CNET: Adobe online PDF tools tap into Google’s .new internet addresses. “Since 2018, Google has let you type doc.new, slide.new and sheet.new into your browser address bar to fire up a blank document for G Suite’s Google Docs, Google Slides and Google Sheets. Now there’s a new option using the same approach from Adobe: PDF.new.”
TLD
Google Blog: Highlights from the first year of . dev
Google Blog: Highlights from the first year of . dev. “A year ago, our Google Registry team launched .dev—a top-level domain (TLD) for developers, designers, technical writers, and technology enthusiasts. This new TLD gave people the chance to register memorable domain names that can be hard to find on older domains, with a descriptive ending that’s especially relevant to them.”
The Register: Four months, $1bn… and ICANN still hasn’t decided whether to approve .org sale with just 11 days left to go
The Register: Four months, $1bn… and ICANN still hasn’t decided whether to approve .org sale with just 11 days left to go. “In 11 days, DNS overseer ICANN is supposed to rule on the $1.13bn purchase of a critical piece of the internet – the .org registry with its 10 million domain names. But ICANN has yet to even decide what criteria it will use decide whether to green-light the takeover.”
Krebs on Security: U.S. Govt. Makes it Harder to Get . Gov Domains
Krebs on Security: U.S. Govt. Makes it Harder to Get .Gov Domains. “The federal agency in charge of issuing .gov domain names is enacting new requirements for validating the identity of people requesting them. The additional measures come less than four months after KrebsOnSecurity published research suggesting it was relatively easy for just about anyone to get their very own .gov domain.”
ZDNet: The for-profit takeover of the non-profit ‘.org’ top-level domain
ZDNet: The for-profit takeover of the non-profit ‘.org’ top-level domain. “At first glance, the proposed deal makes little sense. The Internet Society is trying to sell the non-profit Public Interest Registry (PIR), the registry for the ‘.org’ top-level domain (TLD), to the new private-equity firm Ethos Capital for $1.135 billion. There are about 10.5 million .org domains, and most — but not all — are non-profits. Where’s the money? “
BusinessWire: New .gay Top-Level Domain Champions LGBTQ Nonprofits and Online Safety (PRESS RELEASE)
BusinessWire: New .gay Top-Level Domain Champions LGBTQ Nonprofits and Online Safety (PRESS RELEASE). “Domain registry Top Level Design proudly announces the launch of generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) ‘.gay’ after a near decade-long application process. The .gay domain extension represents a historic step forward that signals support of LGBTQ people, causes, and businesses.”
Search Engine Journal: Domains Ending in .Com to Reportedly Get More Expensive
Search Engine Journal: Domains Ending in .Com to Reportedly Get More Expensive. “The new contract allows Verisign to charge domain registrars 7% more for .com domains per year for the next 4 years (2020-2023). Prices will then be frozen for 2 years, followed by more increases between 2026 and 2029.”
Wired: The Digital Colonialism Behind . tv and . ly
Wired: The Digital Colonialism Behind .tv and .ly. “As companies increasingly turn to quirky extensions in place of .com, these questions about ownership and national resources are all the more pressing. The nation of Tuvalu (pop: 10,000), for example, has seen a rapid rise in the popularity of its .tv domain—it’s now up to 512,000 registrations—after the Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch started using it in its own URL: Twitch.tv. Tuvalu’s situation is more nuanced than Niue’s. The nation only discovered that it had a top-level domain when, in 1995, it received a fax from an American offering to help market it. When Tuvaluans investigated, they discovered that the .tv domain had already been assigned to an American computer programmer.”
The Verge: ICANN’s founding chairman joins the battle to keep .org out of private hands
The Verge: ICANN’s founding chairman joins the battle to keep .org out of private hands. “The new non-profit cooperative corporation, officially called the Cooperative Corporation of .ORG Registrants, is led by many people who currently have or have had influence over the inner workings of the Internet, including Esther Dyson, the founding chairman of ICANN (the non-profit that oversees domain names on the internet), Katherine Maher, the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation (the parent company of Wikipedia), and William Woodcock, the executive director of Packet Clearing House (an organization that helps support internet infrastructure and the domain name system).”
BoingBoing: We need to save .ORG from arbitrary censorship by halting the private equity buy-out
BoingBoing: We need to save .ORG from arbitrary censorship by halting the private equity buy-out . “The .ORG top-level domain and all of the nonprofit organizations that depend on it are at risk if a private equity firm is allowed to buy control of it. EFF has joined with over 250 respected nonprofits to oppose the sale of Public Interest Registry, the (currently) nonprofit entity that operates the .ORG domain, to Ethos Capital. Internet pioneers including Esther Dyson and Tim Berners-Lee have spoken out against this secretive deal. And 12,000 Internet users and counting have added their voices to the opposition.”
Mashable: Powerful internet authority says it’s powerless to stop billion dollar .org takeover
Mashable: Powerful internet authority says it’s powerless to stop billion dollar .org takeover . “ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the organization empowered to manage the internet’s domain name system, has said it will not stop the sale of the .org top level domain (TLD) extension from a nonprofit to a private equity firm.”
Mozilla Blog: Questions About . org
Mozilla Blog: Questions About .org . “Last month, the Internet Society (ISOC) announced plans to sell the Public Interest Registry (PIR) — the organization that manages all the dot org domain names in the world — to a private equity firm named Ethos. This caught the attention of Mozilla and other public benefit orgs. Many have called for the deal to be stopped. It’s not clear that this kind of sale is inherently bad. It is possible that with the right safeguards a private company could act as a good steward of the dot org ecosystem. However, it is clear that the stakes are high — and that anyone with the power to do so should urgently step in to slow things down and ask some hard questions.”
Mashable: A private equity firm now runs .org, the domain for nonprofits
Mashable: A private equity firm now runs .org, the domain for nonprofits . “A private equity firm will soon run the internet’s top domain name extension for nonprofits after purchasing the nonprofit organization that runs it. Public Interest Registry (PIR), which runs the .org domain registry, has been sold to private equity firm Ethos Capital, according to the registry’s parent organization, Internet Society. The price of the acquisition is still unknown.”
Google Blog: 13 shortcuts made possible by . new
Google Blog: 13 shortcuts made possible by . new. “Who doesn’t love finding a good shortcut? A year ago, G Suite created a handful of shortcuts: docs.new, sheets.new, and slides.new. You can easily pull up a new document, spreadsheet or presentation by typing those shortcuts into your address bar. This inspired Google Registry to release the .new domain extension as a way for people to perform online actions in one quick step. And now any company or organization can register its own .new domain to help people get things done faster, too.”
Google Blog: Hello, .dev!
Google Blog: Hello, .dev!. “Developers, designers, writers and architects: you built the web. You make it possible for the billions of people online today to do what they do. Have you ever tried to register your preferred domain name, only to find out it’s not available? Today, Google Registry is announcing .dev, a brand new top-level domain (TLD) that’s dedicated to developers and technology. We hope .dev will be a new home for you to build your communities, learn the latest tech and showcase your projects—all with a perfect domain name.” Just for giggles I did a site:dev search on Google and there’s already a ton of them.
