Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association

APTLD Bi-monthly e-Newsletter / November 2004

What¡¦s New (October & November 2004)

APTLD

APTLD members and Board Directors met on 5th November 2004 at the Parmelia Hilton Hotel in Perth, Australia. As this is the last meeting of the 2004 year, the agenda included a review of the work carried out in the year 2004 and to plan for the year of 2005. A total of 21 member delegates were present representing: .au, .cx, .af, .kr, .my, .nu, .nz, .sg and .tw. (more)

InternetNZ appointed as the next APTLD Secretariat
APTLD underwent a 3.5 months process to search and select the next secretariat for a two-years term from 2005 to 2006. On 1st July 2004, the APTLD Board initiated the selection process by making a call for proposal announcement. Three proposals were received and InternetNZ was chosen as the next APTLD Secretariat. (more)

Applying for Designation of APTLD as a Regional Organisation (RO) by the ccNSO Council

Pursuant to the APTLD Board meeting of 18 July 2004, the Board had agreed to solicit Members¡¦ views on applying for the designation of APTLD as a Regional Organisation (¡§RO¡¨) by the ccNSO Council. (more)

ICANN

ICANN Successfully Concludes Cape Town Meetings

Cape Town, South Africa. This week over 735 participants from 91 countries successfully concluded the ICANN Annual Meeting in Cape Town. The meeting included technical and industry leaders, Internet users from Africa and around the world, ministers and governmental representatives. ICANN stakeholders from 25 African countries joined the proceedings. (more)

ICANN Releases Strategic Plan for Public Comment

ICANN has released for public comment a draft of the three year ICANN Strategic Plan. The public comment period will commence today and will end on 15 January 2005 at 17:00 UTC. (more)

ICANN Approves Dispute Resolution Providers for Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy

ICANN announced today that the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre (ADNDRC) and the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) have been approved as independent dispute resolution providers for the Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy (TDRP). This policy is part of the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy, which will go into effect on 12 November 2004. (more)

ICANN Announces First Two ICANN Meetings in 2005

The first two ICANN meeting in 2005 will take place at Mar del Plata, Argentina in April and Luxembourg City, Luxembourg in July. (more)

Nominating Committee Announces Final Selections For Key Leadership Positions within ICANN

After an intense period of outreach, consultation, recruitment, and evaluation, the Nominating Committee (NomCom) of ICANN announced today its final selection of four 'slates' of Nominees for four of ICANN's leadership bodies: the Board of Directors, the Council of the Country Code Names Supporting organisation (ccNSO), the Council of the Generic Names Supporting organisation (GNSO) and the Interim At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC). The Nominees will join the already seated members of these bodies the conclusion of the ICANN Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, December 1 - 5. (more)

Generic Names

ICANN Releases .NET RFP for Public Comment

ICANN has released for public comment a draft of the .NET Request for Proposals (RFP). The public comment period will commence today and the public comment period has been extended to end on 3 December 2004 at 17:00 UTC. (more)

ICANN Takes Steps to Move VeriSign Contract Dispute from Litigation to Arbitration

ICANN has initiated efforts to enforce the arbitration clause of VeriSign .net Registry Agreement and move the VeriSign lawsuit into an international arbitration forum. ICANN has filed its demand for arbitration pursuant to the terms of the current .NET Registry Agreement and in response to litigation VeriSign re-initiated in a California state court following the US Federal District Court dismissal of its anti-trust allegations earlier this year. ICANN is hopeful that the arbitration proceeding will provide a quick and efficient resolution to the outstanding dispute between the parties. ICANN sent its arbitration demand to the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris which is designated within the current .NET agreement as the arbitration forum for disputes arising relating to the terms of that agreement. (more)

ICANN Domain Name Transfer Policy Becomes Effective

ICANN announced that its new inter-registrar domain name transfer policy has gone into effect. (more)

ICANN Moves Forward in First Phase Commercial & Technical Negotiations with Two sTLD Applicants

As the process for selecting new sponsored top-level domain (sTLDs) from a pool of ten applications moves forward, ICANN has entered into commercial and technical negotiations with two of the candidate registries, .post and .travel. No limit was set on the number of sTLDs to be designated and the status of the additional eight applicants is still pending. (more)

