Looks like idealab, the California investment firm, is doing an end-run
around ICANN, the Internet governance board.
Idealab today officially launched New.Net. It’s a start-up domain
registration business, which is charging $25 per year for new
Internet addresses using 20 new extensions including .xxx, .kids, and .mp3.
New.Net is not in any way authorized or accredited by ICANN. In fact,
according to CEO Dave Hernand, the company launched its service in part out
of frustration at the slowness of ICANN’s roll-out of new TLDs. But Hernand
insists that New.Net is not out to undermine ICANN’s authority.
To visit sites registered by New.Net, Internet users need one of two things.
Either their ISP must support the New.Net DNS extensions, or the user must
be running a special browser plug-in created by New.Net.
Hernand said New.Net has already signed up some major ISPs as partners, and
expects more to come on board soon.
Behind the scenes, New.Net’s directory servers are operated by UltraDNS Corp
of San Mateo California. The company has also partnered with mp3.com which
will market the .mp3 domain suffix to its member musicians.
New.net is taking registrations now. While it’s taking ICANN out of the
loop, the company did say it will use ICANN’s uniform dispute resolutions
policy to settle disputes over ownership of the top-level domains it
registerts.
Separately, ICANN has confirmed that the launch of seven new TLDs has been
delayed by protracted contract negotiations.
ICANN has said it hoped the new domains, including dot biz and dot info,
would go live by July, but now its looking more like it won’t be until the
end of the year that these new registries are up and running.
