September 2, 2011 — European colocation Interxion Holdings announced on Thursday that its London, UK data center is reducing its carbon footprint by signing up to 100 percent renewable energy from UK provider SmartestEnergy. Last month, Interxion announced it is building a data center in the Paris metropolitan area, whose first phase will be operational in the second quarter of 2012.

A series of six papers from the European Commission “represent a wholesale effort to put governments in charge of the internet” writes Kieren McCarthy. “They would be put in a position to decide how the internet’s underlying naming structure – the domain name system – expands and evolves. “If the DNS evolves in the right way of course, governments won’t need to do anything, they will let others get on with it. But just in case people decide to do something that isn’t in the public’s interest, then governments will be there to firmly but politely inform them that they are not allowed to do that. Well, that’s the theory anyway.” To read McCarthy’s analysis of the papers and the players and what is going on, check out his posting on his Dot NXT site at news.dot-nxt.com/2011/08/31/ec-papers-analysis .

The latest Dashboard report from the Public Interest Registry shows the TLD continues rapid growth with an increase in active registrations of 10.1 per cent year on year, and four per cent or over 350,000, in the six months, to the end of June. The growth sees .ORG registrations total 9.2 million at the end of June with North America (63%) and the European Union (23%) accounting for the regions with the most registrations. In 2011, Italy and Japan entered the list of the top ten countries from where registrations originated. Other countries in the top ten are Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Netherlands, Spain and China. In total 11 per cent of registrations come from the Asia pacific, two per cent from Latin America and the Caribbean one per cent from Africa. “Yet again, we’re seeing significant growth of the .ORG domain as web users worldwide continue to see the value in using a trusted, secure domain to educate, mobilize and empower their communities,” said Brian Cute, CEO of .ORG, The Public Interest Registry. “By June 2011, the .ORG domain reached 9.2 million domains under management, a monumental figure compared to the 3.9 million in 2005. These numbers are clear indicators that .ORG is well-positioned to take advantage of the Internet growth that we continue to see occur.” As part of its most recent Dashboard report, the Public Interest Registry commissioned research on the health and status of traditional websites versus corporate social media. The study indicated that 81 per cent of web surfers still chose an organisation’s website – over Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn – as the most trustworthy place to find information. Moreover, almost half of all respondents – 47 per cent – would choose .ORG over other domain extensions to post information on a cause they are passionate about. And during a time of crisis, 39 per cent of Americans turn to a .ORG website for information first. As predicted when asked which word people most commonly associate with the .ORG domain, the most common response was “non profits” with 52 per cent of responses. Other responses were: 12 per cent associate .ORG with “trusted” 4 per cent associate .ORG with “exclusive” 21 per cent associate .ORG with all of the above 9 per cent associate it with none of the above. To download the full report, see: pir.org/pdf/dashboard_1H_2011.pdf To register your .ORG domain name, check out America Registry here .

After a relatively modest increase in new registrations in 2009 at the height of the global financial crisis, new .BE registrations rebounded strongly in 2010 with another record in the number of new registrations according to the 2010 annual report. There were more than 257,000 new .BE registrations in 2010, almost ten per cent better than in the previous year. Renewal numbers were also very good in 2010 with an 83 per cent renewal rate of existing .BE domain names, ranking in the top five globally. The growth in active domain names was nearly 13 per cent in 2010, meaning that 2010 was the year in which the magic mark of 1,000,000 domain names was passed. At the end of June 2011 there were 1,156,953 .BE domains registered. DNS.be also did some research into why .BE domain names are registered. The findings were broadly similar to previous years with over three quarters (77%, 77.7% in 2009) of registrants linking an email address to the domain and a website in 84.3% of cases (82.3% in 2009). The registry found that only 12.2 per cent of registrations are defensive (and hence is not linked to either an email address or a website) compared to 12.4 per cent in 2009. In recent years DNS.be have seen a fall in that percentage. The registry considers this a positive change because it means a larger number of domain names are being used more actively. Most registrants have only one domain name registered, with over three quarters (435,794 – 78%) of registrants having just one domain name. 64,868 (12%) registrants registered two domain names while the average registrant has 1.96 domain names. In other news in 2010, security was increased with a new procedure was introduced in July 2010 that ensures tighter checks are made on all new registrations. This will result in higher quality of whois data. At the same time, these new checks make it more difficult for fraud and other illicit practices to gain a foothold. Greater security in the .BE zone is also a particular focus in the registry’s objectives for 2011. For 2011, one of the key developments will be the replacement of all of the hardware on the registration platform, including a number of network connections. This will enhance the performance and availability of the platform. It will also mean an optimisation of costs for DNS.be over time. DNS.be are integrating some of their name servers as part of anycast clouds, while a number of European locations will receive new equipment. The DNS.be 2010 Annual Report contains a lot more statistics and information on .BE domain names. To download the report in full, see www.dns.be/pdf/Annual_Report_en_2010.pdf . To register your .BE domain name, check out Europe Registry here .

