Since this article was about domain names, I decided to swing by their website and see what's new. The big guys at ICANN met in Melborne, Australia, from 9-13 March, 2001. They discussed the new TLDs. You can find that boring paper at their site. Basically, they are still working on it. One interesting note is that ICANN is working on domain names in non-Roman characters. This is what they have to say about it:

Currently, English is the dominant language of the Internet, and the domain name system generally functions through the use of Roman characters. Although the percentage of the world's population that can read Roman characters is increasing, billions of people still cannot. Accordingly, for the Internet to become a truly global medium for communications and commerce, it must evolve to accommodate identifiers (such as domain names) in non-Roman characters. Obvious candidates include Chinese and other East Asian characters; Arabic; Hebrew; Sanskrit; and Cyrillic characters. This evolution may require the overcoming of significant technological obstacles.

Source:
http://www.icann.org/melbourne/idn-topic.htm

I wonder if creating domain names in a myriad of languages will help or confuse matters?

I hope that you enjoy this issue.

Once upon a time, if you wanted to register a domain name, you could only do it by visiting Network Solutions at http://www.networksolutions.com/ and paying them whatever they asked for, about $35.00 per year.

Then ICANN, http://www.icann.org/, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities, decided to change the rules.

The initial testing phase of the new competitive Shared Registry System for the .com, .net, and .org domains quietly began to take place in April of 1999.

It started with five participants who were the first to implement the new system for competition in the market for .com, .net, and .org domain name registration services.

Previously, registration services in the .com, .net, and .org domains were provided by Network Solutions, Inc. under an exclusive contract with the United States government.

In the two years since this program began, things have really changed.

Just this last week, ICANN reported that two of their registrars, Tucows and New York-based Register.com, had recorded more new registrations for Top Level Domains (dot-com, dot-net and dot-org) than VeriSign's Network Solutions.

This marks the first time ever that VeriSign's Network Solutions was out-sold by any of the registrars and signals that their past dominance of domain name registration is certainly fading.

Why?

Because besides others being allowed to make domain name registrations, these new registrars are also cutting prices.

I just registered a new domain name, http://autopilotebiz.com/, that will not start Pre-Launch until April 2001, but for the price I used to register a domain name for two years, $70, I was able to register AUTOPILOTeBIZ.COM for 10 YEARS!

The RULES have most certainly changed.

The Shared Registration System ("SRS"), ICANN's accredited registrars program, allows people to submit application to become a registrar along with a non-refundable $1000 filing fee.

After someone is accepted into the program then they must pay a yearly fee of $5000 to maintain their status as an accredited registrar.

This situation has created a very competitive environment which can only be beneficial to all of us as the price to register a domain name has fallen like a rock from a very tall building.

However, if you plan to register a new domain name using a virtual unknown registrar, make certain they do indeed have the legal accreditation from ICANN by visiting the ICANN web site and viewing their posted list of ALL accredited vendors:
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html

It will only take you a few moments to make sure you are dealing with a reputable vendor of domain names. Those few moments will make the entire process legal and worry-free.

A.T.Rendon is an entrepreneur and published writer.
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