Tag: ICANN

Telecom Minister : India to Play an Important Role in the Future of the Internet

The internet is in a process of updating itself. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the non-profit organization that is responsible for overseeing the growth of the internet. Its primary mission is to make sure that every domain has a unique identifier or URL, and that each domain has a unique IP address. The organisation was under the influence of the US government but considering the importance of the internet, it is now shifting to model where it will be answerable to multiple stakeholders and not just the US government. The CEO of ICANN recently said that India’s role is central in the conversation about the future of the internet.

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade made the comments during an event in New Delhi where he said:

[quote text_size=”small” author=”Fadi Chehade” author_title=”CEO, ICANN”]

I know everyone speaks about Digital India, but the digital world without Digital India simply loses its digital way. India is not simply getting into the digital world; India is already an incumbent, a driver in the Digital world in every sense of the word.

[/quote]

The US government decided to let go of the stewardship of ICANN last year in the month of March. ICANN’s contract with the US government expires in September of this year. The organization is looking at multiple transitional plans for the future. It has welcomed governments, civil societies, and other internet organizations to discuss the future of the internet architecture.

The Minister of Communication, Mr. Ravi Shanker Prasad was also at the event. He said that the future architecture of the web isn’t a prerogative of a few and should be open to all. He also added that the Internet must be equitable, effective, open-for-all, and no one should be able to claim an early arrival benefit.

At present, the official policy of the government of India on the future of the internet is yet not clear. The various ministries of the government have varied views the matter that has lead to a delay in talks. Industry experts and activists have stressed that it’s high time India makes its stand clear at global platforms. Mr. Chehade said that India has to engage now to have a greater say in the future. The government should take his suggestion and work towards making India an important decision maker in the future working of the global internet.

March 10, 2015
Google Spends a Whopping $25 Million to Seize .app Web Domain

Google, today, added one more domain to its list of top-level domains (TLDs). The internet search giant paid a hefty sum of $25 million to procure a whole web domain.

As per Business Insider, Google made the highest bid of $25 million for .app, a top-level domain. Following this, ICANN, an organisation that holds a control over world’s domain names, declared Google as the winner of the domain. Google applied for .docs, .android, .free, .fyi, .foo, and .app; only managing to acquire the last one. The company presently owns four more web domains namely .soy, .minna, .foo and .how.

This isn’t a first, there have been several companies throwing millions on web domains. In fall 2014, Amazon spent nearly $5 million to purchase ‘.buy’, and $2.2 million for ‘.spot’. For now, users can register for ‘.how,’ ‘.soy,’ and ‘.minna’ domains under Google’s own domain registry service licensed by ICANN, which is still in beta version.

The company hasn’t revealed what it expects from this purchase, but it is likely that it may use the domain to promote apps in its mobile division.

February 27, 2015
ICANN Ruling Denies Google Dotless Search Domains

Google’s dream of owning a top level dotless search domain has turned into a nightmare. The gigantic search engine wanted ownership of an “http://search” dotless domain. But this has come up against the stringent restrictions of ICANN.

A dotless top level domain name would resolve without a dot. For example, while something.example will resolve in most browsers, http://example will not.

Google had hoped to use “search” as a dotless domain name. But recent security reports reconfirmed some of the security and stability risks of dotless domains.

There was already a prohibition on dotless domain names in the applicant guidebook for new TLDs. The guidebook requires new TLD operators to get ICANN’s blessing to operate a dotless domain.

Google needn’t give up entirely on all its plans. There’s still the possibility that it may end up owning the .search generic top-level domain (gTLD), even if it’s not allowed to operate it as a dotless domain.

As The Verge reports, the dotless domain rejection isn’t much of a surprise given ICANN’s hesitance to change the status quo. While the organization has said nearly 2,000 new domain names could be on the way, it has introduced new domains relatively slowly. The biggest changes ICANN has introduced this year came in July, when the group activated four generic top-level domains: .???? (Arabic for “web”), .?? (Chinese for “game”), .?????? (Russian for “online”), and .???? (Russian for “web site”).

[Via]

August 17, 2013