ZDNet's Special Report brings you thorough, comprehensive coverage of the ICANN meeting being held in Melbourne this month. Get up-to-date information on the issues likely to govern the Internet as it undergoes change and repositions itself.
TLDs move step closer
The new Internet top level domains came a step closer to reality today when the ICANN board authorised the president and general counsel to complete the negotiation of the remaining appendices to the agreements for the unsponsored top level domains .name, .pro, .biz and .info.
ICANN defers VeriSign decision
The ICANN board today deferred its decision on the VeriSign agreement, as foreshadowed by chairman Vint Cerf at yesterday's public forum.
Tucows about-face on 'Whois'
In a turnaround from the company's previous position, Tucows is calling for restricted access to the 'Whois' database.
Warning issued on international domains
"If you're not frightened, you don't understand the problem." This was the warning given to the ICANN public forum by the Internet Architecture Board's John Klensin on the subject of internationalising domain names.
ICANN told its registry options 'suck'
There's been heated debate on the floor of ICANN's Melbourne meeting, with one delegate telling the Internet domain name adminstrator that its plans for the future management of the .com, .net and .org domains 'suck'.
New domain registry established
Register.com is expanding its activities to include registry outsourcing, director of corporate communications Shonna Keogan has told ZDNet Australia.
Australian elected head of ICANN body
Paul Twomey, the former CEO of Australia's National Office for the Information Economy, has been elected as the chair of ICANN's Government Advisory Committee at its meeting in Melbourne.
Registrars attack new ICANN VeriSign plan
A group of registrars has banded together to oppose a plan for Verisign to surrender control of the ".net" and ".org" suffixes in exchange for keeping long term rights to manage the valuable ".com" domain name space.
ICANN heads south as agenda hots up
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will meet for the first time in Australia in March. While it might be half a world away, ICANN is unlikely to escape the heat of recent times. Hot on the agenda at the Melbourne meeting will be the proposed implementation of seven new domains and ICANN's funding sources.
ICANN revoking .ORG domains!
One of the little publicized points of the ICANN - VeriSign agreement is that .ORG will be forcibly taken to non-profit organization status.
I mean as in registering with the I.R.S. as a non-profit organization. (Or whatever agency in other countries.)
This means every indivudual who has a .ORG domain (because there was no other place for us to go) will be forced to give up our domain. Regardless whether the web site is making money or not. Regardless whether its a public service site or an individual home page site.
(The idea of course is that we'll pay to have a .NAME tld. Frankly, that's terrible. I wouldn't have one of those if they gave it to me.)
This also effects the many small open source programming sites. Places where it's defintly in the spirit of 'non-profit organization' but are too small to bother with all the paper work to officially register.
See TheRegister
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/17299.html
and ICANN's own forum:
http://forum.icann.org/nsi2001/