There are a number of new developments with respect to the new gTLD program ICANN has put out a request for organizations interested in acting as dispute resolution providers for the new gTLD process to contact us. An important component of the proposed system for approving new top-level domains is the ability for people to register objections to others’ applications for particular strings, so those chosen to act as dispute resolvers will play a vital role. A “statement of work” covers what exactly is required, and there is a deadline of 18 January. … more

With just over four days to go for the auction of iran.com at Sedo, the current asking price is US$735,000.

Whoever ends up with the domain can only lead to a tidy profit for the current owner - they bought the domain name for US$400,000 in only July 2007. … more

The Church of Scientology is reportedly up in arms and has issued a cease and desist order to the Tom Cruise parody website, scientomogy.info, although the website currently is only showing a page saying the page is parked.

According to those behind the website, last month the Church of Scientology issued a cease and desist order to the New Zealand owner of the parody website, demanding they shut down the site and transfer ownership to the Church or face a law suit of up to $100,000. … more

Anyone who recently typed KNOL.COM into their browsers following Google’s announcement of their answer to Wikipedia, where specialists write encyclopaedia-type articles, will have found they went to a website for a cleaning company in the Netherlands that sells vacuum cleaners and steam cleaning equipment.

The owners of KNOL.COM are grateful to Google for the extra visitors, especially as their website didn’t crash. This is another example of a global company making an announcement and not ensuring they have the relevant domain name registered.

The case of David Airey who had his domain name stolen has been getting coverage recently. But there is good news at the end of it all. Bob Parsons, owner of Go Daddy, contacted Mr Airey, confirmed his identity, and transferred the domain name back according to the Edinburgh Evening News. … more

Ruddy Medina has advised that “Beginning December 8th 2007, the new policies regarding .pe domain names will come effective. Among the most important changes there are the chance for registration and payment on-line for the domain name, the supressing of the 10-day period for new solicitations publicity, the chance por transfering the domain to a new owner and the reduction and supressing of several previous restrictions, as were the peruvian toponymics and surnames, among others. … more

DotAsia has extended the Sunrise period for .ASIA domain names January 31 2008. This Sunrise period is for Sunrise 2b (General Marks), Sunrise 2c (Extended Protection) and Sunrise 3 (Registered Entity Names). The original closing date was January 15. This provides tardy brand owners with the last chance to protect their brand names in .Asia before the Landrush begins on February 20, 2008. … more

The Republic of Montenegro’s government has called for tenders for the managing of the .ME ccTLD. … more

1 and 2 digit numerical domain names will soon be available for registration soon in .GP. One hundred domain names are available from 00.gp to 99.gp and ten domain names from 0.gp to 9.gp. … more

The Serbian National Register of Internet Domain Names (RNIDS) announced recently that it would begin testing of the 24 local companies who applied to perform registrar services for .rs domains. The testing was scheduled to commence on December 10 and conclude on December 20.

It has also been announced the process of entering .RS domains into the central registry of RNIDS and the process of transition from .YU to .RS domains have not been yet officially opened. It is expected that by early-January, RNIDS will announce a process for moving from .YU to .RS as well as a process for registering domain names in the new ccTLD. … more

The Sunrise period for numeric domain names has now ended SIDN has announced. From 1 to 14 December, trademark and trading name rights owners had the opportunity to ask to reserve the corresponding numeric domain names. During this period, SIDN received 114 reservation requests. … more

Nominet have taken over the management of the PRIV.NO domain after the Ventelo group signalled they no longer wished to manage it.

PRIV.NO domains are for private individuals in Norway. It appears registrations of PRIV.NO domains are currently on hold, with a group being formed to look at policies. … more

Following the successful beta testing phase, we are pleased to announce that the live version of EPP will be launched on 4 February 2008. We are grateful to all of our registrars who have been involved in the testing phase. We will continue to operate the beta system as an EPP Testbed. … more

MYNIC have announced they are taking registrations of .MY domain names at the second level for existing .MY registrants with COM.MY, NET.MY, ORG.MY and EDU.MY domain names.

Existing registrants are classified as priority customers and can register now register during the Priority Entry Period (PEP) that will come to a close at 17:00 on 31 December 2007. After which, MYNIC will open up registration of shorter Internet address to the public in the first quarter of 2008. … more

Over the past couple of weeks, we have reviewed the Sedo auction which closed on December and spoken with many members of the dotMobi community – developers, brands, and domainers. Sedo’s systems problems at the end of the auction created confusion for everyone (including dotMobi) and the result was unsatisfying for us and community participants. The question is, “What is the fair and right course of action for the good of the whole community and everyone collectively involved?” … more