IANA contract is up for bidding
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration of US (NTIA) has put the IANA contract up for bidding. The contract is literally what allows ICANN to perform any actions with top-level domains – and the organization is, of course, the most likely winner in this case.
The new contract includes some changes: for example, NTIA needs no more direct proof of stakeholders support for new top-level domains, instead asking the contractor to provide "documentation verifying that ICANN followed its policy framework including specific documentation demonstrating how the process provided the opportunity for input from relevant stakeholders and was supportive of the global public interest". The consensus proof was not originally a part of the Applicant Guidebook, and now it is excluded from IANA contract as well. On the other hand, Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) can benefit from the situation, as the new contract requires documental proof of how a new gTLD can support global public interest: in case GAC would like to object to the domain, doing so by saying that a gTLD application is not in “the global public interest” can make things more complicated for ICANN and the applicant.
The document defining the contractor's responsibilities, called the Statement of Work, is twice as long as the current contract, and includes a list of 17 deadlines for ICANN/IANA which consists of various types of annual compliance reports. Overall, the substantial document seems to tighten the strings for IANA – and ICANN, who is the most probable contractor in this case.
Advertisers push domain wars to the next step
A powerful alliance formed recently may be ICANN's new problem: CRIDO, a Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight, is aimed to confront ICANN's new gTLD program. Led by the Association of National Advertisers, which openly opposed the program earlier this year, the coalition has issued a press release stating that "CRIDO is committed to aggressively fighting ICANN's proposed program" due to its "deeply flawed justification, excessive cost and harm to brand owners". The press release also cites possible consequences of the program according to CRIDO:
"If the ICANN program proceeds, CRIDO firmly believes, the loss of trust in Internet transactions will be substantial. In addition, the for profit and non-profit brand community will suffer from billions of dollars in unnecessary expenditures – money that could be better invested in product improvements, capital expenditures and job creation."
47 trade associations – mostly originating from US – and 40 companies with many major brands such as Coca-Cola, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble and many others – have together signed a petition to the Department of Commerce, asking it put a halt to the new gTLDs program. It is yet unclear what the next steps of the US government agency will be, but they are sure to follow – a petition this large probably won't be left unseen.
Registrar faces shutdown threat
ICANN has threatened a Turkish domain registrar to terminate its accreditation agreement due to faulty Whois service. Alantron, a Turkey-based registrar, has received a letter (!!!ссылка - http://www.icann.org/en/correspondence/burnette-to-acir-07nov11-en.pdf) from ICANN saying that its accreditation can be suspended due to failure to provide Whois information for a "specific domain name", as the affix to the letter says:
"On 12 October 2011, ICANN requested that Alantron make registration records available to ICANN concerning a specific domain name, as ICANN received a complaint that there was no Whois output available for the domain name. Although numerous requests were made by ICANN to make the registration records available for inspection and copying, as of the date of this letter, Alantron has not made any arrangements to comply with ICANN’s request."
Similar warning was issued for the same registrar in April 2010, and many security experts say (!!!ссылка - http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/10/pill-gang-used-microsofts-network-to-attack-krebsonsecurity-com/) that Alantron has been "crimeware-friendly" and had its fair share of abuse and neglect in the past.
Google puts domain names under pressure
Google is willing to push the social networking one step further with its new initiative called DirectConnect, a feature that enables direct navigation to Google Plus pages via the search engine. As Google has announced, now typing a + sign before the name of a brand in the search box takes user directly to the brand's Google Plus page. At the launch of the feature, some brands – including Angry Birds and Pepsi – are already signed up, according to Google's blog post. (!!!ссылка - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-pages-connect-with-all-things.html). The next steps for Google would probably be adding the corresponding functionality to its client products – Google Toolbar and search bars.
Direct Connect is somewhat an answer to Google+ Pages, Google's answer to Facebook Pages, a way for companies to have brand presence in the world's most popular social network. The companies often advertise their Facebook pages, so +brand might be just another way for businesses to reach their customers.
It is worth mentioning that until recently, the + search operator was a way to increase the word's priority in search results.
Large companies skeptical about new gTLDs
Bloomberg reports (!!!ссылка - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-07/p-g-spurns-pampers-as-brands-balk-at-expanding-internet-names.html) that P&G along with Hewlett-Packard are abstaining from participating in new gTLD program – or so they claim. According to Bloomberg:
"P&G, the world’s largest consumer products company with more than 50 brands including Tide detergent, Pampers diapers and Crest toothpaste, won’t apply for new suffixes, said Paul Fox, a spokesman. HP, the biggest computer maker, considers the program costly and has no plans to take part, said Gary Elliott, vice president of global marketing."
“A lot of companies are looking at the same math as we are and saying, ‘Let’s stop this proposal from happening,’” Elliott said in an interview. “There’s a tremendous amount of confusion about what this means and what the costs are.”
It is worth mentioning that HP, for instance, has long been demanding that ICANN lift its two-character domain name prohibition for new gTLD program, but with no success. Currently, two-character domains are reserved for use as the country-code domains.
Other companies mentioned by Bloomberg – like General Motors, Wal-Mart, Adobe, Porsche, Vodafone and Puma — are, according to the report, still "considering options" regarding the new gTLD program.
