New top-level domains could roll out early next year

New top-level domains could roll out early next year

The Vatican has come out in first place in a long-awaited draw to expand the Internet address system with new domain names that go beyond the usual .com, .org or .net endings.
ICANN, the corporation that oversees the Internet address system, announced this week the domain name .catholic written in Chinese characters will be the first bid it considers in a drive to expand and reorganise sites on the World Wide Web.
The same extension in Arabic letters ranked 25th in the random draw and the Vatican's application for a version in Cyrillic for Russian and other Slavic languages came in 96th.
Ranking high means the applicant could get approval early next year to operate the new domain and approve addresses using it. In the Vatican's case, Rome could then ensure only genuine Roman Catholic institutions get to use that domain name.
"This is a way to give a coherence and authentication to our presence in the digital arena," said Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
"Anyone looking online will recognise the site belongs to an institution that belongs to the Catholic Church," he said, adding the new, so-called top level domain names (|TLDs) could also help speed online searches.
.Bible and .Islam
For online retailers such as Amazon, whose application for .store in Japanese came in second, early approval could mean a competitive advantage and prompt a quick introduction of the new name.
But the Vatican did not enter the draw for commercial reasons and would not rush to launch its TLDs, Tighe said. In addition, the main TLD it seeks - .catholic in Latin letters - ended up in 1,366th place and may take months before it is approved.
Website owners are now restricted to a few dozen TLDs such as .com and country code domains such as .co.uk or .fr. Many of the 1,930 applications for new TLDs came from companies, including Internet giants such as Amazon and Google.
Several other faith-based groups applied for other TLDs such as .bible or .islam. The extension .mormon was the next-highest religious application drawn, coming in at 118th place.
ICANN (www.icann.org), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has stressed that assigning a certain TLD does not imply any endorsement of the religious group seeking it, just recognition it is the best suited to use the name.
Tighe said the ICANN draw handled applications for TLDs in non-Latin alphabets first, which explained why the Vatican's Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic extensions came out far ahead of its main TLD in Latin letters.
Internet imprimatur
ICANN invited comments on applications earlier this year. The Vatican's application for exclusive use of .catholic drew criticism from members of several Protestant churches that also use the term, which comes from the Greek for "universal".
"This request is a move by a powerful group to squelch the voices and rights of other Christians," Dave Daubert, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Elgin, Illinois, wrote on the ICANN webpage for comments on the applications.
Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, apparently saw no hope of a consensus on religious TLDs and opposed them all.
Some religions seem to have kept out of the fray entirely. There were no applications for .buddhist, .hindu or .jewish.
© Thomson Reuters 2012

Internet freedom not to be curbed: UN telecoms head

Internet freedom will not be curbed or controlled, the head of the UN telecommunications body, Hamadoun Toure, said as a meeting to review the 24-year-old telecom regulations kicked off Monday.
Such claims are "completely (unfounded)," Toure, secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union, told AFP.

"I find it a very cheap way of attacking" the conference, he said, as the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) set off in Dubai to review regulations reached in 1988.

Earlier, Toure told participants at the conference that the Internet freedom of expression will not be touched during the discussions at the meeting.

"Nothing can stop the freedom of expression in the world today, and nothing in this conference will be about it," he said.

"I have not mentioned anything about controlling the Internet."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who addressed the forum's opening by video underscored the importance of the meeting as a venue to enhance access to information and communication technology (ICT) across the globe.

"The overall objective is to ensure universal access to the benefits of information and communication technology, including the two thirds of the world's population currently not online," he said.

"We must continue to work together and find a consensus on how to most effectively keep cyberspace open, accessible, affordable and secure," he said.

Google has been vocal in warning of serious repercussions on the Internet if proposals made by member states are approved at the WCIT-12 meeting, including permitting censorship over legitimate content.

"Some proposals could permit governments to censor legitimate speech or even cut off Internet access," said Bill Echikson, Google's head of Free Expression in Europe, Middle East and Africa in a statement on Friday.

The Internet giant is also arguing that the ITU, which is the UN agency for information communication technologies, is not the right body to address Internet issues.

"Although the ITU has helped the world manage radio spectrum and telephone networks, it is the wrong place to make decisions about the future of the Internet," Echikson said.

"Only governments have a vote at the ITU," he pointed out.

But Toure, whose Geneva-based organisation has 193 member states and over 700 private-sector entities and academic institutions, said that "consensus" is the way to make decisions at the agency.

He also dismissed claims that the meetings in Dubai were secretive, telling reporters that the sessions are open.

Google claimed in a blog post Monday that preliminary talks saw some "frightening proposals" discussed, including an Arab states' proposal to have the ITU take over the allocation of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

It warned such move "would cause duplication with the private sector ICANN," Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

However, ICANN's chief Fadi Chehadi, a guest speaker at WCIT-12 opening, said his organisation and the ITU complement each other.

"The ITU and ICANN have complementary roles, and moving forward, we shall cooperate in good spirit," he said.

Google said last week some proposed treaty changes "could increase censorship and threaten innovation" and others "would require services like YouTube, Facebook, and Skype to pay new tolls in order to reach people across borders. This could limit access to information particularly in emerging markets."

Google's comments backed the US position, which is that the non-government "multi-stakeholder" system of the Internet should remain in place.

But Toure, referring to the suggested fees dubbed as tolls, insisted to AFP that the meeting "is not about that we are not discussing it."

The conference is hosted by the United Arab Emirates, one of the countries that censor Internet content, blocking political dissent and sexual material.