ICANN published a draft of a new agreement for TLD .biz on its official website. The agreement will be offered to Neustar, a registry managing the TLD. Its current contract on domain management will expire on June 30. The new agreement mirrors the contracts that ICANN signs with registries of new gTLDs. As it was earlier reported, similar contracts were proposed to the Public Interest Registry (gTLD .org) and Afilias (gTLD .info).
The current and new contracts are different in two aspects. First, the domain zone will be subject to the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) for quick blocking of domain names. It will allow right holders to promptly block domains on suspicion of cybersquatting before a decision under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP). Second, price caps on domain name registration and extension in .biz will be lifted. Experts suggest that this change is unlikely to please current and future registrants. The public discussion of the published draft agreement will continue until May 14.
Delegated in 2001, .biz was initially intended for business purposes. Currently, registration is open to both corporate entities and individuals without any restrictions. According to Domain Name Stat statistics, the domain zone currently has just under 2,300,000 names.
