Dot VN Announces Vietnamese IDN Registrations Exceed 150,000

SAN DIEGO, May 18, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Dot VN, Inc., (http://www.dotvn.com) (Pink Sheets:DTVI), an Internet and Telecommunications Company and the exclusive online global domain name registrar for the Country of Vietnam (“the Company” or “Dot VN”), announced today that since it’s official launch of the Vietnamese Native Language Internationalized Domain Names (“Vietnamese IDN”) on April 28, 2011, registrations have exceeded 150,000 domain names.

Each Vietnamese IDN registered will be bundled with a free Dot VN web editor account which allows registrants to instantly create a website by uploading up to 5 MB of their own content and images. The web editor is set to launch by the end of the month and the Company plans to upgrade the service in the near term with news feeds from INFO.VN, communication tools, integration with a forthcoming classified ad service and other applications still in development. Additionally, Dot VN plans to monetize each web editor designed domain page with online advertising and banner ads.

“As the master registrar of the Vietnamese IDNs, our goal with the IDN program is to offer registrants everything they need to get started using the internet immediately,” said Dot VN President Lee Johnson. “Based on our current growth, it is possible that we may surpass the total number of standard “.vn” registrations in the coming weeks thereby effectively doubling the size of the Vietnamese Internet. In order to continue this trend, Dot VN will redouble its efforts to provide the very best services and applications to each and every customer of the Vietnamese native language internet.”

About Dot VN:

Dot VN, Inc. (www.DotVN.com) provides innovative Internet and Telecommunication services for Vietnam and operates and manages Vietnam’s premier online media web property, www.INFO.VN. The Company is the “exclusive online global domain name registrar for .VN (Vietnam) and the recently launched Vietnamese Native Language Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).” Dot VN is the sole distributor of Micro-Modular Data CentersTM solutions and E-Link 1000EXR Wireless Gigabit Radios to Vietnam and Southeast Asia region. Dot VN is headquartered in San Diego, California with offices in Hanoi, Danang and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. For more information, visit www.DotVN.com.

Gulf Times: Qatar registry launches Arabic domain names

Last night, Qatar became one of the first countries in the world to offer Arabic domain names to Internet users as ictQatar officials launched the Qatar Domains Registry, making the Internet more accessible to Arabic customers.
The first phase of the introduction of the Qatar Domains Registry (QDR) will see select organisations allocated Qatar-specific Internet domain names, with general domain names to be made available to the public by August of this year.
A number of sites are currently being used as pilots for the system, including Hukoomi and ictQatar, while other government organisations and registered trademark and IP holders will be launching in the near future.
Chief technical manager at ictQatar, Salah al-Kuwari emphasised the importance of the launch to local users: “The launch of the Qatar Domains Registry is a major milestone as we work to build a more digitally inclusive society.”
“As more organisations and individuals begin adopting non-Latin domain names the Internet will literally be opened up to brand new audiences,” he said, adding “the Arab world represents a region with enormous potential for growth both in terms of usage and the creation of new digital content.
“Qatar-specific domains are a valuable asset for businesses and individuals looking to establish their online identity – using .qa or .qatar shows you are uniquely Qatar,” added al-Kuwari.
President and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ICANN, Rod Beckstrom gave a presentation to mark the launch of the domain registry, and congratulated ictQatar on the “historic achievement” marked by the launch of .qatar ‏
Beckstrom spoke about the challenges faced by his organisation, attempting to maintain a global network when so many billions of domain names are accessed on a daily basis.
With 1mn new devices going online every day, the scale of the Internet is quite remarkable, and Qatar has not missed out on the growth of the global network.
In fact, Beckstrom explained that Qatar is among the top three internet using nations in the Middle East with 52% of people here online, 50% penetration of broadband services in households, and 167% mobile connectivity penetration.
He explained that the launch of Qatar’s domain registry will have multiple benefits, encouraging creativity and innovation, increasing convenience and consumer choice and also supporting pride in Qatar’s cultural identity
“Approval of Qatar’s internationalised domain name (IDN) is an acknowledgement of the country’s vision and leadership, he said, adding “in pursuing the IDN on behalf of its people Qatar has recognised that the Internet is the way of the future.”
Users will be able to check the availability of domain names through the QDR website, which officials said would be launched in the near future.
They will then be able to register their domains with the QDR, and al-Kuwari explained that existing domains will experience no difficulties with the launch of the new registry.
The launch of the QDR has been a long time in planning, and officials explained that ictQatar led the application process for the IDN, the country code top level domain (ccTLD) and assisted with the fasttrack process with ICANN for approval, officially receiving delegation of the domains in December 2010.
“Country-specific domain names are an incredibly valuable national commodity.  To maximise their reach and value, QDR was developed based on a registry-registrar system, where approved registrars will be able to attract numerous local and international registrars to promote competition in the market and provide choices for consumers,” added al-Kuwari.

source: gulf-times.com

Dynadot: ORG Cyrillic IDN Launch

On February 19, 2011 the central registry for ORG domains will be launching support for Cyrillic IDNs. Cyrillic IDNs will be available in the following languages: Bosnian, Bulgarian, Belarusian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian.

