Hot breaking news from the root server…

here is the nslookup result for EU from server ns1.kloth.net :

DNS server handling your query: ns1.kloth.net DNS server's address: 213.133.98.149#53 Non-authoritative answer: EU origin = a.eu.dns.be. mail addr = tech.eurid.org. serial = 2005042800 refresh = 3600 retry = 1800 expire = 3600000 minimum = 600 EU nameserver = m.nic.EU. EU nameserver = a.eu.dns.be. EU nameserver = b.eu.dns.be. EU nameserver = l.nic.EU. Authoritative answers can be found from: EU nameserver = b.eu.dns.be. EU nameserver = l.nic.EU. EU nameserver = m.nic.EU. EU nameserver = a.eu.dns.be.

Try it yourself here. When I checked last night, it wasn't there. We all knew it was coming, but it's an important milestone to mark, nonetheless. Congratulations to the folks at EURID and everyone else who worked to make this happen.

IANA Root Whois for .EU: "Record Created 28-April-2005."

Oh, and here's a live one: www.eurid.eu. Thanks, Simon! This works too: www.nic.eu. 

.JOBS and .TRAVEL aren’t there yet.

Global Name Registry is making progress on its Privacy Enhanced Whois Service: "After extensive research and development, the .NAME Privacy Enhanced Whois Service is now entering its Closed Beta Testing mode."

eWeek: "Secure e-mail service provider Hushmail Communications plans to pursue a criminal investigation into a hacking attack that redirected users to a defaced Web site. The company pinned the blame for the breach squarely on the shoulders of domain name registrar Network Solutions."

ICANN's Nominating Committee has issued its annual call for Statements of Interest. Up for appointment this year are two seats on the Board, two seats on the GNSO Council, one seat on the ccNSO Council, and three seats on the ALAC.

One of my Google Ads yesterday brought me to this site, recruiting new resellers for a .WS multi-level marketing scheme (not an illegal pyramid scheme, since you’re actually paying for services). For $10/mo., you get a .WS domain name registration plus hosting. Then, if you convince others to buy the same package, you get $1/mo. from their monthly payment, plus $1/mo. for each person they recruit, and so on, up to five levels down the marketing pyramid. For an extra chuckle, check the “income calculator” about 3/4 down the page for a putative estimate of what you could earn each month. More about .WS here. Seems like a strange way to sell domain names, but who knows. It works for laundry soap.

ICANNWatch reports on three new TLDs: .公司, .网络 and .中国. I definitely want to know more about this. Post links or comments if you have them.

ICANN .NET Update: “The anticipated response from Telcordia to the applicant's written comments as noted in ICANN’s Update dated 20 April 2005 has been delayed. To date, we have not received the response from Telcordia but expect this response later this week. Accordingly, we are not yet certain about the timing of the posting but will continue to post updates as the information becomes available.” That means tomorrow.

.NET is on the agenda for the Board’s next meeting, which will be held by closed teleconference on Tuesday, 3 May 2005. The formal agenda includes:

• Approval of Minutes;
• .NET Discussion;
• sTLD Discussions, including .ASIA and .XXX;
• Strategic Plan Discussion; and,
• Other Business.

The ICANN Meetings page now includes the proposed dates for all of the Board’s teleconferences this year: May 3rd, June 7th, August 16th, September 13th, October 18th, and November 8th.  

Stephane Van Gelder: “The German Registry DENIC claims to be ‘baffled’ over the outcome of the evaluation process for the new .NET registry which ranked it fourth out of five applicants.”

ICANNWatch has a post on Verisign’s new registry-level auction service. Verisign made a presentation on this at the GNSO meeting in Mar del Plata (see transcript here). It’s not WLS. It takes place after the deletion grace period ends — which means after the registrar-level deleting name services have had a chance to do their thing — so it strikes me as fairly non-controversial. This is an auction for names that didn't sell during an earlier auction.

Steven Lang, writing on AllAfrica.com: “AfriNIC, the internet numbers registry for Africa , has slashed the minimum cost of joining the organisation from $400 to $100 per year.”

