The Voice of LogicBoxes – Vol. 2

Hello folks!

Here’s the second volume of the Voice of LogicBoxes – our bi-annual newsletter on OrderBox updates and other changes that affect your Registrar business. This volume covers the latter half of 2011.

SYSTEM UPDATES

• We’ve added 2 new domain extensions to the system – .XXX, .AU
• The look and feel of the Registrar, Reseller and Customer control panels are in the process of being completely re-designed. As a precursor to this, we’ve already made changes to the CSS to give the header, menu and the widgets a modern and cleaner look
• As part of our ongoing exercise to revamp OrderBox, we’ve clubbed all branding-related tasks for Registrars under one roof with the introduction of “Branding Settings”. Older, text-heavy pages have been given a cleaner, crisper and lighter look
• We’ve also initiated a refactoring exercise for our Bulk Tools where we started with the most heavily-used Bulk Renewals and Registrations. Under this, we refactored the backend code as well as enhanced front-end flows of the Bulk Renewal process. Based on feedback received from Partners, we are currently working on further enhancements to the Bulk Renewal process where we will be attempting to make the flows more intuitive for Customers too
• As part of our initiative to build out our Hosting product portfolio, we’ve launched Multi-Domain Hosting (MDH) on our Linux platform. With this product, you can now host multiple domains under one cPanel account.
• For managing feedback, we’ve restarted UserVoice. Our Product Managers are actively interacting with the Registrar Community to prioritise on features and upgrades that need to be added to the system

OTHER ACTIVITIES

• We conducted two webinars in association with Verisign folks:
  1. A detailed walkthrough of the “Verisign Customer Center”
  2. “Verisign New Unit Marketing Promo” that gave Registrars detailed information on upcoming promotions in 2012

• We also conducted a webinar in conjunction with ICM Registry – the .XXX registry to spread awareness about the new .XXX domain name
• We also attended hugely popular conferences like HostingCon, Parallels APAC and the ICANN meet at Senegal. We’ll most probably be attending these events again, so if you want to meet us at these events in 2012, let us know

If you have any feedback or would like to hear more about the content of this edition, do let us know!

Pic Courtesy SparkeyDavis

Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief – Dec’11

The latest Domain Name Industry Brief by Verisign is out. Here’s a list of key highlights from the report:

Overview

• Q3’2011 closed with nearly 220 Million domain registrations across all TLDs
• This is an increase of 4.9 Million domains (2.3%) over the second quarter
• The ccTLD base grew to 86.9 million domain names, a 2.7% increase quarter over quarter and a 9.8% increase year over year in the base

Top 10 TLDs

• The 6 largest TLDs in terms of base size are .COM, .DE, .NET, .UK, .ORG and .INFO
• .TK is a surprise entry in 7th postion; primarily because .tk domains are available for free
• .NL, .RU and .EU are the last 3 TLDs (in order) that make it to the Top 10 TLD list
• Notably, .CN has slipped out of the Top 10 TLD list

Total Domain Name Registrations

You can view the entire Verisign Report here.

Pic Courtesy Verisign DNIB Report

ICANN Strengthens Registrar Accreditation Applications

As per their latest announcement, ICANN has recently introduced an enhanced set of terms and conditions for Registrar Accreditation Applications.

The company says that this step is a result of community input that called for the strengthening of the requirements for registrar accreditation, and to address changes that have arisen in the registrar marketplace.

While they haven’t mentioned the specific enhancements, they’ve publicized a partial list of changes. This incudes:

• Stronger terms governing the accuracy of the information provided by the applicant and an ongoing obligation to maintain accurate information during the course of the application process
• Granting ICANN permission and indemnification for conducting additional due diligence checks
• Sets forth in greater detail the application process and obligations

These terms and conditions will be applicable on all applications received on or after October 5, 2011.

UPDATE: 10th October, 2011

We’ve done an analysis of the exact changes and have enlisted them here for everyone’s reference:

1. Individual & Sole proprietorships are ineligible for accreditation

2. The applicant can withdraw a submitted application and the one-time application fee will remain valid for one year. However, if before the application is resubmitted, the one-time application fee is increased, the applicant will have to pay the difference.

3. ICANN reserves the right
a. to use the name and logo of the applicant wrt the application
b. Share the info rmation in the application with relevant third parties for the purpose of due-diligence
c. Disclose / share / publish any info rmation from the application including any personal, technical and financial info rmation

4. ICANN indemnifies itself from any damages / loss caused to the applicant, by way of the review process or if the application is rejected

5. If the applicant wishes to keep any part of the application confidential, he can do so according to a set of guidelines laid out by ICANN

6. ICANN explicitly mentions that it must comply with all U.S. laws, rules, and regulations and the fact that it cannot work with any country/company/individual on which US has imposed sanctions

7. ICANN also mentions that any additional information / documents that it requests, must be provided within 72 hours

Key take-aways:
Make sure your application is complete, accurate, consistent and thorough right from the start. This is even more important than before, and can hardly be stressed upon enough. Ensuring so, will avoid unnecessary delays and iterations. Since there will be third part investigating agencies involved, we expect the delays due to iterations to be longer than usual.

Found this post useful? Need help with ICANN Accreditation? You know who to contact