October 2008 Archives
As I've mentioned a few times in the past, ICANN takes a dim view of registrars who misbehave.EstDomains cropped up in the news a few times over the last few months, as their head honcho, Vladimir Tsastsin was embroiled in a number of legal issues in Estonia.
ICANN finally sent EstDomains a notice of termination (burnette-to-tsastsin-28oct08-en.pdf )based on Tsastsin being an officer of the company (if he isn't the termination could still be voided). ICANN have also put out a request for statements of interest from other registrars to pick up the 280000 domains held by EstDomains.
A post over on CircleID questions whether other registrars would have an interest in picking up EstDomains' portfolio.
Be that as it may, genuine registrants will need to find a new home for their domains regardless of whether EstDomains find a new home for their portfolio or if ICANN does it for them.
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The IEDR has obviously released some form of press release in the last few days to put a spin on its latest figures. Of course the press release isn't on the registry's website nor has it been sent to stakeholders yet again, though I was able to get my hands on a copy of it via a 3rd party.
So what are they trying to sell us today?
The price that the IEDR is referring to is the wholesale price NOT the retail price. The retail price is set by the registrars not the registry and for the registry to make these kind of comments about pricing is inappropriate. Other registry operators would not make comments about their registrars pricing policies, so why should the IEDR?
To claim that the price has fallen is misleading, as the fall in price / cost will only have affected the registrars not the registrants. For the registry to make allusions to pricing in this manner suggests that they are in some way influencing the retail pricing
Why must they insist on referring to themselves as "the managed registry" without ever explaining what they are managing?
Only 2.5% of IE domains are used by non-business users according to their statistics, but there is no explanation of why this is the case. There's no comparison between Ireland and other countries in this regard either.
If you were to compare IE registrations with FR registrations, for example, I somehow doubt that IE would come out looking so well. Unlike Ireland the French registry doesn't put silly barriers in the way of legitimate registrations.
The public won't understand or care what a "reseller" is in this context.
The introduction of multi-year registrations is a positive move, but the lack of multiyear renewals seriously hampers its effectiveness and causes headaches.
If the IEDR actually cared about their resellers they would actually communicate with them, but they obviously don't.
The reseller community drives registrations and basically keeps the IEDR and its staff in jobs, yet the IEDR do not care enough about the registrars / resellers to even bother sharing press releases with them - we have to find out from a 3rd party.
And of course nowhere in the press release is there any mention of Comreg, the extended registry downtime over the past few weeks or any of their inane proposals, such as the policy board that would not have any registrar representation.
So what are they trying to sell us today?
The IE Domain Registry (IEDR) today reported a 23% jump in the net number of .ie websites registered in Ireland in Q3 compared to the same period last year.There are two serious issues with that section of their statement.
The growing number of companies and sole traders moving their business operations online and choosing to do so with a .ie website is one of the main reasons for the rise, in addition to five consecutive years of price reductions by the IEDR, which has made it more affordable for businesses to do so. The cost of registering a .ie domain has fallen by over 60% since 2003.
The price that the IEDR is referring to is the wholesale price NOT the retail price. The retail price is set by the registrars not the registry and for the registry to make these kind of comments about pricing is inappropriate. Other registry operators would not make comments about their registrars pricing policies, so why should the IEDR?
To claim that the price has fallen is misleading, as the fall in price / cost will only have affected the registrars not the registrants. For the registry to make allusions to pricing in this manner suggests that they are in some way influencing the retail pricing
If the figures are official why aren't they published openly on the IEDR's site?
The latest figures from the IEDR, the managed registry for Ireland's official internet address .ie, show that new registrations were up by almost a fifth with 8,197 .ie websites registered in the period July to September 2008.
Why must they insist on referring to themselves as "the managed registry" without ever explaining what they are managing?
Based on what criteria exactly? Claiming that Ireland is "on a par" with other countries is fine, but can they actually cite any real figures to support that claim?
