The chairman of ICANN until last month, Peter Dengate Thrush, has today been appointed executive chairman of Top Level Domain Holdings, a company that intends to make targeted investments in this space, focusing on both infrastructure technologies and specific top level domains. “Peter will be an outstanding asset to TLDH. Peter and I have worked together as ICANN participants since its inception, and I am very pleased to welcome him as our executive chairman,” said Antony Van Couvering, TLDH’s chief executive officer. “Peter championed successfully the approval of the new [generic top-level domain] programme at the highest levels and with Peter on board I have every confidence we will achieve the same success at TLDH. I can’t think of a better addition to our team – Peter is a superstar in our field, and we are delighted to have him at the helm.” At the last ICANN meeting, the last that Dengate Thrush chaired, the application programme was approved by the board and there will be an application window for new gTLD applicants for three months from 12 January. Dengate Thrush has been involved in ICANN since its inception over ten years ago including through providing comments on the formation of ICANN and serving on the launching group of the ccNSO, who subsequently elected him an ICANN board member in 2005 and then ICANN chair replacing Vint Cerf in 2007. His term on the board, and as ICANN chair, ended at the ICANN meeting in Singapore in late June. Dengate Thrush was also instrumental in the establishment of the Asia Pacific Top Level Domain association and was legal advisor to InternetNZ.

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 )

Screenshots of the new KVCHosting iPhone app (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) – Web hosting provider KVCHosting ( www.kvcwebsitehosting.com ) announced on Wednesday that it has launched a free iPhone application for customers to manage their website and account from a mobile device. On Thursday, UK web host DediPower launched new iPhone and Android mobile apps . KVCHosting says its hosting customers can download the application from iTunes for immediate access to the remote management app.  Users can connect to cPanel through the app, as well as access KVCHosting support, monitor website statistics and server statistics, change passwords, create and send emails, modify disk usage, access SEO tools and manage sub-domain and account preferences

A screenshot from Go Daddy’s website advertising its .ME scholarships (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) – Web host Go Daddy ( www.godaddy.com ) announced on Tuesday that beginning January 10, US college students can apply for one of ten Go Daddy .ME Scholarships, worth $10,000 each. Applicants must be pursuing an undergraduate degree in fall 2011, have a minimum 3.0 GPA and have scored higher than 860 on the SAT or 18 on the ACT

“In an in-house interview carried out on the last day of its recent conference in Cartagena, ICANN’s chairman and CEO have answered questions over the Board’s decisions on the new gTLD program and the application for a dot-xxx Internet extension,” wites Kieren McCarthy on the Global Internet Business Coalition blog. “Unusually for an in-house video, the interviewer (ICANN’s media director) asks direct questions and so elicits some useful, unprepared responses. You can view the full video in the top-right of this webpage.” Issues covered in the interview, include the new gTLD process, trademark issues, US government anger with ICANN and ICANN and its relationship with governments.

Part of HostingArmor.com’s security scanner dashboard (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Website security provider HostingArmor.com ( www.hostingarmor.com ) announced Friday it has released the free version of its plug and play security scanner. Based on the Nessus ( www.nessus.org ) scanning engine, the service provides automated server scannings for approximately 30,000 vulnerabilities. “HostingArmor Free is a great way for website owners to try out the application and learn about website security

A chart from Afilias showing the volume of domains supported by the company.