March 10-14 meeting in Ghana, ICANN will be establishing the rules it will use to choose a new company to operate .org. http://www.icann.org/accra/org-topic.htm
Today’s article is an in depth investigation by Murdok’s very own Peter Thiruselvam. We’re proud of his latest work, and think it will be useful to our Internet community.
