The recent launch of Russia’s Cyrillic top level domain, where over 600,000 domain names have been registered in less than three weeks since its launch, has been touched by scandal.

Nominet, the .UK registry, has announced it will be releasing one character, two letter and other previously reserved domains by the end of 2010 following an extensive consultation period that will see changes to registration rules to enable the release. The process will see a two-stage sunrise and a landrush process for the previously unavailable domain names to respect trademark holder’s rights and to ensure an orderly and fair release with full details being published on 1 November 2010. Following the sunrise period, any remaining reserved domain names will be available through an open auction.

The dotSO ccTLD for the Republic of Somalia has announced that it will be launching on 1 November 2010 with a general availability commencing on 1 March, 2011 for any person anywhere in the world. The 1 November start date will see the commencement of a sunrise period during which holders of eligible trademarks will have the opportunity to submit a corresponding application for the registration of a .SO domain name. The sunrise period will close on 30 November.

ISOC-IL, the registry for .IL (Israel), has announced they will soon be making available domain names containing Hebrew characters, like איגוד-האינטרנט.org.il. Prior to general availability, ISOC-IL is launching a Sunrise process. There will be four phases in the lead up to making Hebrew .IL domain names available to the general public

[unable to retrieve full-text content] Web Host News – Herndon, VA – Network Solutions®, the leader in providing web services to small businesses and the pioneer of the domain name registration service, announces the final phase of the .CO domain name release.

.CO domain names become available to everyone on 20 July following the end of the landrush phase for registrations that ended on 16 July. The relaunch of the.CO TLD is aimed as an alternative to .COM and over half of the Fortune 100 companies have registered their company name in .CO. Up to 70 per cent of the world’s best brands will have applied for a .CO before the domain goes on general sale and of the 500 most important global brands more than half has subscribe to request their domain .CO.

Web Hosting News – Vancouver, Wash. – Domain.com, a leading domain registration and Web hosting company, is encouraging its customers to secure a .CO domain name during the Landrush phase that ends July 16th.

.CO Internet S.A.S. has announced its global sunrise period will use best practices to provide trademark and IP protection for registered trademark holders according to the news release below. To be eligible for the sunrise process, trademarks of national effect from any country in the world must have been registered on or before July 30, 2008.

This is a truly historic moment in the development of the Internet in the United Arab Emirates and the wider Arabic-speaking world as it removes the last hurdle preventing people without English-language skills from enjoying the full benefits that the Internet has to offer. ‘.emarat’ is a transliteration of امارات.

Web Host News – Herndon, VA – Network Solutions®, leading provider of domain name registration and online marketing services, announces the launch of the second phase of the .CO with the Columbia Registry. The Sunrise Global phase of the .CO domain name registration begins April 26, 2010 and ends on June 10, 2010, the Landrush phase begins on June 21, 2010. Associated with words such as COmpany, COrporation, and COmmerce, a .CO extension offers an immediately recognizable, global branding opportunity for new and existing websites