Addressing

Election of Representative of Latin America and Caribbean member to the ICANN ASO Address Council

LACNIC is pleased to announce that during LACNIC VII in San Jose Costa Rica last October 28th Sebastian Bellagamba has been elected to the ICANN ASO Address Council as representative of the Latin America and Caribbean region. (more)

ASO MoU Signed

ICANN is pleased to announce the signing of a formal agreement between the Number Resource Organisation (NRO), the four Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC, Ripe NCC, and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that further renews the addressing community's involvement in the ICANN process. (more)

ICANN Establishes Africa's Regional Internet Registry
The African Network Information Center (AfriNIC), recently announced that it has moved a step towards it's formal recognition as an official Regional Internet number Registry (RIR) with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board announcing its provisional recognition, which is the last stage before it achieves full recognition. (more)

ccNSO

ccNSO Meeting at Cape Town

ccNSO Meeting was held at Cape Town from 2-4 December. The meeting report and all presentations will be published on http://ccnso.icann.org in few days later. Please visit the ccNSO web site for more details. (more)

Procedure for Nomination of 2 Directors to the Board of ICANN

At the 26 June 2003 ICANN Board adopted the amendments to the bylaws under resolution 03.106 Bylaw Article IX - section 3.9 states:

"The ccNSO Council shall make selections to fill Seats 11 and 12 on the Board by written ballot or by action at a meeting; any such selection must have affirmative votes of a majority of all the members of the ccNSO Council then in office. Notification of the ccNSO Council's selections shall be given by the ccNSO Council Chair in writing to the ICANN Secretary, consistent with Article VI, Sections 8(4) and 12(1).."

The ccNSO Council and ccNSO members have decided that before making the nomination of Directors the ccNSO members shall be entitled to vote for those nominees they would like to see on the ICANN Board. (more)

Call for Nominations for 2 Directors to the Board of ICANN

ccNSO calls for nomination from Wednesday 17 November at 00:00 UTC to Sunday 5 December at 00:00 UTC. Peter Dengate Thrush, Demi Getschko, Yann Kwok, and Anders Janson have been nominated and given a self-presentation at the Council Meeting. (more)

At Large

Africa At-Large Users Meeting

ICANN's Interim At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) invites all interested individuals to attend the Africa At-Large Users meeting on Thursday, 2 December 10:00 ¡V 12:30, at the Cape Town Convention Centre to advance the interests of individual Internet user communities (At-Large). The meeting will feature: a discussion of how the ongoing United Nations¡¦ Internet governance process could affect Africa Internet users; a briefing on AfriNIC¡¦s plans for transitioning management of Internet resources to local control and roll-out of IPV6; a briefing on changes in domain name registration policies and practices that will affect Africa¡¦s Internet users; and an update on opportunities for Africa¡¦s user community to engage in ICANN and other international fora to advance their interests. A preliminary agenda is included below. Participation is free and all are welcome. (more)

ALAC Vacancies - Volunteers Needed from Europe, North America

Two original members of the Interim At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) will be stepping down to pursue other endeavors ¡V Esther Dyson from North America, and Thomas Roessler from Europe. ICANN¡¦s Board will appoint individuals to fill these vacancies, after receiving recommendations from the ALAC. The ALAC will solicit volunteers and public input through prior to making recommendations to the Board. (more)

ICANN At-Large Monthly Announcement- October 2004

WSIS

Nominations for the UN Working Group Announced
Nominations by the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) have been announced; here is the full list of members of the Working Group <http://www.wgig.org/members.html>. ICANN will continue to update the Internet Community on the Working Group's progress. ICANN looks forward to continuing to contribute and participate in the WGIG & WSIS processes and its discussions. (more)

CENTR

Communiqué of the 24th CENTR General Assembly
CENTR members convened in Zürich, Switzerland for the 24th CENTR General Assembly on the 18th and 19th of November, 2004. The meeting focused on an ongoing analysis of risk management, as well as examining the requirements of Internet governance with respect to the ITU, WSIS and WGIG. Members in attendance represented 42 different top-level domains, and included participation by ICANN, and the Internet Governance Project. (more)

