ICANN

Agreement Ends Sole U.S. Control of Web-Naming Group ICANN

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 30, 2009 - 10:13am.

Washington - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit group that controls the Internet's domain name system (DNS), will have significantly less oversight from the U.S. government under a new agreement signed Wednesday with the Department of Commerce.

tags: Law | Policy | ICANN |

IGF: The Future of the Internet is in Asia, on Cell Phones

Authored by Jay Baage on October 30, 2006 - 8:29am.

In case you missed it, The Internet Government Forum, IGF, is going on in Greece this week. The conference has been set up by the UN to give governments, companies, organizations and individuals the opportunity to meet and debate the future of the Internet. Here are some highlights.

tags: Internet | Regulation | ICANN | EU | Jay | IGF |

ICANN Votes Against Creation of .XXX Web Domain for Pornography

Authored by dmw on May 11, 2006 - 12:50pm.

Marina del Rey, Calif. - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has voted against a proposal to create a special .xxx domain for adult entertainment, the Associated Press reported. The proposal faced opposition from conservative groups, who said it lacked teeth because pornography sites would still be able to maintain their .com addresses, instead of being relegated to the .xxx domain. The pornography industry was also against the proposal because it would potentially allow governments to more easily filter speech protected by the First Amendment in the U.S.

Top Level Domain for Mobile Phones to Launch on May 22

Authored by dmw on April 5, 2006 - 3:58pm.

Las Vegas - Mobile Top Level Domain (mTLD), a joint venture backed by phone makers, wireless networks and Microsoft, announced on Wednesday the availability of the first Internet address create for mobile phones. "Many existing Internet sites are grounded in desktop PC-oriented services and were not designed with a mobile phone in mind, which has led to less than ideal performance for consumers," said mTLD CEO Neil Edwards. "The dotMobi sites are tailor-made for browsing and navigating on the mobile phone, making a far better experience." Dublin-based mTLD gained approval from ICANN for the ".mobi" domain in the second half of 2005; the company's investors include Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, T-Mobile, Vodafone and the GSM Association. The company said that it has already issued temporary domain names to Nokia, TIM, Vodafone and The Weather Channel. The dot-mobi Internet addresses are set for official launch on May 22. A "sunrise period" for wireless industry trade group members will be offered between May 22-29, giving the industry a week's advance to register their own trademarks.

ICANN Approves ".mobi" Suffix for Mobile Phone Websites

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 12, 2005 - 10:27am.

Paris -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that it has approved the new ".mobi" suffix, which will be specially designed for mobile phone websites. mTLD Top Level Domain -- a joint venture comprising Hutchison 3, the GSM Association, Ericsson, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Syniverse Technologies, TIM, Telefonica Moviles, T-Mobile and Vodafone -- will handle the registration of names on the ".mobi" domain, ICANN said. The mTLD joint venture, which hopes that consumers will be more likely to upgrade mobile phones if more websites are optimized specifically for handheld devices, lobbied heavily for the new suffix. "As .mobi will encourage the usage of advanced functionalities in mobile devices, the market potential for those devices will increase," mTLD said. ICANN said the first websites for mobile devices would be ready by next year.

tags: ICANN | .mobi | Suffix | Mobile Phone Websites |