GoDaddy Press Release: “GoDaddy.com, the No. 1 registrar of new domain names for the past three years, announced today that it had surpassed Network Solutions in total domain names under management, to become the world’s No. 1 ICANN-accredited domain name registrar for the .COM, NET, .ORG, .INFO, .BIZ, and .US domain extensions, according to the April 20 statistics reported by domain industry analyst Name Intelligence, Inc.”

Interesting discussion on whois and national laws (and related mp3 file of today's conference call).

Here’s the Agenda for the next GNSO Council meeting, taking place on 12 May 2005.

Question of the Day. Which ICANN Board member said: “The internet is a bottom up network and I think it is the cornerstone of democracy.” Answer here.

John C. Dvorak has gripes -- what else? -- on domain name registrations and domain squatting.

Here's a fascinating privacy issue. California is thinking about putting a unique identifier on all bullets sold in the state and tracking who purchases them. According to the Attorney General, the proposed law "will strip criminals of their anonymity." Actually, it will strip everyone of their ammunition anonymity. Which raises the question, should anyone be allowed to buy bullets anonymously? Are bullets really as evil as domain names?  And how long until we see a bullet proxy service?

This is one of the most frightening things I've read in a long, long time. Like every parent, I hope the world is a safer, kinder place for my children than the one I grew up in.

Must reading: Vint Cerf interviewed in The Australian.

Google Adsense launched a new method for advertising today. In short, you can now specify that you want your ad to run on this weblog. I took the Google ads down recently because they weren’t corresponding very well to the content. Let’s see if that changes now that ad buyers have choice.

What I don't quite understand yet is why the content of the ads is distinctly different between blog.lextext.com and icann.blog.us. It's essentially the same content; the icann Blog is simply a subcategory of the main blog.

Steve Metalitz, working in the Whois Task Force: “I have taken a shot at revising the recommendation on a procedure for handling asserted national law conflicts.”

Maria Farrell: “The final task force report on Recommendations for improving notification and consent for the use of contact data in the Whois system has bee published on the ICANN website for public comments.” The Public Comment Forum is here. Last day for public comments is 12 May 2005.

Speaking of Whois, whatever happened to the ICANN President’s Standing Committee on Privacy? The President's Committee was "to be responsible for monitoring the implications of existing and proposed ICANN policies on the handling of personal data." The two Whois reports linked above are exactly the things that the committee should be monitoring. 

Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG): “The WGIG held its third meeting in Geneva from 18 to 20 April 2005. Consultations open to all stakeholders were held on 18 April. The Output of the real-time captioning for the Open Consultations is now available.” Morning Session Transcript (4 references to “ICANN”). Afternoon Session Transcript (21 references to “ICANN”).

Next up on the WSIS conference tour: “UNESCO, in partnership with the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN), the Agence Intergouvernementale de la Francophonie (AIF) and the Government of Mali and other international institutions, is organising a Conference on “Multilingualism for Cultural Diversity and Participation of All in Cyberspace” in Bamako, Mali, on 6 and 7 May 2005. The event is one of UNESCO’s thematic meetings in preparation for the second meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society (Tunis, Tunisia, 16-18 November 2005).” This looks good.

From Groklaw (via Slashdot): "Peeling Away the FUD Wrapping on Linux/Windows 'Studies'." A good post, well worth reading. I have four principal work stations: a Windows PC at the office, an IBM Thinkpad (for work), a Macintosh G5 desktop at home, and a RedHat Linux box at home. For 95% of what I do (word processing, e-mail and web), I don't notice a difference. Most data these days is platform agnostic.

Brinkster Press Release: "Brinkster, a popular web hosting company that grew to fame by offering free web hosting without ads, today announced it is offering free domain names for life when signing up for a web hosting plan."

BONUS LINK TO FINE PRINT: "To get the free domain names one year prepay is required. lDomains will continue to be free of charge as long as they are used within a Personal, Professional or Developer hosting plan at Brinkster that is paid at reguar price and the wholesale cost of the domains does not go above costs as of April 2005. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Void where prohibited by law, see Terms of Services."

P.S. This is another post via Blogjet. So far, so good.

Today’s post comes to you courtesy of Blogjet. Just testing.

Dotster is running a promotion this week, giving free whois privacy service with all new registrations. Use the coupon code “PRIVACY” during checkout.

