Gent-based hosting company Combell has announced preregistration for new top-level domains like .tech or .blog. By doing this, the Belgian company tries to make some money out of the millionaire sentiment surrounding the new domains. Imagine you manage to claim the .porno domain – you’ll never have to work again. Just sell domain names for a price that seems reasonable (or not) to you. According to Belgian news site IT Professional, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) called the plans “absurd”.

After its 32nd meeting in Paris in June, ICANN announced that it approved a recommendation that could see a whole range of new names introduced to the Internet’s addressing system. Yet a final version of the implementation plan must be approved by the ICANN Board before the new process is launched. It’s intended that the final version will be published in early 2009, so yes, it would be fair to say that Combell’s plan are quite absurd.

Though the ICANN should be thankful, as this “world-premier” from Combell gives the corporation a lot of attention. A somewhat funny announcement like the one from the Belgium company makes the news easier to spread.

€100.000 for your last name

So what will it take you to register, say, your last name as a top level domain name? Business Developer at Combell Tom de Bast told IT Professional that a customer needs around a 100.000 euros of start capital to buy a top level domain. Combell also asks potential domain sellers to prove they will be technically able to sell the domain names.

Brand-owners will be the first ones to get a chance to register their own top level domain name. De Bast expects cities to claim their name, like police.gent or post.gent. After that, everybody gets a shot. Including you.

Not just Roman characters

Combell will probably be concerned with the registration of Roman characters-based domain names. But that’s not all there is to it. “One of the most exciting prospect before us is that the expanding system is also being planned to support extensions in the languages of the world,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN’s Chairman. “This is going to be very important for the future of the Internet in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia.”

Exciting indeed, the Internet’s addressing system will change radically. Combell is ready for it.

Original title and link for this post: Belgian hosting company starts preregistration for new domain extensions

Yesterday, VeriSign announced that the prices for registering .com and .net domain names will increase. The Internet services company agreed with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that from October 1, the barrier for starting a dotcom site will be higher. This is odd news in an economy where things tend to get cheaper (or even Free) instead of more expensive.

Don’t panic though. The increase is minimal:

VeriSign said the registry fees for .com and .net domain names will increase to $6.86 and $4.23 from $6.42 and $3.85, respectively.

Individuals won’t have to worry about price increases but it might be another blow for domain tasting and kiting. Even a slight increase in costs might make their business-cases less attractive.

Source: Reuters.

Original title and link for this post: Registry fee for domain names will increase

Not that we needed it, but according to blogger Andrew Messer the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) expressed its appreciation for all those bloggers out there by releasing the new top level domain .BLOG.

The massive increase in Internet traffic due to blogging made it unavoidable to label the 2.0 style journalists and writers. The new domain will become available on April 1st, 2008. I think we can say that April will be a great month for cybersquatters.

The question is though, who will use the new domain? Some predictions that immediately popped up when I was reading the announcement:

• Naturally, tech blogs will battle for the technology.blog, political blogs for politics.blog, humor blogs for humor.blog and so on.
• Some of the big guys will probably register theirname.blog, if they’re fast enough. Nobody wants brand squatting problems like ReadWriteWeb had recently. Yet not all of them will make that effort. Their ranking position in Google, Technorati and Alexa is all based on their old domain. .BLOG is just a fancy thing to own.
• New blogs will use the new domain, yet their influence is marginal. Only few fresh blogs know to attract a large audience (We hope we’re one of them).
• Companies will move their corporate blogs to the new domains, or finally decide to start one. We’ll see domains like Startbucks.blog, Sony.blog and Ford.blog.

But this is just my opinion, looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this new domain. What will you register?

Original title and link for this post: New .BLOG domain will be a mainly corporate thing