With blocking of internet content pervasive by many regimes around the world, the most well-known being the Great Firewall of China, Minds+Machines’ Antony Van Couvering examines the issue in light of ICANN’s approval of the .XXX Top Level Domain and the Indian government’s announcement that they will block access to any .XXX website. Writing on the Minds+Machines blog, Van Couvering says “the creation of new TLDs which are offensive to someone, somewhere, will probably increase it. But will it fracture the Internet?” He asks the question in light of ICANN George Sadowsky’s dissent when ICANN approved the .XXX TLD at their board meeting that concluded the recent Silicon Valley San Francisco meeting.

With blocking of internet content pervasive by many regimes around the world, the most well-known being the Great Firewall of China, Minds+Machines’ Antony Van Couvering examines the issue in light of ICANN’s approval of the .XXX Top Level Domain and the Indian government’s announcement that they will block access to any .XXX website. Writing on the Minds+Machines blog, Van Couvering says “the creation of new TLDs which are offensive to someone, somewhere, will probably increase it. But will it fracture the Internet?” He asks the question in light of ICANN George Sadowsky’s dissent when ICANN approved the .XXX TLD at their board meeting that concluded the recent Silicon Valley San Francisco meeting

The recent ICANN meeting held in Brussels was judged a success by Minds + Machines’ Antony Van Couvering, whose company is likely to be behind applications for several new generic Top Level Domains when ICANN eventually begins taking applications. Van Couvering writes that the recent meeting “may become known as the meeting where the dust finally began to settle. Long-standing issues were settled, compromises were reached, no-one complained too much about the latest version of the Applicant Guidebook, and the Board stood by its project plan dates, even scheduling a Board retreat to solve remaining issues

A survey of the domain registration behaviour of Fortune 100 companies conducted by Minds + Machines reveals that they have not registered many of their trademarks in recently created generic top-level domains (gTLDs). In the study it was found a sample of 1043 brands were registered in less than 30 per cent of the eight new open gTLDs created after 2001. If historical registration data is a guide, brands are unlikely to undertake many defensive domain name registrations in the proposed new gTLDs, and furthermore are unlikely to be the victims of cybersquatting.

A survey of the domain registration behaviour of Fortune 100 companies conducted by Minds + Machines reveals that they have not registered many of their trademarks in recently created generic top-level domains (gTLDs). In the study it was found a sample of 1043 brands were registered in less than 30 per cent of the eight new open gTLDs created after 2001.