Registrations rose by 20.3% representing a substantial increase on figures from the same period last year, when 6,813 .ie website registrations were recorded. The increase also means the total number of .ie websites registered in Ireland now exceeds 110,000, just four months after the 100,000th barrier was broken earlier in May this year.
Of the .ie websites registered in Q3 83.3% of those were registered by corporate bodies and sole traders while personal domains blogs and other non-commercial websites, accounted for 2.5% of the registrations, placing Ireland on a par with the level of uptake recorded for other country code top level domains.
Only 2.5% of IE domains are used by non-business users according to their statistics, but there is no explanation of why this is the case. There's no comparison between Ireland and other countries in this regard either.
If you were to compare IE registrations with FR registrations, for example, I somehow doubt that IE would come out looking so well. Unlike Ireland the French registry doesn't put silly barriers in the way of legitimate registrations.
For the first time this quarter the IEDR has also made multiyear registrations available to resellers for a period of 2 - 10 years, thus enabling .ie resellers to register and secure a .ie domain for several years at a time. The IEDR plans to extend this service by Q1 by offering resellers the option of multiyear renewals.Wouldn't publishing data related to this change have been a bit more newsworthy?
The public won't understand or care what a "reseller" is in this context.
The introduction of multi-year registrations is a positive move, but the lack of multiyear renewals seriously hampers its effectiveness and causes headaches.
Commenting on the 20% rise in .ie registrations, Mr. David Curtin, Chief Executive of IE Domain Registry, said; "This has been another very strong quarter for the IEDR and one we expect to see continue into Q4, when it is predicted that the number of .ie domains registered will exceed the 115,000 mark by year end. Our reseller community, in particular, has been instrumental in driving registrations again this year and as broadband rollout and download speeds continue to improve, we expect to see more companies and SMEs, in particular, availing of .ie as a secure local online environment in which to do business".Curtin should get an award of some kind for fluffy meaningless statements.
If the IEDR actually cared about their resellers they would actually communicate with them, but they obviously don't.
The reseller community drives registrations and basically keeps the IEDR and its staff in jobs, yet the IEDR do not care enough about the registrars / resellers to even bother sharing press releases with them - we have to find out from a 3rd party.
And of course nowhere in the press release is there any mention of Comreg, the extended registry downtime over the past few weeks or any of their inane proposals, such as the policy board that would not have any registrar representation.
Over the last year ICANN has sought expressions of interest a number of times from accredited registrars to take over the domain portfolios of registrars that have lost their accreditation.
The most recent bulk transfer was of Esoftwiz's names to Name.com
While Name.com will contact former Esoftwiz clients it's always hard to know how accurate the contact information is going to be, so any Esoftwiz clients should contact Name.com to be on the safe side.
The most recent bulk transfer was of Esoftwiz's names to Name.com
While Name.com will contact former Esoftwiz clients it's always hard to know how accurate the contact information is going to be, so any Esoftwiz clients should contact Name.com to be on the safe side.
Just going through the latest WIPO decisions I see there's one regarding christian-dior.es. While there have been other WIPO cases involving .es domains I thought this one was vaguely interesting, as it involved a high profile brand name.
Needless to say Christian Dior won and the registrant did not reply.
Needless to say Christian Dior won and the registrant did not reply.
As the countdown towards launch day for .tel comes closer Telnic is ramping up its activities.
This morning Telnic are officially launching their developer centre, which offers a number of applications, source code and documentation to help developers build on the .tel platform.
I've mentioned .tel a couple of times in the past. Personally I think it could herald a revolution in the way people interact with other people. If it takes off then your address book will never be quite the same again!
In the meantime you can head over to the Telnic Developer Area and play around with some of the demo applications they've made available for Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Outlook. Unfortunately no Mac software is available at present, though Telnic have assured me that they're working on something...
Since I don't have a Blackberry or an iPhone here is a screenshot of the Blackberry application in action:
This morning Telnic are officially launching their developer centre, which offers a number of applications, source code and documentation to help developers build on the .tel platform.
