.Kids.us is one of those domain extensions that sounds like a good idea, but when you look at it a bit more closely you end up having more questions than answers. Essentially the domain extension was designed to be a safe internet space for "kid friendly" content, but the restrictions on registration were incredibly tight. How many .kids.us domains were registered? No idea, but … [Read more...] about Kids.us Goes The Way of the Dodo
ccTLDs
IEDR Update WHOIS Output To Include Registration Date
IEDR have updated their whois output to include the domain name registration date. The whois output now includes both the registration and the expiry dates. See example: whois neylon.ie % Rights restricted by copyright; http://iedr.ie/index.php/mnudomregs/mnudnssearch/96 % Do not remove this notice domain: neylon.ie descr: Michele … [Read more...] about IEDR Update WHOIS Output To Include Registration Date
CENTR Publish DomainWire Stat Report Focussing On Country Code Domains
CENTR (Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries) have published "DomainWire Stat Report" which gives a pretty good overview of internet and domain name statistics in Europe (and internationally) Some headline figures: approximately 40% of domains are ccTLDs .com dominates gTLDs with approximately 75% of the market The top 20 ccTLDs … [Read more...] about CENTR Publish DomainWire Stat Report Focussing On Country Code Domains
Chilean Domain Registry Expands DNS Infrastructure
The Chilean ccTLD has expanded its DNS infrastructure with the addition of three new nameservers in London, Amsterdam and Tokyo. The registry has been expanding its external DNS infrastructure over the last couple of years and now has DNS in multiple locations across the globe: Further details on their site … [Read more...] about Chilean Domain Registry Expands DNS Infrastructure
AFNIC Win .FR Bid Again
Due to a rather odd Gallic twist AFNIC was forced to bid on the .fr registry contract again. They announced on Thursday that the French government had awarded the contract to them (again) for a 5 year period: In an Order published in the Official Journal of the French Republic on 28 June 2012, Ms Fleur Pellerin, Junior Minister for the Digital Economy, appointed Afnic as … [Read more...] about AFNIC Win .FR Bid Again
190 Premium .Me Domains Up For Grabs
Brands and Jingles are running a special auction over on Sedo for 190 premium .me domains. The starting prices range from $149 to $999, which is pretty low for names that were picked up during the landrush. Interestingly a lot of the names will have a couple of years left on them, which is a bonus. The full list of names is here … [Read more...] about 190 Premium .Me Domains Up For Grabs
CIRA To Go Offline For 24 Hours
CIRA, the .ca registry, is taking their entire registry offline except for resolution services for 24 hours. While most domain registries conduct scheduled maintenance that would impact the SRS at some level and for several hours at a time I don't think I've ever seen a relatively large domain registry plan a 24 hour outage before. You can read details of the outage on … [Read more...] about CIRA To Go Offline For 24 Hours
.Be Registry Offering Registrants Certificates
DNS.be, the organisation that runs the .be registry, recently upgraded their software backend to add some new features. While most upgrades usually only impact registrars, the latest update includes an interesting new feature for registrants - registration certificates. While this isn't a completely novel idea (a number of other ccTLDs offer it) it's a nice little … [Read more...] about .Be Registry Offering Registrants Certificates
UK Domain Names Now Available For 1 to 10 Year Registration and Renewal
Nominet turned on multi-year registrations and renewals today, so now UK domain names can be registered or renewed for periods from 1 to 10 years. With this move Nominet brings itself into line with gTLDs and a lot of other ccTLDs, where the 1 to 10 year registration period has been available for some time. As a registrar and registrant I'm delighted by this move. It also … [Read more...] about UK Domain Names Now Available For 1 to 10 Year Registration and Renewal
Nic MX Rebrands Registrar Division
The .mx registry, Nic MX, has rebranded its registrar division as "Akky" and sports a new logo and corporate image. They've adopted the hare as their new image stating that it symbolises agility, speed and warmth (or maybe I messed up the translation!) The new site doesn't have any additional information on what exactly they're doing, and currently is just a Flash … [Read more...] about Nic MX Rebrands Registrar Division