By the way — and I’ve mentioned this before but it bears repeating — I like following new developments in the registrar and registry space, especially new service offerings. Dotster didn’t ask me to post this (I’m on their mailing list), but I am happy to pass on new service announcements and promotions from registries and registrars. Drop me a note if you have a new or interesting offering. I can’t promise I’ll always get it queued up for a post, but I’ll try.  

Silicon Valley Watcher: "Just a few days before the presses started rolling on the announcement of Ken Silva as VeriSign's first-ever chief security officer, I was dining with the man over filet mignon and crab at the trendy Tonno Rosso's near San Francisco's wharf, barraging him with questions about the very serious issues faced by internet infrastructure  and in particular the DNS system….”

EE Times UK: “The European Commission is advising companies and individuals to beware of fraudsters during the run-in to the intended introduction of the .eu top-level domain (TLD) at the beginning of 2006.”

United Press International: “The designation of two new top-level domains, .travel and .jobs, earlier this month by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has renewed some previous criticism about the organization's domain-approval procedure.”

Milton Mueller has a new post on ICANNWatch. He writes: “So ALAC's bizarre organizational structure asks individual users to devote half of their lives to building organizations that designate representatives who have an entirely indirect and minimal influence on ICANN policy. This is costly.” Yes and no. Yes, the current At Large structure is unduly complex. And, yes, at present the influence of the ALAC could be stronger. But, I’m not convinced that it won’t work or that it’s more trouble than it’s worth. In fact, I came away from Mar del Plata, the first meeting at which I had official ALAC responsibilities, with a renewed sense of hope for the future and influence of the At Large community. I’ll share some of my thinking on this in the coming days. The headline is that the ALAC will be more effective once the structure is in place, which ought to happen by the end of the year. And, yes, the structure could be improved, but I think we need to complete Version 1.0 of the ALAC before we move to Version 2.0. This will happen soon enough.

David Weinberger: “I just couldn't face implicitly confirming the idea that the blogosphere consists of big voices arguing with one another — spit fights! — instead of 10 million real voices engaged in every variety of human conversation and delight.”

Global Name Registry: "For the first time, domain names come with Free Trials. A .name address, domain name (e.g. morgan.name or peter.morgan.name) or email address (e.g. peter@morgan.name), can be registered for 30 days without charge."

Speaking of alternative registries, I was looking for travel information about Luxembourg and hit the lux.aero site. The domain name is reserved by the registry -- and live in the TLD zone file -- and presents this message to the reader: "If you are the holder of this industry designator and would like to take active control of this domain name, then please visit our registration page here or contact SITA at aero.enquiries@sita.aero for further information." Now that's an interesting response to the trademark/"industry designator" issue.

And here's the most interesting registry message of all: "Use of this page and all DoD NICservices constitutes consent to monitoring." Wow. Just browse the web page and you consent to allow the Department of Defense to "monitor" you. I guess it's a good thing I logged in from Starbucks. I wonder if they'll follow me home.

Press Release from the European Commission: "The final countdown to the advent of Europe’s own '.eu' internet identity, by the end of 2005, has begun. In the coming days, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) will put the .eu top level domain in the Internet root, further to a 21 March agreement between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the .eu Registry."

No .EU in the IANA Directory yet.

ICANN on the .NET Registry Contract: "ICANN and VeriSign have reached agreement in principle on all substantive terms."

Google says that this site is authoritative for "popesquatting." Cool. Speaking of the Pope, if you missed the "sin binge" piece on The Onion, it's worth a chuckle or two.

Dave Winer: "For what it's worth, and seriously, no joke -- I don't think Rogers should give benedictxvi.com to the Vatican. I think the domain should be used for an independently - authored weblog about the policies and actions of the new Pope by someone who is expert in the papacy and independent of the Catholic Church."

Here's one of the small miracles of ICANN Staff Support: an action point summary of this week's Whois Task Force conference call. It may not seem significant, but it really enhances the ability of volunteer participants (or, at least this volunteer participant) to make a contribution within the limited time available.