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Members¡¦ Corner (October & November 2004)

AU

8 NOV 2004

auDA 2004 Annual General Meeting

auDA's 2004 Annual General Meeting was held in Perth on 8 November 2004. (more)

14 OCT 2004

auDA Panel Releases Draft Recommendations on Registry Competition

In July 2004 the auDA Board established the Registry Competition Review Panel to:

¡X review auDA's competition model as it applies to the provision of .au 2LD registry services; and

¡X provide recommendations to the auDA Board about what changes (if any) should be made to the competition model. (more)

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CN

25 NOV 2004

Experts Say Using .cn Domains Can Protect State Information Security
Local media report from CNNIC's (China National Network Information Center) Web Address Resource Application Exhibition held in Shanghai that experts there are urging Chinese netizens to start using .cn domains instead of the more popular .com domain name extensions. (more)

16 NOV 2004

CNNIC Published ¡§China Statistical Survey Report on Popular Internet Issues, 2004¡¨

CNNIC published "China Statistical Survey Report on Popular Internet Issues, 2004" in Beijing. The report contains two parts, including surveys on Email and online shopping. According to the data from the survey, it can be seen that the development of both Email and online shopping has greatly progressed and that there is still big room for further improvement in the market. The terms "Email" and "Online Shopping" have been closely linked with our lives, work and study, which used to be pretty new to us. (more)

2 NOV 2004

Chinese Domain Names to be Promoted
China will promote the use of domain names in Chinese characters in order to make the website names easier to remember. (more)

1 OCT 2004

China's Domain Name .CN Tops 402,000

China's domain name ".CN" had hit 402,291 by the end of August, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). (more)

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CX

28 OCT 2004

CIIA Commences Registrar Accreditation via the Council of Country Code Administrators

Registrars which have been accredited by auDA will automatically be provisionally accredited by CoCCA as registrars in the CX ccTLD. (more)

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HK

4 OCT 2004

13 Prizes Were Awarded to Winners of the "WE SUPPORT HONG KONG. WE USE '.HK' DOMAIN NAME" Web Design Contest

The "We Support Hong Kong. We Use '.hk' Domain Name." web design contest organized by Hong Kong Domain Name Registration Company Limited (HKDNR), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation Limited (HKIRC), has successfully concluded. The award presentation ceremony, held on 3rd October, 2004, was attended by the winners and the following honorary guests representing the co-organizer and sponsoring companies, as well as Directors of HKIRC. (more)

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JO

31 SEP 2004

NUMU: Issue # 31- September, 2004

The latest edition of NUMU, NITC (.jo) Quarterly Newsletter, was released in September. The contents included ¡§Evaluation of Knowledge Stations¡¨, ¡§Jordanian Legislation System¡¨, ¡§¡¨Upgrading NITC Internet Speed¡¨. (more)

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JP

15 NOV 2004

Development of JP DNS

Development of JP DNS: JPRS have been making development to enhance the stability of JP DNS services, along with other JP DNS operators. (more)

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MY

1 NOV 2004

Appointment of New Resellers

The new resellers are Yeava Technology Sdn Bhd, e-globalhosting.com, LOCUS, MBCC, HostRelax.Com, TDR System (M) Sdn Bhd, SPW Management (M) Sdn Bhd, NetXtreme OneSolution Sdn Bhd, Exa Bytes Network Sdn Bhd, ITWIN Technology Sdn Bhd, Broadband CMS, Hosting2U.net and WebNIC.cc. (more)

11 OCT 2004

Viewing Receipt Online

Receipts for domain name payments can be accessed on MYNIC's website from 19 October 2004. This facility is only available for payments processed by MYNIC. (more)

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NZ

26 NOV 2004

Hector Protector Launched by Internet Safety Group
Hector Protector has been created by the NetSafe Programme of New Zealand to help keep children safe online. The function of this button is to give a child the ability to quickly cover the screen of the computer with a screensaver of Hector when they encounter material that frightens or upsets them. With a click of the button, the problem is covered over by Hector until a trusted adult can come and deal with the situation. Hector also gives children very positive feedback for using the button and talking with an adult about the problem. (more)

