The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA) have added their names to the growing list of advertising associations to voice disapproval at ICANN’s proposal for new generic Top Level Domains. Arising from their deep slumber, seemingly oblivious to over five years of negotiations, the WFA have written to ICANN to express “deep concerns and strong reservations held by the global marketer community” that this decision will lead to significant legal and financial risks for brands in relation to the protection of domain names and monitoring of domain name abuse. Still rubbing their bleary eyes, WFA, who has around 60 of the biggest global marketers and 60 National Advertiser Associations on five continents as members, believes that the changes are likely to introduce confusion in the marketplace, increase the likelihood of “cybersquatting” and lead to trademark disputes. Brands could be forced to engage in costly defensive registrations of domain names in order to protect their trademarks and intellectual property, requiring significant diversions of internal resources on top of the costs already associated with buying gTLDs. In its letter, likely to be soon published on the ICANN website and currently available on the WFA website , WFA calls on ICANN to abandon its plan in its current form. The sentiment was echoed by Alain Heureux, President of the Brussels-based Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB Europe): “Allowing limitless domain endings opens the door to huge registration costs and significant potential damage to both publishers and advertisers. This decision jeopardizes both our brands’ integrity and the safety of consumers.” Also joining the queue in awaking from the five year deep slumber was the ACA. Not letting facts get in the way of a good story, the ACA says that a worst-case scenario would be the hijacking of a reputable brand name by a “criminal element” said Bob Reaume, the ACA’s vice-president of policy and research according to a report in Canada’s Marketing Magazine. “Virtually unlimited damage could ensue if criminals own sites with trustworthy domain names that appeal to children or the elderly or other vulnerable groups in society,” Reaume told Marketing Magazine, who obviously has not read the applicant guidebook. According to the report, Reaume considers an ideal outcome for the ACA would be for ICANN to postpone the start of the new gTLD programme. But one must ask Reaume what has ICANN been doing for the last five or more years. Reaume then suggests, in what would be comical if he was not being serious, “we’re merely asking to be consulted on this.”

Applicants for new generic Top Level Domains have a new option for a significantly reduced application process, with even the possibility of brand owners having their Instra application fee waived. There are a number of pricing options, but the cheapest options depend on Instra managing the gTLD applicant’s existing domain name portfolio. Applicants for generic or geographic gTLDs will pay around a $35,000 application fee with further application and ongoing management fees detailed on the NewTLDs.com website . “Our initiative is to offer free or reduced-cost Instra application processes for those companies who wish to apply for a .Brand TLD through www.newtlds.com ,” explained Instra CEO Tony Lentino. “NewTLDs is our answer to the growing hype surrounding the new top-level domain movement. We are targeting .Brand TLDs in particular at the moment, as we strongly believe that international companies need to secure and protect their global online identities,” said Lentino. “Although current ICANN TLD application protocol indicates a significant brand protection strategy, it is still a risk that well-recognised company brands could become the target of parasitic enterprise from within the domain industry.” “The thrust of our marketing campaign for newtlds.com is simple,” says Lentino. “Our domain industry experts whilst offering an attractive application pricing package which is completely transparent will guide all applicants through the ICANN process but also to offer a unique level of corporate after-care service.” Instra plans to offer a pricing package that is extremely competitive and upfront, with their technical and industry experience is without equal. Instra through their NewTLDs.com plans to make their application process an intensely secure and actively client-focused package. ICANN commences taking applications from 12 January 2012 for new gTLDs for a three month period.

The domain names WorldTradeCenter.com and Moms.com are up for sale through Aftermarket.com and Sedo respectively. While there are several World Trade Centre’s around the globe, WorldTradeCenter.com is seeking to cash in on the tragedy of 9 September 2001. “We believe that WorldTradeCenter.com will forever attract those seeking to commemorate such a poignant event in U.S. history,” said Carron Brown, Director of Marketing for Thought Convergence. “We’re proud to play a role in locating the appropriate owner to preserve the reverence of the site.” Meanwhile moms.com is seeking to cash in on an entirely different demographic – what Sedo describes as the “highly influential ‘mom’ demographic.” Sedo notes that with the buying power of American mothers currently $2.1 trillion a year, what the North Americans call the “mom” (the rest of us English speakers say “mum”) demographic is one of the most lucrative consumer groups in the United States. Moreover, they are one of the top performing groups with regards to blogging, social media, couponing and overall internet use. A recent study shows that the number of “US Adult Female Internet Users with Children” increases year by year, revealing the massive marketing opportunity for this growing demographic. “It’s very rare when a domain name of this value becomes available – especially one that has not yet been developed,” said Kathy Nielsen, Director of Sales at Sedo. “Moms.com not only offers the right investor the ability to start with a clean slate, but also provides a very significant marketing and revenue opportunity. We are very pleased to be chosen as the exclusive brokerage firm to represent this domain sale.” Descriptive and generic domains that define a category have historically been the most valuable properties on the Web. Similar domains that have sold in the past show the potential value of the sale of this domain. For example, Toys.com sold for $5 million in 2009, Men.com sold for $1,320,000 in 2003, and Social.com sold for $2,500,000 in 2011.