July 6, 2011 — European data center operator Interxion Holding announced on Tuesday that its Interxion Switzerland data center is being powered by 100 percent green energy. Since the beginning of January, local energy provider Energie Opfikon AG has supplied the data center with its Aquastrom hydroelectricity product, which uses naturally flowing water instead of storage plants.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), whose mission purpose describes it as “an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce…principally responsible for advising the President on telecommunications and information policies” has recently published a Further Notice of Inquiry that includes a Draft Statement of Work intended to “detail the work requirements” for the functions of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and, effectively, to form the basis for IANA’s future contract. IANA is the entity that oversees global IP address allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS) and other related functions. IANA is currently operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), but was originally run by the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California under a contract it had with the United States Department of Defense. As such it has always been under US control. IANA’s contract is next up for renewal on 30 September 2011. In a section entitled “Responsibility and Respect for Stakeholders”, the Draft Statement of Work stipulates that, in processing requests relating to new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), “the Contractor shall include documentation to demonstrate how the proposed string has received consensus support from relevant stakeholders and is supported by the global public interest.” This has been interpreted by some as an attempt by the NTIA to establish veto powers for ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee (GAC), which is a policy advisory body composed of the representatives of various governments from around the world. ICANN’s Applicant Guidebook (AGB) is a document that sets out the rules and mechanisms for all aspects of the new gTLD application process. In its seventh iteration and still a work in progress in spite of the fact that the new gTLD programme was approved by the ICANN Board on 20 June 2011 (see the article Launch of New gTLDs: ICANN says Yes, We Can, above), it does not require “consensus support from relevant stakeholders” in order for a new TLD to be approved. It provides the GAC with various mechanisms to highlight problematic new gTLDs, such as the GAC Early Warning notice and the GAC Advice process, but the ICANN Board can simply choose to brush off the GAC’s concerns, as it did recently in relation to the approval of both .XXX and the new gTLD programme. In the run up to the approval of .XXX, US government reservations concerning the approval of this controversial TLD were expressed by the administrator of the NTIA, Laurence Strickling. However, these objections emphasised perceived risks to the stability of the Internet rather than on any moral objections to the TLD and they stopped short of any kind of strong-arm tactics that might invite the ire of those who would like to wrest control of Internet governance out of US hands and place it under the auspices of a UN controlled body. NTIA’s latest action would thus seem to be a cunning ploy to discretely re-empower the GAC and its constituents, including the US. The US found one of its most fervent allies in its resistance to both the new gTLD approval process and the approval of .XXX in European Commission Vice President and Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Kroes and Strickling met on 12 May 2011 after Kroes had gone so far as to write to US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke subsequent to approval of .XXX requesting that he block its addition to the DNS root in order to allow for more time for the concerns of the GAC and other parties to be heard. Strickling responded in a letter dated 20 April 2011 to Kroes stating that, while the Obama administration did not support ICANN’s decision on .XXX, he did “not think it is in the long-term best interest of the United States or the global Internet community for us unilaterally to reverse the decision.” In any event, all of this may be only a taster for the ructions to come when ICANN is faced with approving controversial new gTLDs, such as .gay and .porn. This article was written by David Taylor head of the Hogan Lovells domain name practice Anchovy. For more information on David Taylor, see www.hoganlovells.com/david-taylor or email him at drd@hoganlovells.com.

8 European countries have partnered up to raise awareness on internet domains on Facebook. Together they have developed a game which allows people to perform whois queries on Facebook using domain names in a playful way. The project has been implemented by AvenueSocial, a US company specialising in Facebook applications, fan pages and mobile apps. The new Facebook application tells you whether your first and last name is still available as domain name in the selected country as well as providing a link with where to register it. You can also query any keyword and find out if it is free or not. Use the picture tool for sending interactive domain greetings to your friends and feel free to recommend funny domain names to them. Participating in the domain quiz will bring you points on your way to becoming a domain star. Other features of the application include a general knowledge quiz with a focus on the internet and domains as well as a tool where you can play with the visual aspect of a domain name seeing how your domain might look on different backgrounds and pictures. Points can be earned on many parts of the application and then ranked against your friends and global users. The Domain Star application is available at apps.facebook.com/domainstar . Participating registries are: Austria (nic.at – www.nic.at ) Finland (Ficora – www.ficora.fi ) France (Afnic – www.afnic.fr ) Germany (Denic – www.denic.de ) Montenegro (doMEn – www.domain.me ) Poland (NASK – nask.pl ) Serbia (RNIDS – www.rnids.rs ) Slovenia (ARNES – www.arnes.si )