In some post-Mar del Plata discussions with members of the ICANN community who were not physically present at the meeting, several people expressed surprise that the Strategic Plan was not adopted. It wasn't. That fact wasn't widely reported in the post-meeting press. You can find the Board discussion in the real-time captioning, beginning with this quote from Vint Cerf:


No resolution was introduced on the Strategic Plan. It's gone back to Staff for another, significantly shorter, draft.

John C. Dvorak and Chris Ambler agree: It was a bluff. And Dvorak adds: "My question is how can the professor be so careless as to leave a laptop with all these state secrets unsecured and laying around." Right.

My laptop, by contrast, is fairly disposable, from a data perspective, even though it would be expensive to replace. First, the important data lives on the firm's server, not my laptop. Second, it's an IBM Thinkpad (X31), with top of the line security (which I've implemented), so it's essentially a fancy paper weight for anyone else.

And here's a cartoon on the UCB Stolen Laptop.

Update – .NET RFP Process.

Frannie Wellings: "Yesterday the US Department of State held a public briefing on WSIS. My notes are below."

Meanwhile, the Working Group on Internet Governance (aka "WGIG," but not to be confused with WGIG) is meeting again this week in Geneva.

Paul Wilson and Geoff Huston on "Competitive Addressing."

Hans Petter Holen, Address Council Chair: "Please find enclosed comments from the ASO Address Council to the ICANN Strategic plan."

www.icann.lu. Plan now.

I passed the Nevada bar exam. Viva Las Vegas! (the firm's newest office)

You don't realize how low the switching cost is for a search engine until a new one comes along. I really like Snap. The interface is brilliant.

Reuters Business: "VeriSign Inc. reported on Wednesday that quarterly profit more than doubled on strong demand for its software products, which manage Internet addresses and facilitate online transactions."

I watched the snippets of video referenced by BoingBoing. I think he's bluffing. But it sure sounds good.

On ZDNet: "Phil Windley has written up and photographed a recent talk given by Vint Cerf on challenges facing the Internet and computer science."

Lots of good stuff posted at various places on the ICANN site in recent days, but since none of it is linked from the top page, here's a quick run down....

ICANN published today a Staff Report to the GNSO Council on the Inter-Register Transfer Policy. Must reading. (It's a review of experiences under this policy, which went into effect in November, 2004).

And the GNSO's Maria Farrell just circulated the Whois Task Force's draft document "Recommendations for improving notification and consent for the use of contact data in the Whois system."

ICANN's Paul Verhoef to CENTR's Paul Kane: "Given the seriousness of the issues you brought to our attention and their potential impact, we have immediately investigated the matter. As a result, we must conclude that your statements are a misrepresentation of the realities at hand."

RegistryPro's Michael DelCiello: "RegistryPro takes compliance seriously and is eager to work with ICANN to resolve any reasonable concerns raised by ICANN or the community. RegistryPro has always complied with all agreements and documented policies."

Rogers Cadenhead correctly squatted the new pope; he registered benedictxvi.com. (And Chris Ambler cooked up this site.)

David McGuire covers popesquatting in the Washington Post.

Minutes of ICANN's March 21, 2005 Board Meeting include this: "[T]he Board hereby directs the President to provide the board with more information from the technical evaluators and applicants regarding the technical aspects of the .TEL sTLD application."

And this elucidating gem: "There was a discussion among various board members."

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: "ICANN, a non-profit public benefit corporation established by agencies of the United States government to administer the Internet domain name system, is not a government actor."

From Neustar's S-1: "This Joint Venture Formation Agreement (the "Agreement") is entered into as of the 27th day of April, 2001 (the "Commencement Date") by and between NeuStar, Inc., a Delaware corporation ("NeuStar") and Melbourne IT Limited, an Australian corporation ("Melbourne")...."

Rogers Cadenhead: "My money's on one of these six names: Benedict XVI; Clement XV; Innocent XIV; Leo XIV; Paul VII; Pius XIII.  I mean this literally. I registered all six of these as dot-com domain names earlier this month...." (via Scripting News).

David McGuire: "[E]xperts who closely follow VeriSign and the Internet domain market say the Mountain View, Calif.-based company owes its latest coup to a savvy lobbying effort in which VeriSign worked through the press and with its industry allies to play up already heightened concerns about the stability and security of the Internet."

In 24 pages as a PDF.