Neustar will apply for .Neustar Brand-specific gTLD to Further Promote its Brand, Products and Services [news release] Following today’s approval of the new gTLD guidebook by ICANN, Neustar, a leader in Internet and telecommunications information and analysis, will be joining the ranks of Canon®, Hitachi® and  other global brands in applying for a new gTLD. Applying for the .NEUSTAR brand-specific gTLD will provide Neustar with an opportunity to further promote its brand, products and services by owning both sides of the dot, ultimately bolstering its online presence and brand visibility. “Having a brand-specific gTLD gives companies an infinite universe of branded domains that can be used to promote products and services,’ said Mark Pilipczuk, vice president of Marketing for Neustar.  “One of the many benefits of owning the .NEUSTAR gTLD is the flexibility it provides in creating shorter, more intuitive and easy to remember domains for our marketing campaigns.” For the first time ever, ICANN is allowing applications for brand-specific (dot-brand) gTLDs.  With today’s announcement of the approved ICANN new gTLD guidelines, companies, like Neustar, now have the official guidelines and process needed to create formal applications and submit them to ICANN for review beginning January 2012 through April 2012. The new gTLDs give companies the ability to own both sides of the dot; replacing mycompany.com with dot.mycompany, which helps to establish a more robust online presence.  Neustar is not only applying for its own brand-specific gTLD, but it also is helping companies, organizations, geographic locations and others to apply for and manage their own gTLDs.  Neustar has more than a decade of experience in being a trusted authoritative registry for Internet domains names for the .biz, .us, .tel and .travel top-level domains. It also is the technical services provider for Colombia’s .co and the gateway services provider for China’s .cn, and Taiwan’s .tw country-code top-level domains. This Neustar news release was sourced from here .

Flemington, NJ (Vocus) April 19, 2011 ValueReseller (http://www.valuereseller.com), a leading wholesale managed hosting provider, announced the launch of its reseller cloud this week. The ValueReseller Cloud gives web hosts, hosting resellers, and web developers the ability to offer their clients VMware-based cloud hosting with a 100% infrastructure uptime SLA. ValueResellers Private Label Cloud Hosting platform supports both Linux and Windows operating systems and is unique in the industry.

iWeb Achieves Its Highest-ever Ranking Among Canadian Tech Companies Friday, April 15, 2011, 4:46:49 AM Montreal, QC, April 13th, 2011 – iWeb (TSX-V: IWB), Global provider of Internet hosting services and IT infrastructure, has been ranked 120 th in the 2011 Branham300, the annual listing of the top 300 Canadian Technology companies, thanks to revenues of US$29 million in 2010, iWeb’s overall ranking has been steadily improving since the Company’s first inclusion on the ranking, 241st in 2006. iWeb’s ascension in the Branham 300 ranking; 2006 – 241st 2007 – 206th 2008 – 195th 2009 – 162nd 2010 – 124th * 2011 – 120th *a procedural anomaly prevented iWeb’s results from being properly displayed in the 2010 ranking “We are thrilled to be recognized as one of Canada’s top IT companies since 2006; iWeb’s 26% growth in 2010 compares well to the 4% average growth rate for companies appearing on the 2011 Branham300.” said Eric Chouinard, President and CEO of iWeb. He added that “Based on this year’s ranking, the Canadian ICT industry comes across as healthy, which is a promising indicator of future growth for iWeb.

Telnic Limited the registry operator for the  .tel  top  level  domain  (TLD),  today  announced  that  Fonecta  ,the  fastest growing media company in Finland, is to begin registering .tel names. Harri Aho, Vice  President Fonecta  Oy,  said: “We’re  constantly  looking at technology that  can enhance our  customers’  visibility  regardless  of  any  device  that  they  are  searching  from.   For  us,  .tel  is  the important link in providing a service that spans all search and discovery environments at an investment level that is relatively low.  We’re looking forward to seeing the results .tel will provide our customers moving forward.” Ian  Bowen-Morris,  Chief  Marketing  Officer  at  Telnic,  added:  “With  the  leadership  position  and  brand strength that Fonecta has in the Finnish market, when it comes to providing marketing communications services that work online, we believe that there is no better partner to work within the region and no better service provider for small businesses and professionals to help get their businesses found online.” Fonecta  is  the  market  leader  in  directory  services.  110,000  businesses  are  using  Fonecta’s  sales enhancement  solutions  and  its  comprehensive  services  are  being  addressed  for  information  search more than 2.8 million times  every day.   Fonecta’s  services  include search engine  marketing, customer relationship marketing, digital direct marketing and search media.