I've mentioned .tel a couple of times in the past. Personally I think it could herald a revolution in the way people interact with other people. If it takes off then your address book will never be quite the same again!
In the meantime you can head over to the Telnic Developer Area and play around with some of the demo applications they've made available for Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Outlook. Unfortunately no Mac software is available at present, though Telnic have assured me that they're working on something...
Since I don't have a Blackberry or an iPhone here is a screenshot of the Blackberry application in action:
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I really am a sucker for silly junk, but the idea of getting a Rick Schwartz bobblehead was incredibly appealing, so I did ...
They were auctioning a signed one off on Ebay, however they weren't shipping it outside the US, so I didn't bid (well I did bid, I just didn't get carried away!)
They were auctioning a signed one off on Ebay, however they weren't shipping it outside the US, so I didn't bid (well I did bid, I just didn't get carried away!)
Nominet does not charge registrars anything to retag a domain name (ie. release the domain to another registrar / provider) .
I've mentioned this previously, but I wasn't expecting to hear about this kind of money grabbing from companies operating out of Ireland.
Unfortunately the acquisition of Register365 by Names.co.uk (part of the Dada group) means that anyone who is unfortunate enough to have co.uk domains with register365 is going to be held to ransom.
Names.co.uk have a public price list, although it's buried in the "legal" section of their site for some odd reason.
There's no mention of these prices or practices on the Register365 site, so I was very surprised when I was sent an email by one of their clients with a screen shot showing evidence of this:
If you don't want to click on the image to see it.. the price being charged for something that takes only seconds and doesn't cost anything is £10 + VAT or €12.49 +VAT!!!
Madness!
If you want to move your domains to another Nominet tag holder you shouldn't have your domain held to ransom!
Nominet can retag domains for registrants. How much do they charge?
£11.75 including VAT, and that is regardless of the number of domains.
So if you wanted to move 1 *.uk domain to a new registrar or 1000 the only fee that Nominet would levy a registrant directly (via the online service system which would get it all done in a matter of seconds anyway ...) is £11.75 including VAT (less than €15 including VAT)
Disclosure: Yes. I do run a Nominet registrar and no we don't charge for retagging co.uk domains as we don't get charged by Nominet.
Update: Wanted to verify with Nominet if there was a limit on the number of domains that could be retagged via the online service for the £11.75 fee and was informed that there was NO limit, as long as they were all merged onto the one online account.
I've mentioned this previously, but I wasn't expecting to hear about this kind of money grabbing from companies operating out of Ireland.
Unfortunately the acquisition of Register365 by Names.co.uk (part of the Dada group) means that anyone who is unfortunate enough to have co.uk domains with register365 is going to be held to ransom.
Names.co.uk have a public price list, although it's buried in the "legal" section of their site for some odd reason.
There's no mention of these prices or practices on the Register365 site, so I was very surprised when I was sent an email by one of their clients with a screen shot showing evidence of this:
If you don't want to click on the image to see it.. the price being charged for something that takes only seconds and doesn't cost anything is £10 + VAT or €12.49 +VAT!!!Madness!
If you want to move your domains to another Nominet tag holder you shouldn't have your domain held to ransom!
Nominet can retag domains for registrants. How much do they charge?
£11.75 including VAT, and that is regardless of the number of domains.
So if you wanted to move 1 *.uk domain to a new registrar or 1000 the only fee that Nominet would levy a registrant directly (via the online service system which would get it all done in a matter of seconds anyway ...) is £11.75 including VAT (less than €15 including VAT)
Disclosure: Yes. I do run a Nominet registrar and no we don't charge for retagging co.uk domains as we don't get charged by Nominet.
Update: Wanted to verify with Nominet if there was a limit on the number of domains that could be retagged via the online service for the £11.75 fee and was informed that there was NO limit, as long as they were all merged onto the one online account.
Image via Wikipedia
The day's agenda will cover topics such as marketing UK domains, ENUM, the future of UK domains and will include the presentation of the 2nd annual Domain Name Industry Report.
Further details and registration information is available on the Nominet site.