LAUNCH INDICATOR

Cyrillic ORG IDNs are scheduled to go live sometime at 19:00 UTC, on February 19th. We have created a “Realtime Launch Indicator” so you know exactly when the launch occurs. The indicator checks real-time with the central registry, and displays either “Not Launched Yet” or “Launched”. You can see the indicator on our home page, or on the IDN search pages:

http://www.dynadot.com
http://www.dynadot.com/domain/launch.html
http://www.dynadot.com/domain/search2.html
http://www.dynadot.com/domain/bulk2.html

There are two ways to get your Cyrillic ORG IDN with Dynadot. Before the launch, you can place a pre-order. After the launch, you can place a regular order.

OPTION 1: PRE-ORDERS (orders placed before the launch)

Dynadot is currently taking pre-orders for Cyrillic ORG IDNs. Prices will be the same as normal ORG registrations: $9.25 regular, $7.75 bulk, and $7.50 super bulk. Any orders for Cyrillic ORG IDN domains placed before the launch are pre-orders.

Your order will remain in the processing queue until February 19th. Our system will automatically try to grab your pre-orders as soon as Cyrillic ORG IDNs go live. Please note these conditions:

  • There will be several registrars trying to get the top Cyrillic ORG IDNs. We cannot guarantee that we get your requested domain.
  • There may be more than one customer trying to pre-order the same domain as you. If Dynadot gets the domain, it will be randomly assigned to one of the pre-orders. For example, if there are 10 pre-orders for a domain, each pre-order will have a 1 in 10 chance of getting the domain.
  • Because the central registry is not accepting the Cyrillic IDN registrations yet, variant and char-set errors cannot be detected. If we get a variant or char-set error, then your pre-order will fail.
  • There is a huge upsurge in traffic and activity on our website during product launches. If there is a technical difficulty we may not be able to fulfill your pre-order.
  • If for any of the above reasons we cannot fulfill your preorder, you will receive a Dynadot account credit. Sorry, we cannot provide refunds on failed pre-orders.

OPTION 2: REGULAR ORDERS (orders placed after the launch)

If you wait until after the launch is live, any Cyrillic ORG IDN orders you place will be handled by our regular order system. The price for a Cyrillic ORG IDN is $9.25 for regular pricing customers, $7.75 for bulk pricing customers, and $7.50 for super bulk pricing customers.

The advantage of placing a Cyrillic ORG IDN order after the launch is that searches will return false if a domain is already taken. Also, most variant and char-set errors will be checked for by the central registry.

You can also take advantage of our fast checkout. To use the fast checkout, you first have to prepay your account. Then you have to sign into your account. Now the search page will have a “Add and Checkout” button. You can skip the account signin and payment pages in the checkout process.

http://www.dynadot.com/company/prepay.html
http://www.dynadot.com/resource/forums/f6-engineering-corner/fast-checkout-282.html

DOMAINS LOCKED

All Cyrillic ORG IDNs registered in the first month after launch will be registry locked until April 20, 2011. The contact ORG for the domains will be Dynadot, LLC. The name servers will not be set. Any successful registrations will appear in your account however.

IDN ccTLD Request From Georgia Successfully Passes String Evaluation

ICANN is pleased to announce the successful completion of String Evaluation on proposed IDN ccTLD string for Georgia.

Details of the successful evaluation are provided here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-g-en.htm#ge.

The IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) ccTLD Fast Track Process was approved by the ICANN Board at its annual meeting in Seoul, South Korea on 30 October 2009. First requests were received starting 16 November 2009. The process enables countries and territories to submit requests to ICANN for IDN ccTLDs, representing their respective country or territory names in scripts other than Latin. IDN ccTLD requesters must fulfill a number of requirements:

  • the script used to represent the IDN ccTLDs must be non-Latin;
  • the languages used to express the IDN ccTLDs must be official in the corresponding country or territory; and
  • a specific set of technical requirements must be met (as evaluated by an external DNS Stability Panel comprised of DNS and IDN experts).

