Tag archive: ICANN

Several members of the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce have asked the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to delay the planned rollout of new top-level domain policies scheduled for January 12, 2012 (PDF). Although the letter doesn't spell out specific reasons, the representatives asking for a “short delay” to work out “significant uncertainty” about the new… Read More

The Internet is about to get a whole lot more porn. As of 11am ET today, more than 100,000 new websites will go online as the .XXX top-level domain, which was approved by ICANN in March, officially goes live. But just because there will be more pornography online doesn't mean Web users will necessarily be bombarded by even more salacious content than they already are. According to ICM Registry, which owns and regulates the .XXX top-level… Read More

In an attempt to protect their brands from enterprising pornographers and cybersquatters, a number of universities have begun purchasing .xxx top level domains, reports the St. Louis Dispatch. The move will hopefully prevent the school from being associated in any way with sex-laden content. “We don't want someone coming across our trademark on a porn site. God only knows what they'd come up with,” said Terry Robb,… Read More

Under the terms of a new contract with ICANN, VeriSign will continue operating the .net top-level Internet domain through the year 2017. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, although terms of the agreement are reportedly in line with the company's existing contract to operate .net—meaning they can choose to raise the cost of a .net domain by up to 10 percent per calendar year. The .net domain is the third most-popular… Read More

In the most significant change to domain name regulations since the institution of .com, the Board of ICANN, the body that regulates how domain names work, has approved the creation of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that will allow for a near-infinite variety of new website addresses. The colossal decision not only enables corporations and other organizations to create domains like drink.coke or buy.apple, but they could theoretically… Read More

In a somewhat ironic twist, The Dark Tangent is now, in a way, the chief security officer for the Internet. The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers—ICANN—has named noted hacker and information security specialist Jeff Moss as a Vice President and ICANN's Chief Security Officer. Moss is best known for founding the Black Hat and Def Con security and hacking conferences, both of which are well-known for… Read More

After years of debate, ICANN has finally given .xxx the go ahead. It will now be recognized as a top level domain and pornographic sites will retain their own customized URL signifier. According to the Washington Post, the vote was split and the final ruling actually contradicted the board’s Government Advisory Committee, which fought the action. “We are disappointed that ICANN ignored the clear advice of governments worldwide, including the… Read More

It's been a long time coming. But the fight over an adult-oriented domain suffix may be nearing an end. Politico has reported that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization in charge of approving and assigning the .com and .net suffixes, may approve the .xxx domain as early as Friday. ICANN is currently in the midst of a week-long meeting in San Francisco. The idea for the porn-friendly domain suffix… Read More

The idea of creating a .xxx top-level Internet domain for adult content and services dates all the way back to the year 2000, and at first glance it seems like a simple notion: create a domain along the lines of the well-known .com, .org, .tv, and others that would be exclusively for adult content and services. The notion of a .xxx domain is to enable users to easily determine whether a site is likely to contain adult material—they would… Read More

In the midst the forthcoming rampant expansion of the Internet, the US government will look to gain veto power over future domain name suffixes. Numerous additions, like .car, .movie, and .web, could be officially introduced next month. But before any new top level generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) are allowed into our address bars, ICANN’s international representatives have to sign off on them. Until now, ICANN’s policy for gTLD applications… Read More

At a press event in Miami, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) along with the Internet Society, the Internet Architecture Board, and the Number Resources Organization marked the formal handoff of the last unallocated blocks of IPv4 addresses to each of the five major regional Internet network information centers. Officially, this handoff means the global Internet has run out of address space, although it… Read More

It may not be a sign of the coming apocalypse, but it does mark a watershed moment in the development of the Internet: the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is on the verge of handling out the last unallocated addresses in the Internet's IPv4 address space. The IANA is currently down to five unallocated “Class A” blocks of 16 million addresses each; under IANA and ICANN rules, those blocks will now be allocated (one… Read More

Although it's barely more than an idea at the moment, Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde has sent another big ripple through the Internet: Sunde has proposed applying the peer-to-peer technology of BitTorrent to the Internet's DNS system, decentralizing domain resolution from the central authority of ICANN's policy-making and collection of root servers and offering an “uncensored” lookup system for the Internet.… Read More

Adult content may soon have its own section of the Internet: the board of the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved a proposal from ICM Registry to create a .xxx top-level domain explicitly for online adult content and pornography. The approval is the latest move in a years-long process to create an online red-light district in the Internet's global domain system…and comes after an… Read More

Back in March, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the first non-Latin top-level domains for use on the Internet, meaning for the first time domains can be set up in scripts other than the Latin characters used for .com, .net, and existing country codes like .cn and .jp. Now, the first non-Latin domains are up and running, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates having top-level… Read More