ICANN president and CEO Rod Beckstrom warned the public that the group can expect excitement, opportunity, uncertainty and threats in the days to come. ICANN is one of the key players in the function and accessibility of today’s global internet. They have been charged with the task of coordinating and segregating domain names throughout the world and managing the complex, demanding task of enabling IP addresses to recognize each other across cyberspace.

The coordination of individual IP addresses to specific domain names used to be a task of the US government. Since the government has allowed these operations to go private, a few kinks still have to be ironed out.  While ICANN is unable to alter any content on the internet, their intimate control of the global web and much of its inner-workings has sparked some controversy. Beckstrom is aware of the ethical dilemmas and is optimistic about implementing major changes to circumvent them.

ICANN has been criticized for being a group that controls the Domain Name System while many of its key players and leadership positions are occupied by execs from the Domain Name industry. This creates a clear conflict of interest. ICANN is a not-for-profit group who is not supposed to represent or promote the financial interests of any parties. Chief criticisms have stemmed from the idea that power players on the ICANN team can exploit the group’s manipulation of the internet to serve their own corporate needs.

Other criticisms have come from the intimate access these supposedly neutral parties’ possess. This kind of power can invade privacy and lead to motives that are fraudulent . Risk for this type of abuse is wide open to corporate executives who act in a biased, self-serving way. Personal information and data can be used to illegally bolster profits. Any person or group who wishes to register their business as a top level domain name can become an accredited registrar by making an agreement with ICANN. Critics see this is as a clash of interested when the heads of top level domain names are themselves high ranking members at ICANN.

Beckstrom held a speech in Costa Rico where he declared that it is time to “tighten up the rules that have allowed perceived conflicts to exist within our board.” Beckstrom is adamant that the necessary changes needed to make ICANN a neutral public service can be achieved. If Beckstrom fulfills his stated intentions, he will “ensure that absolute dedication to the public good supersedes all other priorities.”

Domain · Domain Name Registration · ICANN · Risk · Security

When you set out to buy a domain name, have you considered not just the title of your domain itself, but also the extension? Domain name registration includes access to dozens of different domain extensions, such as .com, .net, .org, .uk, .biz, .me, and many, many others.

The extensions .com and .uk are most popular for people who buy domain names for UK-based websites. For most websites, having just one domain name may be sufficient. However, there may well be good commercial reasons for buying domain names with additional extensions.

Why would one do this? Well, put simply, to protect your brand. In other words, to prevent someone else buying the same domain name but with a different extension in order to compete with you (for example, you’ve worked hard to promote BusinessName.com and they plan to buy BusinessName.net).

However, before you pursue multiple extensions for domain name registration, make sure you understand what not to do if you have several domain names. For any business website, careful though with a regards to search engine optimisation is a must. Therefore when buying multiple domain name extensions, you should not simply clone your site and put a copy of the same thing at each address. This will trigger Google to think you are a spammer, and hurt all sites. You should either redirect the variations to your main site, or create unique content for each domain name you buy.

.co.uk · .me · .org · buy domain name · com · Domain Name Registration · Google · search engine optimisation