The request and evaluation processes entail three steps:

  1. Preparation (by the requester in the country / territory). Community consensus is built for which IDN ccTLD to apply for, how it is run, and which organization will be running it, along with preparing and gathering all the required supporting documentation.
  2. String Evaluation: incoming requests to ICANN in accordance with the criteria described above: the technical and linguistic requirements for the IDN ccTLD string(s). Applications are received through an online system available together with additional material supporting the process at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/.
  3. String Delegation: requests successfully meeting string evaluation criteria are eligible to apply for delegation following the same ICANN IANA process as is used for ASCII based ccTLDs. String delegation requests are submitted to IANA root zone management.

With this announcement, a total of 23 countries/territories requests have successfully passed through the String Evaluation. Of these, 17 countries/territories (represented by 27 IDN ccTLDs) are delegated in the DNS root zone; with the remainder either readying to apply, or actively applying for, delegation of the string. Up-to-date numbers about the IDN Fast Track Program will continue to be provided on the Fast Track Process web page at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/ and at the ICANN Dashboard on Performance Metrics at https://charts.icann.org/public/index-idn.html.

ICANN is looking forward to enabling the availability of non-Latin country-code domains for countries that qualify. ICANN will continue to accept applications for new requests in the Fast Track process, as well as processing requests through the String Delegation function. Staff support is available to help all countries and territories interested in participating in the Fast Track Process. Please email [email protected] for any inquiries for participation.

source: www.icann.org

Use of diacritics in Czech domains again refused

Prague, 19 November – For the fourth time in a row, the Czech Internet public refused the introduction of diacritics in the .CZ domain system. This ensues from a public opinion survey carried out by Markent for the CZ.NIC association, the administrator of the Czech domain registry. Eight-seven percent of organisations that responded and 62 percent of ordinary Internet users surveyed objected to the introduction of the IDN system (Internationalized Domain Names). The number of organizations opposed to the use of diacritics was up 6 percent compared to the previous survey taken in 2008, while for ordinary Internet users it was down 4 percent. The survey results are an important factor for the CZ.NIC association in terms of accepting or refusing IDN in domains with the .CZ suffix.

“The repeated refusal of IDN was not a surprise. The last three surveys had very similar results and there have been no signs over the last two years pointing towards a change in this trend. Quite the opposite – in the long term, the negative attitude of the Czech Internet public toward IDN is growing,” stated Ondřej Filip, Executive Director of the CZ.NIC association.

Among the most frequent spontaneously mentioned negative aspects of IDN were unwillingness to get used to the change and more complicated access for foreign visitors. The survey also shows that a typical supporter of IDN among individual users is a woman over 50 who lives in a municipality with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants and who uses the Internet occasionally. As for organisations, the typical entity is a non-profit organisation or an entity active in the public administration, education, or health sectors.

As the introduction or refusal of IDN is an oft discussed topic, CZ.NIC has launched a special Internet site after publishing the results of the previous survey: www.háčkyčárky.cz. At this site, with a domain name deliberately chosen to include diacritics, visitors may find a variety of information about IDN as well as find out how many diacritic variants are there for any domain, real or imaginary.

Prague, 19 November – For the fourth time in a row, the Czech Internet public refused the introduction of diacritics in the .CZ domain system. This ensues from a public opinion survey carried out by Markent for the CZ.NIC association, the administrator of the Czech domain registry. Eight-seven percent of organisations that responded and 62 percent of ordinary Internet users surveyed objected to the introduction of the IDN system (Internationalized Domain Names). The number of organizations opposed to the use of diacritics was up 6 percent compared to the previous survey taken in 2008, while for ordinary Internet users it was down 4 percent. The survey results are an important factor for the CZ.NIC association in terms of accepting or refusing IDN in domains with the .CZ suffix.

“The repeated refusal of IDN was not a surprise. The last three surveys had very similar results and there have been no signs over the last two years pointing towards a change in this trend. Quite the opposite – in the long term, the negative attitude of the Czech Internet public toward IDN is growing,” stated Ondřej Filip, Executive Director of the CZ.NIC association.

Among the most frequent spontaneously mentioned negative aspects of IDN were unwillingness to get used to the change and more complicated access for foreign visitors. The survey also shows that a typical supporter of IDN among individual users is a woman over 50 who lives in a municipality with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants and who uses the Internet occasionally. As for organisations, the typical entity is a non-profit organisation or an entity active in the public administration, education, or health sectors.

As the introduction or refusal of IDN is an oft discussed topic, CZ.NIC has launched a special Internet site after publishing the results of the previous survey: www.háčkyčárky.cz. At this site, with a domain name deliberately chosen to include diacritics, visitors may find a variety of information about IDN as well as find out how many diacritic variants are there for any domain, real or imaginary.