24 NOV 2004

New Zealand Domains 'Not at Risk' of Domain Slamming

Juha Saarinen, IDG Auckland - New Zealand domain name holders are not at risk from having their registrations hijacked thanks to additional safeguards in the system utilised here, says .nz Domain Name Commissioner Debbie Monahan. (more)

22 NOV 2004

.iwi.nz Moderation Policy Review

InternetNZ, through the Office of the Domain Name Commissioner, is consulting on a proposed amendment to the Moderation Policy for the .iwi.nz Second Level Domain. (more)

1 NOV 2004

Whois Policy Review
InternetNZ, through the Office of the Domain Name Commissioner, is reviewing the Whois Server Policy. The first round of public submissions closed on 1 November 2004. (more)

7 OCT 2004

Internet Society Blows Its Top Over Broadband

New Zealand is falling behind other countries in internet uptake, according to InternetNZ ¡X and it's pleading with Telecom to change its ways. (more)

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PH

11 NOV 2004

Law Group Opens Online Dispute Resolution Service
In an effort to spur the use of the Internet for legal exercises, the Cyberspace Policy Center for Asia Pacific (CPCAP) has opened up the country's first online dispute mediation website. (more)

4 NOV 2004

ICANN Accepts Philippine ¡¥.ph¡¦ Domain Rules
An international policymaking body regulating the global Internet domain system has accepted the Philippine rules for the administration of the ¡§.ph¡¨ domain. (more)

4 OCT 2004

Cebu Internet Conference to Focus on VoIP, IPv6
In the coming Asian Internet Interconnection Initiatives (AI3) to be held in Cebu City, international research institutions on Internet technologies will focus on developing and enhancing voice-over-IP (VoIP)for distance learning and institutional collaboration, as well as the wide deployment of the new Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). (more)

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TV

5 OCT 2004

dotFM Registry Offers Free .TV Domain Names

dotFM, the .FM top-level domain (TLD) Registry, announced a special offer of a free .TV domain name with the purchase of a .AM and .FM Domain Name. (more)

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TW

30 NOV 2004

TWNIC worked with "NPO Digital Village" on Educational Training Program

Focus on two main themes: "Web Site" and "Information Security", TWNIC worked with "NPO Digital Village" educational training program. The program was free and open to all NPOs. According to a survey done by the Himalaya Foundation, about 70% of NPOs have set up its own web site, however, the contents are required a significant improvement such as the utilities of e-DM. By supporting the educational training program, TWNIC hopes to assist NPOs' technical development. (more information at Traditional Chinese version: www.myhome.net.tw/2004_12/web_news/main3.htm)

30 NOV 2004

Winners of the 3rd .tw Web Site Design Contest Announced

It was the 3rd year that TWNIC held the .tw Web Site Design Contest (from 1st October-15th November). Two types of newly designed web sites were invited to join the Contest, including "Creativity" and "NPO". The winners of the Contest were just announced at www.netking.idv.tw

29 NOV 2004

The 3rd TWNIC IP Open Policy Meeting

In order to increase the understanding of IP policy and formation mechanism, TWNIC held the 3rd IP Open Policy Meeting on 24 November. Several keynote speakers were invited to the OPM including APNIC EC Chair Maemura Akinori, NII Executive Director Kuo-Wei Wu and ICANN Addessing Councillor Kenny Huang to present the formation of international IP policy and the practice in Taiwan. Coming after were three SIG presentations and discussions: "Address Policy SIG", "Routing SIG" and "Whois DB & Reverse DNS SIG". APNIC Training was also programmed in conjunction with this OPM on the 23rd. (more information at Traditional Chinese version: cdns.twnic.net.tw/ip93opm/sch.htm)

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VN

2 NOV 2004

4,000 Information Providers Register Domain Names in Vietnamese
According to the Viet Nam Post and Telecommunications Corporation (VNPT), about 4,000 Internet information providers (IPs), or almost 1 percent of Viet Nam's total IPs, registered their domain names in Vietnamese in the past six months. (more)