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Nominet has officially launched ENUM.
Nominet sent an email to its registrars earlier today making the announcement official, although much of the marketing collateral had been on the Nominet site since yesterday (if not earlier).
Further information on Enum in the UK may be found on the Nominet site.
Nominet sent an email to its registrars earlier today making the announcement official, although much of the marketing collateral had been on the Nominet site since yesterday (if not earlier).
Further information on Enum in the UK may be found on the Nominet site.
John McCormac has been collecting and processing statistics on domain registrations and hosting for as long as I can remember. He is probably best known for Hackwatch and WhoisIreland, which produces monthly reports for the Irish hosting and domain industry.
John's latest project has been in development for several months and offers an alternative to some of the existing domain statistics sites already on the market.
What makes it different is that HosterStats cares about ccTLD data.
Sites like WebHosting.info and DomainTools all but ignore ccTLD data and give a rather skewed perspective of non-US based providers.
With Hosterstats you can easily check the DNS history on any .com/.net/org/info/mobi/eu/asia/co.uk or .ie domain name.
While the site isn't the prettiest at present it is incredibly functional and nice and fast to load, so you get the information that you want quickly and easily.
It will be interesting to see what John plans on adding in terms of features in the coming weeks and months.
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John's latest project has been in development for several months and offers an alternative to some of the existing domain statistics sites already on the market.
What makes it different is that HosterStats cares about ccTLD data.
Sites like WebHosting.info and DomainTools all but ignore ccTLD data and give a rather skewed perspective of non-US based providers.
With Hosterstats you can easily check the DNS history on any .com/.net/org/info/mobi/eu/asia/co.uk or .ie domain name.
While the site isn't the prettiest at present it is incredibly functional and nice and fast to load, so you get the information that you want quickly and easily.
It will be interesting to see what John plans on adding in terms of features in the coming weeks and months.
The Swedish domain registry has announced its plans to release roughly 4 thousand geographic domain names in December. In common with several ccTLDs a block list forbidding their registration had been in place, however the registry's board voted earlier this year to allow the domains be registered.
The Swedish registry will also be transitioning to a more modern business model early next year with the establishment of a formal registry / registrar style relationship.
The Swedish registry will also be transitioning to a more modern business model early next year with the establishment of a formal registry / registrar style relationship.
If you have rules and regulations but don't enforce them then there's little point in having any rules or regulations in the first place.
One of the criticisms that is often levelled at ICANN is with regard to compliance issues. There are a number of areas where ICANN accredited registrars maybe flounting the rules, but if nobody does anything about it then none of the registrars will have any incentive to actually comply.
According to the latest ICANN news alert notices have been sent to both Joker.com and DNS.com.cn for WHOIS policy issues.
All ICANN accredited registrars are bound under their contract with ICANN (the RAA, which has been under review for over a year) and if ICANN deems it necessary they may actually lose their accreditation for non-compliance.
In the last 12 months there have been a number of registrars who have lost their accreditation, though none would have attracted the level of media attention of Registerfly. That a relatively large European registrar such as Joker would be subject to this kind of "wake up call" puts things in a whole new perspective.
What would be the impact on the European internet community if one of their own were to lose their ICANN accreditation?
One of the criticisms that is often levelled at ICANN is with regard to compliance issues. There are a number of areas where ICANN accredited registrars maybe flounting the rules, but if nobody does anything about it then none of the registrars will have any incentive to actually comply.
According to the latest ICANN news alert notices have been sent to both Joker.com and DNS.com.cn for WHOIS policy issues.
All ICANN accredited registrars are bound under their contract with ICANN (the RAA, which has been under review for over a year) and if ICANN deems it necessary they may actually lose their accreditation for non-compliance.
In the last 12 months there have been a number of registrars who have lost their accreditation, though none would have attracted the level of media attention of Registerfly. That a relatively large European registrar such as Joker would be subject to this kind of "wake up call" puts things in a whole new perspective.
What would be the impact on the European internet community if one of their own were to lose their ICANN accreditation?
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