Russian IDN ccTLD .рф Opens for Registrations, Makes History

November 11, 2010, marked the day when the new IDN ccTLD .рф (Cyrillic for Российская Федерация, Russian Federation) was opened for general registration. Prior to that date the registration was open only for trademark owners and governmental institutions.
Before the registration started, in an interview for the КоммерсантЪ (Commersant) daily, Andrey Kolesnikov, CEO of the Coordination Center for .ru/.рф, said that they expect to have about 100,000 domain names registered by the end of the year.

It turned out they needed less than three hours to reach to the 100,000 domain names! Such a gold rush was not expected, and numbers continued to grow – 200,000 within 6 hours from the beginning of the registration period. And more than 460,000 by today.

The registration process, which clearly exceeded (and continues to exceed) all expectation, includes some interesting details, for example there is a list of 4023 words, which are not allowed for registration. The so-called “black list” contains variations of all different vulgar words, known in the Russian language. However, users have already found ways to bypass it, with simply adding another word in front, or after the blacklisted words.

We’ll be waiting to hear more on the history and the development of the Russian IDN ccTLD during the ICANN meeting in Cartagena, where several of the Russian ccTLD top management people will be present.
And we’ll prepare a posting on that topic, with more details for the general public. We hope that these details might be helpful in the launch of other new TLDs.

There are hundred of publications in the Russian central media, and even more all over the web, with people sharing opinions about who might be these registrants, why there are so many domains registered, and what does the fact of so many domains mean for the Russian Internet. It will be also interesting to see in exactly one year how many of these domains will be renewed. But certainly the Russian IDN ccTLD has made history.

More on the Russian ccTLD Coordination Center here (in Russian).

Statistics from the Russian IDN ccTLD here (in Russian).

More on the ICANN IDN program here.

by Veni Markovski from blog.icann.org

IDNEvent Auction Results

Total 31 IDNs was sold on first IDNEvent Auction at SnapNames.com

中国.org $5,250.00
円.com $4,026.00
电.com $1,550.00
鸟.com $1,450.00
航班.com $1,429.00
顔.com $1,250.00
売却.com $1,180.00
高級.com $1,155.00
博奕.com $1,117.00
講.com $1,005.00
סירה.com $802.00
品.com $710.00
小狗.com $625.00
路.com $625.00
ファンド.jp $590.00
クーラー.com $530.00
力.com $525.00
中古パソコン.com $480.00
沖縄旅行.com $451.00
כיף.com $450.00
出.com $450.00
海滩.com $420.00
江.com $375.00
和服.com $350.00
ゲームセンター.com $325.00
觀塘.com $300.00
卧室.com $300.00
菸.com $300.00
ん.com $300.00
指圧.jp $300.00
武侠.com $300.00

Character ß in .de soon

DENIC plans to update Domain Guidelines effective 16 November 2010 – Sunrise period for holders of domains with names containing “ss” starting on 26 October 2010

Effective 16 November 2010, the central registry for .de domains, DENIC, will abolish the rule that forbids the Latin small letter sharp s to be used as an independent character in .de domain names. DENIC thus follows the revised standard for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNAbis). Since 4 August 2010, the IDNAbis standard allows the LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S – also known as “Eszett” or “sharp s” (“ß”) – to be used as part of a domain name. Thus, domains such as “straße.de” (German for “street”) can now be registered.

Two-Stage Registration Procedure

Since the new IDN standard does not provide for backwards compatibility to the preceding standard, it will not be possible to uniquely address domains containing the characters (character sets) “ss” or “ß”, until all browsers and applications support the new standard. Not being able to unequivocally address a specific domain would adversely affect the users’ confidence in the DNS. To guard against this, DENIC will apply a two-stage process for initial registration of domain names containing “ß”. The official launch of the domains will be preceded by a so-called sunrise period of three weeks, which will begin on 26 October 2010, 16:00 (CEST). During this period, only those domain holders, in whose name domains containing the letter combination “ss” were registered at the decisive point in time of 26 October 2010, 15:00 (CEST) – and whose domains were thus reachable when the domain name was entered with “ß” instead of “ss” according to the former standard – will have the opportunity to additionally register the corresponding ß-domain in their name. Registration attempts of other parties will be rejected during this time period. The new ß-domains will be covered by DENIC’s information services such as the whois service immediately after registration.

Corresponding with the end of the sunrise period on 16 November 2010, 10:00 (CET), DENIC will amend the Domain Guidelines and include the Latin small letter sharp s in the list of valid characters for .de domains. At this time, the rules regarding preferential registration for holders of existing domains with the letter combination “ss” will cease to apply. ß-domains will then be subject to the general registration standard of the German ccTLD, which follows the “first come, first served” principle.

Parties interested in registering an ß-domain should contact a provider.
During the sunrise period and beyond, registrants of ß-domains have to ensure that the registration and intended use of the domain does not infringe anybody else’s rights nor break any general law.

For detailed information about the provisions related to the introduction of the Latin small letter sharp s (ß) refer to the DENIC Domain Guidelines for Eszett.

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Palestinian IDN Alive

GAZA-Palestine

PNINA announced the launching of Palestinian country code Top-Level-Domain in Arabic which known as (.falasteen). This has been accomplished after the ICANN completed technical check ups and register the new ccTLD domain servers on the global root DNS servers. It is possible now to reach the websites by using the pure Arabic domain names in Arabic characters such as

(موقع.هيئة-مسميات-الانترنت.فلسطين) أو (موقع.بنينا.فلسطين)

Mr. Marwan Radwan PNINA General Manager announced that lunching the name of Palestine in Arabic language realize the free Palestinian presence on the internet and achieve equality for Palestine as an independent state in the Cyberspace similar to other countries. It is an excellent opportunity to enhance the Palestinian and Arabic presence and increase the Arabic language content on the internet, he added.

Mr. Radwan explained that the registration of (.falasteen) has been announced after ICANN’s board of directors approval has been obtained on 15 August 2010; ICANN completed the technical check ups and registered the DNS’s on the root servers not only for Palestine but for other Arab countries such as Jordan and Tunisia.

Mr. Radwan said that PNINA has completed all the preparations for the launching of the new Palestinian Top level domain in Arabic including the related registration policies and procedures as well as pricing scheme and dispute resolution policies.

The registration will be opened in two stages, the first on 15 October 2010 for local and international organizations; companies and Trademarks holders to enable register their domain names in Arabic language through PNINA Certified Registrars this sunrise period will end on 30 November 2010.

The second stage will start on 1 January 2011 where the registration will be open for local and international individuals and institutions. Only applications with correct and complete information will be considered for registration. All applications will be processed on equal basis and according to the first-come-first-serve principle through PNINA registrars.

Mr. Radwan said that PNINA will publish the registration polices and procedures for the new Top Level domain on its official website on 15 September 2010

In this great event Mr. Radwan thanked all who have contributed in lunching the name of Palestine in Arabic language and realizing the free Palestinian presence on the internet specially the Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology, PITA,ISOC, PICTA and all Palestinians everywhere.

Review of IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process

We are nearing the one-year anniversary date (16 November 2010) of the launch of the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process. The Final Implementation Plan for the Fast Track Process requires that the process undergo review annually. ICANN is now opening a public comments forum on the review of the process.

Commenters are asked to suggest potential changes to improve the process for the end-users, including: the respective IDN ccTLD managers, the governments as well as the users of the resulting IDN ccTLDs (both registrants and general Internet users).

The public comment period is open until 17 December 2010. There will also be a session scheduled in the ICANN meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, to further discuss the performance and potential improvement of the process, and to facilitate useful community communication about the review.

Following the close of the public comment period, Staff will produce a paper that contains analysis of the received comments as well as recommendations (if any) for changes to the Final Implementation Plan for the Fast Track Process. This paper will be publicly posted and it will be provided to the ICANN Board. The ICANN Board will consider next steps including, which of the proposed changes should be implemented and if additional community discussion is required.

To help initiate the discussion, Staff has produced the following information. It should be noted that all aspects of the Fast Track Process are under review so any other subjects can be raised and are welcomed.

As of the date of this posting:

  • The submission system has been up and running with no down time since launch.
  • ICANN has received a total of 33 requests, covering 22 languages.
  • The details of the strings that have passed the String evaluation step can be viewed here: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/idn/fast-track/string-evaluation-completion-en.htm
  • The IANA root zone database is authoritative for the TLDs that are in the root zone today. Currently 15 IDN ccTLDs have been inserted in the DNS root zone. http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/
  • Statistics of where the various requests are in the process is available at the newly opened Dashboard: https://charts.icann.org/public/

From a financial aspect, the process was intended to cover its own costs by a recommended processing fee of 26.000USD per string requested. A total of $106.000 USD has been received to date. It should be noted that the invoicing of Fast Track requests are done towards the end of the processing, hence not all requests that have completed the String Evaluation step has yet been invoiced.

To submit comments on the Fast Track Process Review please email [email protected]

To review received comments on the Fast Track Process Review, please see http://forum.icann.org/lists/fast-track-review-2010/

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